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Sorry for the late post been studying my butt off for my finals which are next week.
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Chapter 22
EPOV
It had been absolutely amazing to watch Bella handle all the burly deliverymen as they brought our stuff in from the huge Pier 1 Imports truck that sat in front of our house. I watched in amazement as our empty house slowly filled up with boxes and wrapped furniture that still had to be placed. It was coming together slowly. We spent the rest of that afternoon unpacking the boxes that had come that morning and putting things away. Our stuff from Chicago hadn't arrived yet so our house lacked our personal items such as Bella's books, my music, and some of our decorations that held sentimental value. It was now Tuesday and we were officially done shopping for things for the house, all of our couches, chairs, ottomans, rugs, and everything was bought and put away. I smiled as Bella came strolling back in the house in her little white shorts and pink tank-top, and pointed up the stairs. "I'm gonna go check on Jayce and Brayden, they were just putting the finishing touches on the nursery's earlier." I told her quietly.
She smiled and nodded. "We are almost done with the truck too."
I headed up the stairs that was lined with photo frames that Bella and I had found at a huge outdoor flea market Sunday when we were shopping for the small things we needed and also to just get out of the house for a little bit to check out the neighborhood. They were all painted blue, green, black, and white with different backings. None of them have a single picture in them but they fit the wall perfectly, they tied the entire downstairs together perfectly picking up colors out of each room. I walked down the hall towards Gavyn's room and was nearly brought to tears at the gorgeous room that he could grow into as he grew up. The mural was a perfect fit to the room.
"Edward!" Bella called from the bottom of the stairs.
I turned around and quickly jogged down the stairs to see her in a standoff with a big burly guy with a clipboard in his hand. "I told you to wait here that I would get him. That does not give you the right to just walk into my house." She said with her arms folded across her chest in a defensive posture.
"Lady, you don't look to be a day over sixteen and I have a delivery to make and a schedule to keep." The burly man huffed.
I made a loud ruckus as I rounded the corner that allowed me to come face to face with this man. "I don't appreciate your tone with my girlfriend and her age shouldn't matter to you. What is your business here?" I told the man as I came to stand directly behind Bella's rigid frame.
The man flipped pages on the clipboard. "Edward Masen?" He asked roughly.
I nodded tersely. "Yes. Are you from Roadrunner Transportation?" I asked him barely holding onto my temper because we were indeed expecting another truck with all of our stuff from Chicago.
He nodded and pointed to the faded barely discernible patch on his shirt. "Yes, now can we please start unloading all of the stuff in the back of our truck. Like I was telling your girlfriend we have a schedule to keep." He said as he huffed in annoyance.
I shook my head. "I thought you guys were supposed to drop the trailer off so we could unload the boxes ourselves?" I asked him as I wrapped my arms around Bella's chest pulling her back against me because something wasn't adding up.
"No sir, we have specific instructions to unload the heavy items ourselves and to not damage them. We were paid extra to deliver them safely." He said as he looked at his clipboard.
"Hmm… that doesn't sound right. We had some boxes coming from Chicago but that is all we were expecting. Who sent the stuff?" I asked him because I was about two minutes away from kicking them out and calling the cops.
He looked through his paperwork. "Dr. and Mrs. Carlisle Cullen is what my paperwork says. I spoke to an Esme Cullen on Saturday when we picked all this stuff up at a storage building after we picked the trailer up from a residence."
"Hmm…let's go look at the items you are to deliver. That is my mother and father but I wasn't expecting anything from him or my mother, just our stuff from our old house." I told the guy as I motioned him outside to get him away from Bella.
He unlocked the back of the semi-truck and pulled a ramp out from the back so we could walk up into the back of the trailer. "The couch, desk, piano, bench, desk chair and rocker are what I was set to deliver here and help unload. The rest of the items are probably the boxes you were expecting." The man said motioning to six plastic and blanket wrapped pieces that sat in front of the boxes that all of us had loaded last week. I immediately felt relieved as I recognized all the items. Through the plastic I could tell that the pieces of furniture were my dad's office furniture, his desk that had been my grandfathers, his leather couch that my mom had hated because it was solid leather, his office chair that I used to spin in when I was little as I pretended to be him, the wooden rocking chair that had sat in the corner of our old music room where my mother used to sit and listen to me play the piano. It was also the same rocker she said she had rocked me in as a baby. And the best thing of all of them; my mother's piano. My piano that I had learned on as a child and I had thought was gone forever. My grandmother's piano that she gave my mom when I showed an interest one Easter when I was two years old.
