Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.
Author's Note: Sorry about the delay, but I finally posted! I was trying to figure out what to write during the dinner scene, so I hope you all will find it to your enjoyment, and I hope you all like Ethan. Please read and review on your way out!
Chapter Three: Meeting the Fiancée
Elizabeth Cullen
I woke up the next morning, and lay in bed for a moment, taking in the sight of my room.
My room hadn't changed much – except for the fact that I had a desk, a different dresser than I had when I was a baby up until I was 6, and I had painted my walls light green and had changed my light pink see through curtains to royal blue (Dad's favorite color) curtains. I still had my mother's old rocking chair that she rocked me in when I was a baby; it was the rocking chair that Grandma Renee had rocked my Mom in when she was a baby and had sat in Mom's old bedroom at Grandpa Charlie's house.
Rain was softly spattering against my window. I glanced at my alarm clock. 7:38 a.m. it read.
Yawning, I pulled myself out of bed and headed out of my room. I wandered down to Nathan's room, and quietly opened the door. I nearly giggled out loud at the sight in front of me – my brother was sprawled across his bed on his back, mouth open, snoring. Molly was at the foot of the bed, snoozing.
I shook my head and closed the door.
Opening the door to my parent's bedroom, I saw a similar sight. My parents were sleeping as well, though not sprawled out like my brother. Dad was on his back, though, with his arm around Mom, who was sleeping next to him. Her head was on Dad's shoulder and her arm slung across his chest.
I smiled, remembering those Saturday mornings years ago when Nathan and I were younger and we would climb onto the bed and stare at them until they woke up so we could eat breakfast. I softly closed the door and headed into the kitchen.
Quietly, I opened the side kitchen door and headed down the stairs to the driveway below. I picked up the paper, and headed back up to the apartment, poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat down at the table.
Just as I was finishing the comic section, about quarter past eight, I heard a door open and then close and my Dad appeared.
"Hi, Dad," I said.
"Morning, lady bug. How long have you been up?" he asked as he sat down across from me at the table.
Rolling my eyes at my Dad's old nickname for me, I said, "Not very long. Want some of the paper?"
He nodded and grabbed the sports.
We sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, him reading the sports and I reading the arts section. And then Dad said, "So, Lizzy. I, uh, I wanted to talk to you about something."
I looked up. "What about?"
"Eh, well, I know you're twenty-two and a legal adult and everything, and I know that you're old enough to make decisions on your own now. But I just want to know if this guy … whoever he is –"
"Ethan," I said. "His name's Ethan Barr."
" … Ethan – whether or not he'll make you happy," he finished.
I smiled. "You're obviously having trouble coming to terms that your only daughter is getting married, aren't you?" I asked.
Dad chuckled, nodded his head. I laughed softly along with him.
"You don't have to worry about me, Dad. He'll make me happy. I know he will," I said.
"Elizabeth, I just want you to know that your mother and I love you very much, and we just want what's best for you at the same time of letting you choose the steps in life that you know will make you happy," said Dad. "And just know that we'll support you in whatever you choose, even though I still think you're a little young to be getting married."
I laughed. "Thanks, Dad," I said. "I love you guys, too."
With our little heart-to-heart conversation over, we went back to reading the newspaper.
Mom came out a few minutes later. She kissed the top of my head, said, "Good morning, sweetie" and asked if we wanted some breakfast. As the aroma of blueberry pancakes and warm maple sugar filled the kitchen, Nathan appeared, yawning and scratching the back of his head.
"I smell pancakes," he said.
I laughed. My younger brother's appetite could sometimes – well, okay, all of the time – rival Uncle Emmett's. It was amazing how he managed to stay the skinny way that he was with all the food that he ate, but I guess that he could have gotten it from Dad, who was just as tall and lanky as Nathan was. Leah – with whom I had become best friends with after my childhood friend, Alex, had moved away to somewhere in Alaska when I was eight – and I used to always be jealous of the fact that we couldn't eat half a pizza without gaining a few pounds.
While we were eating breakfast, I said, "Uh, Ethan was wondering if we could have dinner tonight so that you guys could meet him, seeing as you guys have only met him once."
"Sure," Mom said. "I'd love to meet him."
"So would I," Dad said. "I'd love to ask him a few questions."
"Me, three," Nathan said, stuffing a several cut up pieces of pancake smothered in syrup into his mouth.
