BPOV
I awoke sometime the next morning curled up in bed with Edward's arms wrapped tightly around me.
That's funny. I remember falling asleep on the couch...
"Good morning, love," Edward whispered. I smiled and rolled over to face him.
"Morning," I mumbled sleepily, causing him to chuckle. "Didn't we fall asleep on the couch?"
"You did, yes. Afterwords I just carried you to bed so you'd be more comfortable," he shrugged, as if it was no big deal.
My love for this man has officially just grown tenfold.
I just smiled wider and gazed into his emerald eyes, getting lost in them within a matter of seconds.
I'm sure he noticed me staring but, thankfully, he didn't say a word. Just stared back.
After quite some time, I finally noticed something.
Morning breath.
I flung a hand up to cover my mouth as my eyes widened in fear. Edward jumped in surprise, nearly falling off of the bed.
"What? What happened??"
"I, um... Should probably brush my teeth," I muttered through my hand, the words coming out all muffled. He seemed to understand my meaning though as he began to chuckle with relief.
"Go ahead," he grinned.
"Okay."
I quickly hopped out of bed, hand still over my mouth, and ran to the bathroom.
"Oh, Bella," Edward called out from the bed, just before I closed the door.
"Yes?"
"I love you."
The grin that broke across my face was so large it probably went all the way past my ears.
"I love you, too."
After we'd each taken some time freshening up in the bathroom, we sat out on the living room - on the very couch we'd confessed our love on the night before.
"That didn't exactly go as planned," he sighed, eyes glazing over as he probably was going over whatever plan he had come up with in his head.
"So you had the whole thing planned out?"
"Sort of," he replied sheepishly. "All through the plane ride home I thought of the best way to go about getting it off my chest."
"So what did you come up with..."
"Well, it would have started out with me preparing you some big dinner today, all romantic and everything with candles set up..."
"So you planned on cooking?" I laughed.
Because, while already having melted at the thought, after the way he ate those cookies last night I had the feeling that he didn't cook much. If at all.
"Yes, I was going to cook. I have a couple of cook books laying around somewhere, that my parents...."
He froze up at that. I grabbed one of his hands quickly to ease him out of it. He let out a deep breath and gave me an appreciative smile.
"So anyways, after dinner I was going to play some music and share a dance with you."
Thank God that didn't happen, or he'd end up at the emergency room, having foot surgery by somebody dressed as an elf...
"And as the song would come to a close i'd whisper it into your ear," he said with a shrug, clearly trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing.
"Wow. That sounds... amazing," I replied lamely, clutching his hand a little tighter.
"I guess so. But I don't know... After coming home last night and being with you, I just couldn't hold it in any longer. I had to tell you."
"I'm glad you did," I smiled, leaning in and giving him a soft kiss. His free hand reached out and cupped my cheek, holding me in place.
He slowly pulled away after a moment, not removing his hand.
"I truly do love you, Bella."
My smile grew painfully wider at that.
"And I love you, Edward. So much that words just don't seem like enough."
He let out a sigh of relief - which confused me a little.
I've already said it three times now. Is that not enough? I'll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe me...
"Now," I started, folding my hands together neatly, "what would you like for Christmas dinner?"
He began to fumble with his hands sheepishly, causing me to inwardly let out a dreamy sigh.
He's so cute when he's nervous.
"As I said last night, you really don't need to do that," he mumbled. I was just waiting for him to stick a hand in his hair, but I guess they were both too busy at the moment.
"And as I said, I know I don't have to. But I want to. So what would you like?"
"Ummm... I don't really have anything in the fridge, or cupboards, you wouldn't have much to work with anyways..."
"Then we'll go shopping."
He pondered that for a moment before a sly grin appeared.
"Alright, fine. But only on one condition."
"And what would that be?"
"That we cook it together."
And so three hours later, we had finished shopping - deciding upon a large turkey for the main course - and were beginning to go through one of his few cookbooks for a good recipe.
"This can't be right," Edward said in a panicked tone while scanning over page after page of turkey recipes. "All of these say it takes up to six hours!"
"Is it an old book? Maybe we should Google it, with all the advances through the years there's no way it could still take that long to cook a stupid bird!"
"I don't know, Bella. These books seem pretty recent to me."
"But that can't be right! Can't we just set the oven to a hotter temperature or something?"
"We'd better not risk it..."
"Gah!" I screeched, slamming the book shut angrily. Edward came around to my side and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Calm down, love. I'm sure there's some way this will work out," he said in such a soft, gentle tone I was immediately relaxed.
"Right. I guess we could look again. There's got to be some trick to it."
So I opened the book back up, flipping through the pages until finding the one we had gotten so frustrated over.
"Aha! See, right there. If we just don't use stuffing it would only take about four hours. That's not so bad."
