. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 3: Details . . . Details . . .
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Edward grabbed my hand and intertwined my fingers with his and we made our way to the front door. I dropped lazily onto the arm of the chair that Alice was occupying and stared nervously at her wedding supplies scattered about the coffee table.
"So what do we need to do?" I said breaking the silence. I smiled slightly as I felt Edward's cold fingers still laced with mine.
Alice replied "Edward do you have any colors in mind for the wedding?"
"Yes."
"Well . . . what are they?" Alice said impatiently.
"Hyacinth and silver."
I looked at Edward with eyes and said, "That's what I was thinking too!"
"Same here. So we're all in agreement?"
Edward and I looked at each other, smiled, and said in unison "Aye aye, captain!"
Alice looked at, rolled her eyes, and moved on saying, "Okay now for the wedding parties. I'll start with you Edward. Groomsmen and Best-man?"
"Okay. Jasper, Emmett, Carlisle, and Charlie."
I looked at him with a puzzled face "Charlie?"
"Yes. Charlie. If it weren't for him I wouldn't be marrying you. So Charlie is one of my Groomsmen." He said with a 'this is final' tone.
Alice looked almost as confused as I was. She wrote the names down and said, "Okay . . . so who's the Best-man?"
"I don't know. Is it necessary that I have a Best-man?"
Alice looked at him . . . then down at a notepad . . . then back at him. "No . . . it isn't necessary . . . but it would be nice to have a best man." She glanced meaningfully at him with a look in her eye that said clearly she would make his life horrid if he did anything stupid.
"Well I can't pick Jasper or Emmett. Charlie would be suspicious if I chose him, so I suppose Carlisle will be my Best-Man. I haven't asked him yet . . . wasn't I supposed to do that first?"
"Well . . . yeah . . . but if you call and ask him now it will be okay."
"Okay." Edward pulled a shiny silver phone from his pocket and pressed the "3" button and held the phone up to his ear. "Carlisle?... Yes. Bella is fine . . . I'm fine . . . I have a question for you . . . will you be my Best-Man?... Really?... Excellent. Thank You very much. I'll talk to you later. Goodbye." He closed the phone and slid it back into his pocket. He turned to me and smiled. "he said 'yes'. So Alice, Carlisle is my Best-Man."
"Alrighty then... Bella . . . Bridesmaids and Maid-of-Honor?"
"Uh . . . You, Rosalie, Jessica Stanley, and Angela Weber." I had actually put some thought into this.
"Okay what about your Maid-of-Honor?" Alice looked up from her notepad.
"You really have to ask?" I asked incredulously.
"Uh. Yeah." She said with a puzzled look.
"Alice will you please be my Maid-of-Honor?"
"Yes!" Alice was so excited. I really figured she could have seen that she was going to be my Maid-of-Honor, but maybe she thought it wasn't a sure thing, or maybe she didn't look.
"Alice? Do you have any locations for the ceremony and reception in mind?" I asked trying to act as if I knew what to do, when actually I was clueless.
"Well yes . . . I do."
Edward interrupted. "I do too actually." He turned to me.
"Where?" I asked tugging on his hand.
"Well I one time when I was . . . hunting . . . I found this old church nestled back into the woods. I thought it would be perfect."
Alice looked at him with wide eyes and flashed the biggest smile I have ever seen. She screamed "AHHHHHHHH! Edward! That's perfect! Take us to it now!" She piled all of her supplies, put them in a tote bag, and started prancing out the door. Edward and I were still sitting in the oversized chair looking at each other.
Edward broke the puzzled silence "Doesn't Bella need to voice her opinion?" he looked at me with his head tilted with a grin.
"I think it sounds lovely Let's go." I hopped up from the chair, and walked over to Alice by the door. Edward had passed us laughing; we followed him out to the Volvo.
"So where exactly is this place?" I said thinking about how I would explain to people how we found it. Oh well Edward is an avid hiker and he found it on one of his expeditions. Hahaha.
"It's about 45 miles from Forks, and about half a mile from the road." He replied looking at me, then at our intertwined fingers between us.
"Sounds perfect," Alice piped in from the back seat.
We made our way down the winding roads when suddenly we stopped. I turned to open the door, but Edward beat me to it. The same instant in which he opened the door, he managed to get me up on his back and have the door shut.
"You ready?" he asked me with his head just centimeters from mine.