~~0~~
Edward Cullen
I couldn't believe my ears when Elizabeth had announced that she was getting married. I had spent a good fifteen minutes ranting to Bella that night, saying she was too young to be getting married. She had only rolled her eyes and kissed me, saying that I was overreacting (a normal thing that any father would do when his oldest and only daughter was getting married).
I had spent the whole night turning her words over in my mind. I'm getting married. I'm getting married.
Just because I had said that Bella and I would support our daughter in her decision to get married, it didn't mean that I had come to terms with that fact.
Every father is sad when their daughter tells them that they're getting married, and I was just one of them. I was 100 percent certain that Bella was feeling the same way, even though she didn't mention it. In fact, I think she's excited for Elizabeth.
And now, in just a few short minutes, we would be meeting our daughter's future husband, and I planned on asking him the same question that all fathers ask – what are your intentions with my daughter. I mean, I had never met the guy. Well, okay, we had supposedly met the guy when we dropped Elizabeth off at college her freshman year, but we didn't know anything about the guy except that he was twenty-three and in the architectural field like Elizabeth.
I didn't know what he looked like, what he was interested in, or even if he was a nice guy. I turned these thoughts over in my mind that evening as Bella, Nathan, and I waited in the Italian restaurant in Port Angeles for Elizabeth and her fiancée to arrive.
Bella placed her hand on my hand and said, "Relax, Edward. I'm sure he's not that bad."
I gave her a look. "Bella, we have no clue about this guy. What if he's an axe murderer in disguise, and is waiting until their honeymoon to kill Elizabeth?" I paused and added, "With an axe?"
"That'd be interesting," Nathan quipped.
Bella gave our son a stern look and then turned to look at me. "Edward, you're overreacting. I'm sure he is a perfectly nice guy. Just give him a chance. If you don't like him, just smile and pretend you do."
"They're here," Nathan said, waving his arm up in the air to get Elizabeth's attention.
I looked up to see Elizabeth enter the restaurant with a guy that I assumed was Ethan next to her, holding her hand. I guess one would consider Ethan a reasonably good looking guy. Alice and Rosalie would probably rate him a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being the best looking. He was tall, not lean or chubby. He had black hair and sort of a Spanish look about him. He kind of reminded me of that Prince Caspian fellow from the Chronicles of Narnia, Ben Barnes, only Ethan had short hair. He was wearing formal clothes – white shirt, black tie, and black pants.
Elizabeth saw Nathan's arm waving, said something to Ethan, and led him over to our table, her hand still entwined in his hand. As we stood up to greet them, she said, with a wide smile on her face, "Mom, Dad, Nathan, this is my fiancée, Ethan. This is my Mom, Bella –"
"It's nice to meet you," Ethan said, extending his hand out to shake with Bella's. I noticed the Spanish accent in his voice as he talked.
She took his offered hand and shook it, saying, "And you."
" – my Dad, Edward –"
He held out his hand to me and I shook it as he said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."
"You as well," I said. Okay, so I guess he's polite, I thought.
" – and my younger brother, Nathan," Elizabeth finished.
Nathan extended his fist, saying, "Whassup?"
Elizabeth gave him a look, and he quickly flattened out his hand for Ethan to shake and said, "It's nice to meet you."
Ethan shook his hand and said, "It's nice to meet you, too. Your sister talked about all of you a lot while we were in Europe."
Pretty soon, we were all sitting down, looking through our menus. After the waitress – Mitch – took our orders and we were digging into the two basket of breadsticks that had been placed on the table, Bella asked, as she tore off a piece of breadstick, "So Ethan, have you always lived in Port Angeles?"
"Ah, no," Ethan said. "I was originally born in Spain, as you can probably tell from the accent in my voice, and I lived there until I was about maybe 16. That's when my parents and I moved here to Port Angeles."
"If you were born in Spain, how come you have an American name?" Nathan asked.
"I have American parents. They both moved to Spain when they graduated college, and they met there, fell in love and got married," he said.
Elizabeth was smiling at Ethan as he was saying this. "I think falling in love in a European country is such a romantic thing."
The food came just then. As we began eating our food, I asked, "So, uh, how did you two meet?"
"Yeah, how did you fall in love?" Nathan asked.
Ethan and Elizabeth smiled widely at each other. Ethan grabbed her hand as Elizabeth began laughing and said, "Well, we actually met for the first time when you guys dropped me off at my dorm. He was one of the guys who were helping students bring their stuff to their dorms. It was too bad that he transferred. He was so sweet and charming. Remember that, Mom?"
