By next Monday, Esme had devised a plan to get under whatever was bothering Carlisle. She asked Carmen, the chief nurse if she had time to talk to her. Of course, her excuse would be to take Carlisle out to lunch.

"Esme! Come over here!" Carmen called from her desk. There were a few nurses surrounding her, but Carmen ignored her and came to hug Esme.

"Carmen! It's been so long."

"Yeah, four weeks. I got a lot to tell you. This new batch of interns is maddening!" Carmen laughed.

"I'll trump whatever you have. I have a picture of Carlisle that you won't believe."

Carmen became a friend through the years of working along with Carlisle and Aro. She had a knack of teasing the guys and keeping them on their toes. Especially Carlisle. Esme smiled when she started to count how many times Carmen called her to come and get Carlisle who was getting sick with cold or was too tired but never would admit it. If she trusted someone in this hospital to really know if something was going on with Carlisle was her.

"By any chance is it something related to his new shade of blond?" Carmen asked wiggling her brows. Esme had to burst out laughing.

"Yes! You won't believe it!"

Five minutes of mocking and joking, Esme got to what troubled her.

"What worries me is that this isn't the first uncommon action from Carlisle. Carmen, how is he acting over here?"

Carmen seemed to mull it over for a minute. "Well, he's usually more standoffish with the new interns. But with Aro having health problems he seemed to come closer to them."

"How sick is Aro?"

Carmen was serious. "Not much, it's just..." she looked around, and when she was sure no one was close and listening she started to talk. "Like I told you this new group of interns is something else. They are a very close-knit group and follow each other around on their free time. The problem is... how could I explain it? The leader of the gang, Seth, is a charming guy, I won't deny it. But somehow he convinced Aro to join into their group and somehow they managed to make him jump on one of those zip lines saying it was the easiest of their activities. Well, guess what? Aro jumped and hurt his back. We aren't that young anymore."

"Oh, poor Aro. But he is fine now, right?" Esme recalled Carlisle telling her he was hurt and couldn't play golf.

"He had to take it easy for a while, but the few days he wasn't here Carlisle started to deal with them. Now Carlisle was a tougher sell, you know he's too serious while Aro likes to joke around. But I'm sure he's been acting less aloof to them."

"Maybe there's a woman in the group?" Esme asked.

She never had a reason to fear, as girls tend to flock to her husband, he never noticed them. Carmen was always aware and dismissed most of them as crushes. Whenever one of those crushes developed something more and tried to get closer, she simply mentioned to Carlisle that the girl was crushing on him and voilá. Problem finished. Crushes made Carlisle terribly uncomfortable and he became too harsh with the girl, and finally started to talk about Esme all the time. They always got the hint.

"There's the usual new one crushing on him, but nothing serious. Look, here they come."

A group of young doctors came to Carmen's desk; one of them came straight to Esme.

"Miss Carmen, who's this beauty you're hiding in here? Maybe I should start working on my charts with you." The guy tried to get Esme to take his hand when out of nowhere Carlisle came walking fast.

"That, my dear Seth, is my wife. Hello, Es." He kissed her softly making her giggle.

"Hi, are you ready for lunch?" Esme gave a look to the group, most of the guys seemed to stand straight on attention to Carlisle, except this guy and one girl. One that was looking at her with sadness. Yeah, right. He's married and he's mine, Esme thought. Could they be the cause of his sudden insecurities?

xxx

"Go and order three pizzas. Peter is eating like he's going to hibernate." Alice asked Cynthia when they got home.

She took her conflicted daughter for clothes. Once Cynthia realized she didn't have a lot to wear because she was used to her old school uniform she asked Alice to buy her, at least, a couple of jeans and maybe a new coat. Alice, being her, went overboard and bought too many clothes for both kids. Peter, as always, was the easy one. You could take him to Target and he would be happy. He only cared about his sneaker's brand. Cynthia, on the other hand, was as picky as Alice. So two pairs of jeans and a coat turned into a shopping spree that maxed one of Alice's credit cards. Jasper may want to have a few words with her.

She wanted to soften the blow by getting dinner ready and before she wanted to make sure Cynthia or Peter weren't around. Jasper was being a bit too careful with money lately. He came from a middle-class family. He was used to working for everything he needed, but he never had to try hard. Alice came from a wealthy family, everything was handed to her the minute she desired it. And she knew she always had her parents support in case of a cash emergency. So a maxed card never bothered her the way it did to Jasper, who was worried because his big project, the one which brought the big bonus on his paycheck was about to end. Alice was hoping for this Christmas season and all the sales it always brought. In her mind, she didn't do anything wrong.

When she got home she found Jasper pacing on the living room. He knew.

"Come to my study, please. Cyn is going to take care of the pizzas. I asked them to not wait for us." He said before leading the way to his study.

