Esme was so excited because of her daughter; she called last night with a final date for her arrival... three weeks. So Esme, as the busy bee she always was, kept planning on her mind how to prepare a room for Bree and Joham, and maybe a nursery too. Bree will need her those first days. At least, while she gets the hang of dealing with a newborn. Just thinking on those first baths, babies are slippery and the move like frogs. Bree will need her expert hands to learn how to care for the baby.

Esme was so lost in her thoughts, doing her morning chores by inertia, that she almost missed one little detail.

She knew better than to try to make conversation with Carlisle before he had his first cup of coffee, he wasn't completely awake, so she ignored him until he said his usual 'Good morning love', that meant he was up and ready for the day to start. So she was busy when he stood up for his second cup. That's when she noticed it. Her always perfectly groomed husband, who only wore suits for work, was wearing jeans!

She blurted the first thing that came to her mind. "Did I forget to pick up the dry cleaning?"

Carlisle frowned. "Not that I'm aware of." Certainly he noticed Esme distracted this morning, maybe it was her not so subtle way of asking his help. "I can pick it up if you give me the recipe."

Esme shook her head. "You're wearing jeans."

Carlisle looked down, maybe it was too casual for work? "Do they look wrong?"

"No. It's just unusual."

Carlisle just shrugged his shoulders and kissed her cheek. "Maybe I finally want to lose the stick on my butt. Did you know the new slew of interns calls me 'the stiff'?"

Esme giggled. "Maybe if you weren't so severe. Anyway, it isn't as if you work all day with them."

Carlisle winked to Esme. "Lately, I've been feeling generous and may let them in on my surgeries."

"Oh, very generous indeed." Esme knew he had to make them work for the right to get inside one of his surgeries, otherwise, they would never realize the difficulty of his work.

"Do you want me to bring dinner?" Carlisle was almost finished and needed to leave soon.

"Maybe some Indian from the little restaurant on your way home."

Carlisle nodded, kissed her cheek and ran or he would never get to the hospital on time.

xxx

As that mishap was almost forgotten, Carlisle surprised her again when he stayed in bed on Sunday morning instead of going to his weekly game of golf with Aro Palander.

"Car, isn't it late for your game?" She turned around and pushed his arm to make sure he would wake up.

"Not going." He whispered.

"Why?"

"Aro felt sick, something about his back." Now Carlisle turned around and Esme sighed. Well, better leave him alone.

"Esme... do you think golf is boring?" He stopped her with his hand on her back.

"No!"

"Would you play it?"

"Well, not really. But you know I'm not a sporty girl. I'm more into dance or yoga, more like indoors activities."

"But you don't think is boring or for old people, right?"

"Of course not. I think to each his own. Carlisle, why are you asking?"

"Don't know. A mere thought." With that he turned back and got back to sleep. Esme thought her husband was acting a bit weird.

xxx

The next Tuesday, the dance hall of Volterra's felt a bit empty without Leah and Bella, who was stuck home with a cold.

The girls quickly gathered her things after the class was finished, and went to their usual date at the coffee shop.

"Poor Bella didn't came to work yesterday, and should have stayed home today too. I still saw her a bit pale and her nose was irritated." Rose said.

Alice sipped her cup and began to jump on her chair. "She's here! Damn Bella, you need to rest."

Bella gave them a wry smile. She was bored to stay home, that's why she decided to go to work today. Besides, she felt a lot better by now. She didn't have that runny nose nor sneezed.

"I couldn't stay at home. And I'm feeling a lot better. How was your visit to your kids, Alice?"

Alice beamed. When her store finally got success and Jasper was required for an extra project at his company, they decided to enroll their kids into a boarding school to give them the best education. The same where Alice studied. The kids came home on holidays and certain weekends, but Alice and Jasper missed them a lot, so they liked to visit them at school.

"Look, this is Cynthia. She had a growth spurt and now she is, at least, two inches taller than me!" She passed her phone around, letting the others look to the picture Cynthia reluctantly allowed her to take.

"She looks a bit thin." Esme pointed out. And if she looked closely, the girl had dark circles under her eyes.

"She feels pressured with exams, we offered to help her study but she declined. You know Jasper is great with Math, but she said she would manage." Then Alice changed the picture and showed her little boy. "And here's Peter. Please, ignore his manners. He's still a child."

He was a cute kid, sticking out his tongue for the picture.

"With Cynthia growing so much, he feels like he's a dwarf. Jasper told him that girls grow first, but they stop growing sooner. He had to understand that it was wrong to compare himself at thirteen with Cyn who just turned sixteen last month."