"I suppose." I leaned in what few centimeters necessary and pressed my lips to his cold ones.
And with that, he took off running. We ran . . . well Edward and Alice ran, I rode . . . into the woods. They ran for what seemed like a milliseconds, but I was sure it was at least 12 seconds. When I realized we had come to a stop I looked at the structure before us. It was incredibly perfect. It was timeless. It was painted white, but age had ripped through the paint in places adding to its antiquity. It had a black tiled roof, faded grey from the sun and time. The church had a small steeple. The doors were painted white; age had left its mark on them as well. The doors had large intricately designed iron handles on each of them.
Without a shadow of a doubt I was one-hundred percent sure, even from only looking at the outside, that this was the place that I would be wed to Edward. That thought brought tears with it. Tears were streaming down my face as I looked up to Edward and smiled. He knew they were tears of happiness. He held my face between his hands and wiped my tears away with his thumbs.
Alice looked over at us. I was sure that if she could cry, she would have been. She broke the silence. "Edward. This is better than I could have ever imagined. It will be perfect. We have to go inside. I wonder who owns it?" She started walking towards the church.
"It isn't owned by anyone. We need to ask Charlie about using it before we set this location in stone. We wouldn't want to break any laws." He grinned.
Alice turned around "No, we wouldn't want Chief Swan's daughter arrested for trespassing, so I say we go ask him right now." She started back into the woods.
Edward rolled his eyes, pulled me back onto his back, and took off running with vampire speed. We were at the car again. When he stopped I tried to get off his back, he instead moved his right arm behind his back to pull the left side of me around. He somehow ended up carrying me cradled in his arms to the passenger side at my speed.
He opened the door and gently put me down and buckled me in. After I was securely fastened in the seat he pressed his cold lips to mine. He stopped the kiss but held his lips to mine to whisper "I love you" on my lips. He then pulled his torso out of the car and closed the door behind him and before I had time to turn my head he was already in the driver's seat, starting the car. I looked back, unnecessarily, to see if Alice was actually in the car; she was.
We were speeding down the road when I broke the silence. "I have a question." Edward widened his gaze on me, and Alice leaned forward. "How do you plan on telling Charlie about this? Also, how are normal people supposed to get there?"
Edward answered my first question. "I'll tell him I found it while I was hiking . . . And I was sort of hiking when I found it so I won't really be lying. If that makes you feel better."
I changed my pursed lips into a smile and replied "It does."
Alice piped in "Okay about the humans getting there. We could make a 'driveway'."
"Sounds good to me, Edward what do you think?" I asked tilting my head to the side.
"I think that will work. We will have to trim down the trees and such and then we can run Emmett's jeep over the trail repeatedly. We can ask Emmett and Jasper to do that." He said turning to Alice.
"Okay." She smiled and leaned back in the seat.
At this point we were already on my road, about a hundred yards from my driveway. Charlie was home. Edward parked the Volvo beside the cruiser, and was around to open my door in a flash. He grabbed my hand and put his other hand around my waist and he leaned into kiss me. It was a short kiss. He let go of my hand, keeping his other hand around my waist and we walked towards to front door. He opened the door and let Alice enter before us.
"Hey Charlie!" Alice said with a perky voice as she ran to give Charlie a hug.
"Hey Alice. How are you?"
"Fine. We have to ask you a question, citizen to law enforcement officer, so you'll have to put your badge back on."
"I think we'll be ok." His dinner was in the microwave. With all the wedding planning going on I decided it would be a good thing to invest in T.V. dinners. "What is it Alice?"
"Okay well. When Edward was hiking a couple of weeks ago he found an old abandoned church nestled back into the woods about 45 miles away from Forks. I was wondering if we could have the wedding there." She looked at Charlie with wide eyes.
"Well . . . I'm not sure. I'm sure it would be fine, but I'll look into tomorrow at work. What did you say the name of the church was?"
"I didn't, but I think it is called Woodland Presbyterian."
"Okay. I'll be sure to look into it." He had already stuck his fork in his dinner.
"Oh one more thing, if you don't mind . . ." she sat as she sat across from Charlie while he stuffed a big bite in his mouth.
"Yeah?" he said muffled by his big bite.
"Can Bella stay over tonight I have a lot to go over with both of them and it would be easier to talk to them both at the same time. And Bella and I need to figure out how she's going to do her hair and make-up so we'll do that too."
