A/N: Whew! Finally got rid of that Christmas hangover! Now…time to get up, get gorgeous, and get off to the next party for the countdown! So many parties…only one countdown. And all of them are glamorous…No one ever said being a socialite is easy. But better me than anyone else.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Twilight.

CHAPTER 12 : A ROYAL UES RE-UNION

Previously:

"Well, I guess I'd better get going. Bass is coming over to pick me up soon. I'll talk to you soon, Bellsie." I grimaced at her old nickname for me as she hung up.

"Bellsie?" Edward grinned.

"Just drive." I growled playfully.

"Ay ay, ma'am!" He mock-saluted.

***

ONE WEEK LATER (I know, time jump. Just bear with me)

BPOV

"Volterra!!!" I squealed as soon as we got off the jet. Yes, the jet. More specifically, the Bass jet.

Apparently, there were no flights straight from New York to Volterra at such short notice, so Chuck insisted. In the end, all of us were coupled up: Rose and Em, Ali and Jazz, Serena and Dan, Blair and Chuck, and Edward and I. Five couples in total, and we were expecting the sixth to come and meet us: Nessie and Jake.

Alice grabbed my arm and pointed out a couple hurrying towards us. "Nessie!!!" She started jumping up and down, repeatedly. Since she still had a good grip on my arm, I pulled her down and said, "Breathe, Ali. Calm down! Do you want Gossip Girl getting a shot of that? God knows what she'll say!"

By this point, Nessie and Jake were right in front of us, and someone-Rose, I think-had declared a group hug. Cliché, but totally right.

"OMJ!" Nessie said when she caught Edward holding my hand. "Where have you been hiding this one, Bell?" She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively. I giggled while Edward hid behind me.

"Safe from you and your crazy ways!" I retorted. Edward had finally straightened and remembered his manners.

"And this must be the delightful Renesmee," he said, holding out his hand. Nessie dismissed his hand and jumped in for a hug. Edward seemed startled, but used to it. The same thought went through both of our heads. Alice, we mouthed to each other. When Nessie had her fair share of Edward, she proceeded to move the hugging feast to me.

"Ness-can't-breathe." I managed to squeeze out. Ness was slightly taller than me, but way more fit.

"Oops," She said sheepishly. Suddenly, Em appeared out of nowhere and twirled Nessie. "Nessie Poo!" He exclaimed.

"Emmie Bear!" She squealed.

Ugh, why did I wait until now to remember that these two were prank buddies? I can already sense it, this vacation is going to be hell…for the rest of us.

***

We finally got to Ness' house three hours later.

Okay, so it's not much of a house as it is a castle. The Masen family is loaded, and as Ness likes to put it herself, 'weird'. Which means that they actually enjoy living in some thousand-year-old castle. I know, weird. Don't tell me about it.

"We're home!" Ness sang as she burst through the doors. The silence was…weird, but not eerie. "Guess they're out," she shrugged. Weird. Okay, I seriously need to stop using the word 'weird', but this is weird. Nessie's house, if we're calling it that, is never empty. Obviously, her parents are never there, just like most of the UES parents, but she still has her maid, the cook, the house-cleaner…

"What about the help?" Blair asked.

Ness shrugged. "They usually come back around this time, but sometimes they run a little late."

"Back from where?"

"Their breaks, Blair." Ness rolled her eyes. "We don't work them to death around here. They actually get daily breaks, ya' know, like lunch breaks." She explained. Blair was shocked. Like this was an alien concept. Which to her, it was.

"Hmm…I wonder if Dorota would like to work here," Nessie thought aloud. Blair instantly shot her a look that said 'Hands-off-my-nanny-you-so-called-best-friend'. It was comical…so comical that the rest of us girls ended up laughing. Of course, we were best friends, but no one messes with Blair's real mom, Dorota. Obviously, she wasn't Blair's biological mother, but since she raised her, that's how strongly Blair felt about Dorota.

"Who's Donota?" Em wondered.

"DOROTA!" We shouted at him.

"My nanny." Blair explained. Em looked at her, dumbstruck.

"What do you need a nanny for? To change your diapers?" Oh, he's in for it.