"Aww," Esme said, "We had the same issue with Felix. Bree was taller than him for years, but when he turned sixteen he started to grow and now you know what a giant he is. Let me send you a picture so you can show it to Peter. It's a matter of time before he will get taller than her."

"He's scared he inherited my height instead of Jasper's," Alice said, saving Felix and Bree's picture. She really hoped Peter would understand. "He feels he's the smallest in his class, but according to Cyn, he isn't. Anyway, he wanted to come back home on weekends to help with chores so we raised his allowance. He finally confessed he read about a 'growth hormone' they sell on the internet."

"No!" The rest gasped mortified.

"Imagine if you didn't get him to confess." Bella shook her head.

"Yeah, it took us a bit, but finally, we convinced him to wait. He's beginning to understand."

"They're so insecure at that age. Felix was also ashamed of his glasses, he begged and begged for laser surgery. Finally, we acquiesced but the doctor asked him to wait until he was over eighteen. By then he used contacts and later glasses became cool. So the surgery got forgotten."

Bella giggled. "Edward hates his glasses, but I think they make him look sexy."

"Oh, speaking of men worried about their appearance. Would you believe me that my husband was wearing jeans to work last Friday?" As ridiculous as the question sounded, Carlisle was well known of his extreme neatness.

"No!" Rose said, a bit mockingly. She found her friend's husband a bit exaggerated and she always felt a bit of pity for Esme. Carlisle always expected the same care in her outfit. Rose, being a woman who loved to lounge at home in yoga pants and t-shirts, knew she would never last a day with someone like Carlisle Cullen.

"Shh. Don't make fun of her. I think I've never seen him on jeans." Alice slapped Rose hand, noticing how Emmett was truly the opposite of Carlisle making Rosalie less understanding to Esme's wonder.

"Or with a wrinkle," Bella added.

"I thought I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning and he didn't have any more suits." Esme was feeling ashamed.

"Probably a kid puked on him yesterday." Alice wondered.

"Or something worst." Added Bella, thinking of pus and other vile things you can see at a hospital.

"Oh no, he changes into scrubs at work. He wants to look sharp when he has office duties, but with his patients he always wears scrubs."

"Maybe something happened and doesn't want you to find out. Emmett was like that when he started to work on that abandoned factory. Turned out is still emanated sulfurs and it tainted his shirts. He started doing the laundry since then."

Bella turned to Rose. "Did he talk to you?"

"No, he's been ignoring me. Well, he only spoke to me to mention he was going to be late as he had to work on the budget for that empty lot next to the mall where Alice has one of her stores."

Alice nodded. "Right, they want to make a bigger movie theater and bring a few more stores. Wait, he's still mad because you didn't have sex with him?"

Rose nodded, feeling desperate. "And I really don't get it. Sure, we are doing it less because we are tired most of the time, but two or three times a week seem fine to me."

Esme sighed but she agreed. With Carlisle erratic schedule at the beginning of their marriage, it also became a problem and the source of numerous fights, until they managed to find their own rhythm. "He will get over it soon. Maybe you need to spice up things?" It helped Esme and Carlisle.

Bella was counting, and sadly, she and her husband weren't so regulars. Sometimes they couldn't get enough from the other on daily basis, sometimes they were too tired.

"Well, I understand how you can get so busy and let it go. Jasper and I agreed to set one day of the week for sex. So on Wednesday, come rain, wind or fire, we have our date night." Alice said.

Bella was a bit shocked. "Doesn't it kill the passion?"

"No, it had worked for us. We wait anxiously for that day."

Rose was also a bit taken aback. "And what if you don't feel like doing it. Or if you have your period?"

"It isn't so bad we can't handle it."

Esme, noticing they would never understand Alice's point of view, changed the subject. "Bella, do you know how is it going for Leah at work?"

"Oh, right! I have her phone number. Maybe we can take her out for lunch once she's more settled. Edward explained to me that they rotate paralegals according to the workload, so sometimes Leah will work with him. But at the beginning, Renata Carson, the boss, like to keep the new ones with her so they learn the ropes."

"And how is his new partner?" Esme asked.

"He doesn't know what to think. She's too serious. And Edward feels everyone treat her like a pariah. I think we can invite her to dinner one day so she could open a bit with him. It's already difficult with his awful assistant, I want to make things easier for him."

"What's her name? Maybe Jasper knows about her." Alice wondered.

"Tanya Sanders."

"Hmm, sounds familiar but I'm not sure. I'll tell you on Thursday what I find out."

xxx

That night when Alice arrived home, she found Jasper pacing on their bedroom.

"They called from the school. Cynthia is in trouble."