"Yes, I do, actually," she said. "You were very sweet and charming."
"Thank you, Mrs. Cullen," he said.
"Oh, please, call me Bella," she said. "Where did you transfer to?"
"Uh, UCLA," he replied.
"How'd you meet for the second time?" Nathan asked.
Elizabeth suddenly blushed a deep, deep red. Ethan laughed as he said, "Want to tell them how we met for the second time, baby?"
I internally cringed. He called her baby! Okay, he is gonna go down!
"God, do I have to?" she blushed. "You tell since you find it so amusing."
We looked on intently as Ethan said, "It was the first day we were in Italy. We had been given the day to tour around the city before we started working, and we were at the Trevi fountain." Elizabeth placed her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. "I suddenly recognized Elizabeth, who was standing with her back to the fountain – very close to it, too – getting ready to throw a penny into it. She had her eyes closed so I guess she didn't see me."
Elizabeth blushed a deeper red and Nathan, sensing something immensely funny coming, was looking amused and listening to every word Ethan was saying as he stuffed a large amount of breadstick in his mouth.
"And just as she was throwing the penny into the fountain, I went up to her and said, 'Hi'. She let out a little scream, took a step backward in surprise – which was a very bad thing to do – and fell into the fountain," he said.
Nathan burst out laughing as Elizabeth sat there, blushing.
Bella gasped and put her hand to her mouth, though I could tell that she was trying to hide a smile. Even I was having a hard time keeping a straight, worried looking face, but in the end I gave up and I started laughing with Nathan.
"You fell into the Trevi fountain? Were you alright?" Bella asked.
Elizabeth nodded and said, "I was fine. I was soaking and a little shocked, but I was fine. Ethan only managed to catch my foot." She smiled at Ethan as she looked at him. "After laughing for a few seconds, he helped me out and asked if I was alright. He asked me out the next day and … well … we fell in love. Then the last night we were in Greece, he proposed to me and here we are."
Bella had regained her composure and was smiling at them.
"Well, I'm glad you rescued my daughter, Ethan," she said.
"What were you wishing?" I asked, curious as to what Elizabeth had been wishing when she fell into the fountain.
She blushed. "Oh, I can't … I can't tell you. It's a secret," she said and wouldn't say anything more on that topic.
Nathan Cullen
Surprisingly enough, I thought this Ethan guy was pretty cool. Dad actually liked him, I think.
After we ate, while we were standing on the boardwalk outside the restaurant, I pulled Ethan aside. I wanted to ask him a couple of questions.
"So, uh, Ethan. Just between us future brothers-in-law, I wanted to ask you what your intentions were with my sister," I said.
"Well, Nate," he began, but I interrupted him.
"Call me Nathan. I hate the nickname Nate," I said. I was like my dad – we both hated the nicknames for our names. My uncles used 'Eddie' for Dad when they were annoying him, and my cousins – especially Sally and Lily – used 'Nate' on me whenever they were annoying me. We both hated it.
"Okay … Nathan, then," Ethan said. "I want you to know that I care about your sister very much."
"And that's a good thing," I said.
"And I would never do anything to hurt her," he said.
"That, too, is a good thing," I said. I turned my head both ways to make sure no one heard me. My sister was talking with our parents out of earshot. "Let me tell you something."
"Okay," he said.
"I loved my sister very much. I would do anything for her. Probably take a bullet for her, but you know what I mean. Anyways, just so you know now, I have two Uncles and a Dad who have taught me how to throw a punch, and if you do anything to hurt my sister in any way, shape, or form, I'll make sure that you get a broken nose. Alright?"
I held out my hand for him to shake.
He looked a little shocked, but said, "Okay."
I smiled and said, "Okay."
Then I turned around and walked back towards my sister and parents.
My brother role has been complete.
Author's Note: Well, I hope you all liked it. What did you guys think of the little 'father-daughter bonding time' that I put in there? And what did you think of Ethan and they way the two met?
Next chapter, we'll be meeting Ethan's parents, Vern and Tilda Barr. I have no idea how long it will be, but I'll try to make it as long as I can. I mean, I've never been engaged before, so I've never had the parents-meet-the-parents lunch thing. I am not sure when it will be out, but I've finished school for the year, so I might be posting a chapter once a week, but I'm not certain.
Read and review on your way out, please (it makes me really happy)! Until Next Time, eat ice cream sandwiches and enjoy the warmth! Lemonade Ninja.