"I guess," I huffed, my hatred for the big fat bird not yet gone. Edward simply chuckled beside me and brought out a pan to place the turkey in.
Five hours later everything was finished cooking. The turkeys, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the steamed vegetables...
But there was one little problem left.
Carving the turkey.
"I've never done it before," Edward cringed, refusing to get too close to the bird.
"It can't be so hard. I mean, at least we've got one of these electric things," I replied, holding up the electric carver.
"I don't know, Bella. I just don't want to mess everything up. I'd end up giving it a complete hack job."
"Oh, and I'd do any better? You've seen me trip over my own feet and nearly split my head open on a daily basis - hand me a sharp object and there's sure to be a trip to the morgue."
Edward chuckled at that. I frowned.
"I'm sorry, Bella. It's just so true of you." He took the carver from me and plugged it in. "I suppose it should be up the me. Here goes nothing..."
And so a half hour later he had finished, and we had settled in to eat.
"You really did do a good job carving," I smiled, gazing down at the pieces of turkey on my plate. Edward just scoffed.
"Are you joking? I completely destroyed the poor thing."
"Hey, as long as it tastes good..."
He laughed at that which in turn caused my smile to grow larger.
I'll never tire of that laugh.
"Well, dig in," he sighed, taking his fork and spearing a piece.
I did the same, shoving the fork into my mouth without hesitation.
"Mmmm!"
"Guess it's not so bad after all," he chuckled, taking a bite of his own.
And he was right. Everything was actually real great.
Sure, everything aside from the turkey was quite simple, but it still felt like a pretty big accomplishment to pull off a whole dinner like this.
Before this, I'd never made anything fancier than cookies.
"Are you finished?" He asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence. I nodded, and he stood to take my plate.
"Edward, I can bring my own plate into the kitchen," I sighed, grabbing it before he could.
"But that wouldn't make me much of a gentleman," he argued, attempting to grab the plate from me. I stuck my tongue out at him, grabbed his plate in my other hand, and ran into the kitchen.
"You are positively absurd," I heard him chuckle behind me. I smiled and turned around to head back to him. He was fiddling around with the radio.
"What are you looking for?"
"I'm not sure. Something classical, maybe."
"Try 93.7. It's one of my favorites."
He nodded and twisted the dial around, finding the station without much trouble. He smiled as Claire de Lune began to flow from the radio.
"Debussy," we both said at the same time, causing us to laugh.
Would it kill the moment if I said "jinx!"...
"May I have this dance?" Edward asked politely, holding a hand out in my direction. I flinched. "What's wrong?"
"I don't... dance. You know, unless I want to send somebody to the hospital."
"Is that all?" He laughed and took my hand, bringing me close to him. I tried to protest, but he simply placed a finger over my lips. "It's all in the leading."
"It's your funeral," I mumbled against his finger, causing him to chuckle.
He removed his finger from my lips then, bringing it down to my waist as we began to slowly sway across the floor. I kept a close eye on my feet, making sure they wouldn't do any damage. And they didn't. Edward seemed to have complete control over everything.
"See," he whispered, inching us closer. "This isn't so bad now, is it?"
I looked away from my feet, up into his eyes, and smiled.
"Exactly," he laughed, bringing our hands up into the air as he twirled me.
I never thought i'd see the day when i'd be able to dance without killing someone.
It's a miracle!
But alas, as I completed my twirl my foot caught on the rug, causing me to lose my balance and knock directly into Edward in an attempt to stay up. We both toppled to the ground, me crushing him as his hands automatically wrapped around me protectively.
"Are you alright?" He asked in a worried tone, looking me over for any sign of harm.
I began to laugh hysterically, unable to help myself.
That was just so... Bella.
"I... I told you," I managed to squeak out between giggles as I rolled off of him. He just stared at me curiously, a smile beginning to tug at his lips.
"It isn't funny," he replied, trying to keep a straight face.
Oh, he's trying to keep his dignity. That's so cute.
"But it is!" I laughed. "It was just such a Bella moment. I could have told you it would've happened!"
"I suppose it's a good thing I gave you my gift the way I did then," he smiled. "Because it's obvious that this turned out to be a bit of a disaster."
"Exactly!" I shrieked as another round of laughter struck me. Edward grinned crookedly, clearly amused. Once my laughter faded he brought an arm around to tangle around my waist, bringing us closer together.
"I really do love you, Bella."
"And I love you," I smiled, placing my head against his chest. "Even though you made me dance."
"Oh don't worry, i've learned my lesson."
Good.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas! What did you do? Get anything good? :)
I'm working on finishing the next chapter before New Years! So... um, yeah. There you go. xD
Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, thank you for everything! You're all fantastical. :)
Side note:
93.7 is actually a radio station where I live. Though it's not classical, it's all rock. Heh heh...