Inside it, Jasper had an opened bottle of bourbon. It meant he was pissed.

"Alice, I know you had the best intentions. But why did you take Cyn for clothes?"

"Well, she needs them for school. She only has like three skirts and it's getting colder. You don't want her to catch a cold on her first days at her new school."

"Don't get funny. If it was something necessary, we always work a deal with them. Get her to do more chores, to help with the laundry, and then we buy her a few clothes. Not that insane shopping spree."

Alice huffed. "It always about money. It isn't like we'll have the same expenses. We won't have to pay tuition now that they're going to public school."

And now it was Jasper's turn to huff. "No, not really. Because the school suggested Cyn to leave, we didn't have problems with her; but in Peter's case, it was us who decided he had to leave and we were subjected to pay a fee for the right to leave the school. You didn't read the whole paperwork, right?"

Alice got quiet. Honestly, she swore she read everything but she didn't remember that part. She worried for other details, like the kids grades.

"Oh, and then add that you're rewarding Cyn's behavior." Jasper took a sip of his bourbon.

"But we agreed to talk more to her. She needs our support."

"Yeah, but she also needs to understand that her actions affected us. Had you talked to Peter? He is happy to help Cyn but he will miss his friends. Cyn's careless actions made Pete's world change."

"Oh, God. He was having those insecurity issues too. He wasn't that happy."

Jasper stopped and glared. "Are you sure? Alice, had you talked to him? No, all your focus was on Cynthia. He's miserable. At least, in his old school, he had friends. He was about to get on the swim team. He's terrified about this new school and he's feeling neglected. Today he came by himself to my office. On his old bicycle. He was scared because he was alone."

"He was playing on his PlayStation. He said he was fine. And he could call if he was scared." Of course, Alice asked him to come to the mall. He chose to stay home playing.

"Still, what are we teaching him? That he had to do something reckless like Cyn and then he will have all our attention and all the things he wants? I already talked to Cyn. I don't know how much you bought, but I asked her to put all the bags with the new clothes in our bedroom. She's to choose two jeans, two tops, and one coat or sweater. The rest, she'll have to work for them. I think it's better you take her with you to one of your stores. Put her to fold clothes or help packing. Something useful. Then we'll see."

Alice wanted to argue, but deep inside she knew Jasper was right. Still she left the study and slammed the door, which caused Jasper to decide to sleep in the guest room for a while.

xxx

That Wednesday at Volterra, the girls were shocked to find that the gigantic mirrors that covered the walls of the hall where they always took their class were gone.

"We also have a pole dance class over here, and we have to check the poles frequently. So they don't have loose screws or get stuck. Anyway, there was an accident when they were fixing one pole and they broke a couple of mirrors. It'll be fixed by next Saturday." Jane explained. One woman on her earlier classes left because she felt uncomfortable exercising when everybody on the other side of the gym could see her. Maybe someone over here would be shy too.

Jane gave a glance around and found that everybody was ready in their places.

"Well, girls. Let rock this place." And so the class started.

xxx

On the other side of the glass walls, one man started his usual routine. He was glad he found a great job but finding the way to get time for his usual exercise routine was becoming difficult. But he managed to get a deal with his work team. One day a week, he was free to come to the gym.

The treadmill was at top speed and he was finally feeling the buzz, only to get distracted by a beauty in the Zumba class. She had the most delicate features, long dark hair tied in a ponytail. Her sinful body moved to the beat of some techno stuff and boy if she rocked it. Maybe his Tuesday workouts will get interesting from now on.

xxx

The class ended and the girls were quick to pick up their things. Esme seemed to have something to talk about so as Alice, who came this time without Cynthia.

When they were waving goodbye to Jane, the man who was watching them decided to go by the door. He turned to the hall and nodded to the group of women who waved greeting him. His beauty included. He winked and made a move to pull his duffel bag to his back, in a way that showed off his biceps. 'Yeah, girl. Look what I got.' He thought.

The women noticed, but unfortunately, didn't have the reaction he hoped. Alice and Esme laughed and catcalled. They found the guy too cute with his babyface, maybe the giggling college aged girls from the back would hook up with him. Rosalie found him vain so she only huffed in disapproval. But Bella, the one he was hoping to attract, felt uneasy. She felt during the whole class that someone was watching her through the glass wall and if it was this guy... quickly she tried to get her wedding ring on, but the guy left and she wasn't sure if he noticed.

Esme was cackling. "Could you believe him? So this is what we miss with the mirrors."

"Yeah, muscled little boys." Alice winked. "Those girls at the back were eating his 'look at my biceps' gig. It will be fun to watch which of them he wants."

Bella stayed quiet. She wasn't sure it was one of the girls at the back what he wanted.

xxx