"Sounds good to me. There's a game on anyway. See you kids later."
"Thanks Charlie!" she kissed his cheek and started up the stairs to my room. Edward and I followed. She already had a bag with my toiletries and some pajamas in it. She was looking through my closet when we walked in.
"Bella. You have to let me take you shopping before the wedding. Your wardrobe is lacking the staples of female life." She was now opening and closing my drawers now. Edward was chuckling softly to himself, obviously Alice had looked in my underwear drawer that was lacking what she thought were "'staples' to every woman's wardrobe".
"Okay okay. Ha Ha Ha. I know. I know. Alice you will have to take me shopping. But can we not do this now?"
"Fine." She had my bag over her shoulder and was headed down the stairs. Edward carried me down the stairs. "Bye Charlie! Thank you for letting me steal Bella!" she yelled as we walked out the door.
Charlie was too engrossed in his game to fully engage in a conversation. "Bye." He said, not turning his eyes from the T.V. to see that Edward was carrying me. Thank goodness for ESPN. I thought to myself as I got buckled into Edward's Volvo.
We started down the road when Edward said "Bella. You need to eat something."
Yeah . . . come to think of it.. . it was 8 o'clock . . . and I haven't eaten in seven hours. My stomach started growling. Edward smiled, I blushed and Alice giggled. "Okay, so what's on the menu Mr. Cullen?"
"Uh . . . Do you feel like going out?"
"Out? I'm not dressed for 'out'" I said looking at my blue jeans and tee I had on.
"We won't be going any place fancy. Alice would you care to join us?" he asked looking to the back seat.
"Uh. No. You can just drop me off at the end of the driveway." She said out loud for my benefit.
"Okay." He said turning back around to face me.
"Please watch the road . . . or at least pretend to. You make me very nervous." I complained.
He sighed. "Fine" he said turning his head towards the windshield. He continued peeking quick glances at me. I grinned.
Alice broke the silence. "okay okay. Just let me out." Edward brought the car to an abrupt halt. Alice was out of the car and my window was rolled down. "I'll see you later. Bye!" and with that she disappeared.
I rolled my window up and Edward made a 'u-turn'. "So where are we eating?"
"Well you are eating at some place very special." He answered with my favorite crooked smile.
"Special huh? That doesn't require a cocktail dress. I'll have think really hard. Can I guess?" I said with eager eyes.
"Nope. I get to ask you questions the whole way there." He said grinning from ear to ear.
"The whole way there? Geez. How far away is the restaurant?"
"It's just in Port Angeles." He answered with a reassuring tone.
"Okay. So what's my first question?" I asked.
"What is your favorite Olympic sport to watch?"
"Trampoline, Skiing, Driving, Gymnastics, and Swimming."
"What is your favorite color today?"
He remembered my favorite color changes all the time. "Hyacinth. Very good Mr. Cullen, your super vampire powers come in handy."
He grinned. "So what is your favorite song?"
"My lullaby you wrote for me."
He flashed my favorite crooked smile. "What country would you like to live in? Not that I plan on moving out of the country. For example I'd like to live in Norway."
"Oh. Well I guess I'd like to live in Switzerland. It's neutral territory." I laughed.
He smiled showing his teeth. "What is your favorite color pen to write with?"
"Blue." I replied with a puzzled look. Where is he getting these questions from?
He noticed my puzzled look and leaned in to kiss me. I kissed him very quickly, and not pulling away very far I said, "please keep your eyes on the road." I leaned away completely. "So what's my next question Mr. Cullen?"
"Would you rather have a Mac or a P.C.?"
"Um. Why?"
"Bella, just please answer the question."
"Fine. A P.C." that was all I had ever used.
"Which do you prefer: brown or black?"
"Black."
We pulled into the parking lot at La Bella Italia. The restaurant Edward took me to after he saved me from those men in the ally on my trip here with Angela and Jessica. That was our 'first date'. I smiled.
He turned to me and said "Ah my beautiful Bella." He leaned in to kiss me. My hands quickly found their way to his hair and his hands were on either side of my face. He ended the kiss and put his forehead to mine, keeping his hands around my face, and my found their way to his neck. "I love you Bella. Don't ever forget that. I will love you for all of forever. I will never leave you." He kissed my forehead and lingered there.
My stomach gurgled, ruining our perfect moment.