"Well, Emmett," Blair narrowed her eyes at his name, and Em shivered. Like actually, shivered. This coming from the strongest guy I know. The guys snickered quietly under their breath while us girls rolled our eyes. "That is the general definition of a nanny, if said description was to be provided by a bunch of air-head heavy-built hooligans, who sadly, have no sense of logic whatsoever." She shot him a sweet smile at the end. Sweet, but as we know, deadly.

Em gulped.

Awkward silence.

"Okay!" Rose rubbed her hands together. "Why don't you show us our rooms, Ness?" She shot a very pointed look at Ness.

"Yeah, sure! Come on, guys! I mean girls. Guys, you can grab the LV trunks and bring them up. And so that you don't die, we have elevators." She winked then grabbed us girls to show us our rooms, which she declared, 'SoHo-Penthouse-licious'.

***

As we descended the giant sweeping stairs, we heard loud-male-laughter coming from what Nessie assumed to be the entertainment floor. Yes, you heard right- entertainment floor. Not room, floor. Okay, I need to stop repeating myself.

Anyway, so Ness led us to the guys, who to our surprise, were 'bonding'. In other words, Jake had got them all beers and they had the ESPN sports channel on. At this point, I was pretty sure that all of us girls had the same expression: eyes wide, jaw dropped open. But we recovered quickly. Of course we did.

"Hey, guys!" Nessie said casually as she plopped down on Jake's lap. "So, who's winning?"

Did I forget to mention that Ness is a genius? She doesn't actually follow up with sports, but she can take a totally alien subject, and make it sound like she's an expert on said subject. It's like her talent.

The guy, save for Jake, just gaped at her. She shrugged. "So, do y'all wanna have dinner here or should we go downtown?" She asked.

***

After much debate, it was decided that half of us, (the exhausted half) would stay back, and the other half (that were up for it) would go out for dinner and clubbing. Amazingly, Volterra did have a club. I know, shocking. As predicted, I was part of the half staying at home, along with Edward, Blair, Chuck, Alice and Jasper.

Dinner was quiet. We were all tired, even Chuck. Shocking, I know. So after eating, most of us just 'retired to our rooms' as Nessie's 'help' put it.

Of course, that Bass was almost always keeping Blair busy. In fact, I'm gonna stop here. TMI!

Al and Jazz…well, of course their main priority, (or Ali's, anyway) was to sort out her clothes. So that's what they were doing. I mean, we totally believe that, right? Ha! I would have, if I didn't know that she'd already organized her clothes while we were off touring the castle. Again, TMI.

So that left me…and Edward. Which wasn't awkward, at all. In fact, the moment we were left alone, he wrapped his arms around me from behind, and suggested that we go up to our room. Yes, our room. We were sharing. Courtesy of Nessie and Ali, of course. FYI, our room is all the way in the north wing, which is far, far away from the others.

"Privacy," Ness had giggled, then winked oh-so-suggestively at me.

I nodded and we started our journey to the North Wing. Sounds cool.

"So, what do you think?" I asked, biting my lip as I waited for his answer. He'd been perfectly polite today, and seemed to enjoy himself, but who knows, he might be secretly planning ways to escape from the psychos.

"I…I like it," He said, sounding quite surprised himself. I glanced up into his eyes- his eyes that were filled with nothing but honesty. "I know, it's weird. But to me, this is your family, Love. And now they're mine, too." I was…pleasantly surprised.

"I love you, you know that?" I whispered.

"As a matter of fact, I do. And I love you more." He leaned in to kiss me, and I happily obliged.

The rest of our walk was filled with too-sweet romantic talk, which I'll spare you from. It took all of 25 minutes to get to our room. Our room…which was…intimidating, to say the least.

(A/N: I'm running late, so I'm just gonna say: Isle Esme, the bedroom. Imagine away, my pretties. He he…I've had a bit too much of early wine.)

Edward closed the door behind us.

"Bella," He breathed. "I need you." His voice was hushed; his eyes were dark with hunger.

And I was exactly sure that I was a mirror image of him. I needed him to the point where it was painful. And there was nothing to stop us; no one to barge in on us; no Emmett to make fun of us.

So why not?

Okay, I'm stopping there. I ain't writin' no lemons.

Well, it's time for me to get my make-up, hair…etc done, and pick out that perfect dress…hmm, I wonder where I left my spoils from last week's Barney spree…

Seems like we've made it through another decade. Congratulations, everyone. We deserve it.

See you in 2010. Happy New Year!

Xoxo,

Renesmee Woodsen, 2009.