"Yes, they belong here. Please be careful unloading them." I told him quickly before I high tailed it back in the house where Bella was waiting with concern written all over her face.
"You okay, Casanova?" Bella asked as I paced the hallway from the front door all the way to the kitchen and back.
I shook my head running my fingers through my hair as I felt the tears pour down my cheeks. "I thought it was all gone. How could I have not known? I thought I sold it all with the house I never could bring myself to go back to." I mumbled to myself.
"Known what, love? Edward please talk to me, you're scaring me." Bella begged me as she sat down on the stairs so I could pace freely.
"That my mom and dad's things weren't gone or lost forever." I told her as I wiped my cheeks dry as I passed by her.
"Edward!" She said sharply causing me to stop in my tracks and face her.
I just stared at her blankly because I didn't know where to begin to explain everything that was going on in my head to her.
"Start at the beginning. What's in the truck? Is it our stuff from Chicago?"
I sighed and nodded. "It's stuff from my parent's also. My dad's office furniture, the piano and bench that my mother had taught me on when I was little, and the rocker that she used to rock me in as when I was a baby, it's all there." I told her softly.
"Where do you want the desk?" The burly delivery man and another man I hadn't seen before now asked.
I looked to Bella with wide eyes because I didn't know where to put them.
"Up the stairs, door directly in front of you when you get there, the walls are painted red." Bella told them as she got up from the steps so they could head up the stairs.
They nodded and hefted what I knew was a solid antique heavy desk up the stairs without any effort or so it seemed.
Bella tugged me in the direction of the front living room. "We need to move some things around so we can fit your piano in here." She said with a smile.
I smiled and nodded. "You want it in here?" I asked her as I gripped a chair by the arms to move it where she indicated.
She nodded with a smile on her face. "Absolutely. It can be the music/play room. We can put the extra furniture downstairs in the den area." She said as she pointed across the hall to the dining room. "Just put them in there for now."
I smiled and did as she directed. "Are you sure about this, baby?" I asked her as we moved the couch up against the far wall so my piano could fit in the corner away from the fireplace.
She nodded eagerly. "It's not like we need three living areas anyways and with Rose and Emmett having a baby too, we are going to need places for them to play." She said as we adjusted the rug and the coffee table.
"Okay." I said without further argument.
I saw the guys tote the couch and chair up the stairs too as we were clearing a corner of the music/play room out. "Hey, guys, the piano goes right here." I told them on their way back out.
They both nodded and did just that. They even adjusted it to where it looked perfect sitting in the corner with the little bench tucked neatly underneath it. After they brought in the rocking chair, which Bella had put in Gavyn's room, I dug my wallet out and tipped the guy I had talked with earlier. "Sorry about the confusion and thanks for everything." I told him as I laid the money in his hand.
He nodded. "No problem, the woman I got the stuff from was a force to be reckoned with also but nothing like that lady in there, you got yourself a good one." He said with a smile and a wave.
I just laughed as I shut the front door behind them, they were scheduled to come pick the trailer up on Friday so we were in no hurry to unload it. We were going to wait for everybody to get here so they could help since there stuff was in it too. I walked into the family room to find Bella pulling the plastic and wrapping blankets off of the piano. "Will you be able to play on it?" she asked quietly.
I smiled and nodded. "Absolutely. I've missed Old Bertha something awful." I told her as I stroked a hand across the intricate designs etched into the sides of the beautiful antique piano.
"Old Bertha?" Bella asked laughing as she folded the packing blankets up.
I smiled and nodded as I opened the lid to prop it up. "It's what my grandma used to call her. It may need tuned, but let's give her a try." I said as I peered inside the piano that meant so much to me that I didn't have the words to express it. "Well, look at that." I told Bella with a huge smile on my face.
"What am I looking at?" she asked as she looked on the inside of the piano.
I just laughed and shook my head. "Esme's apparently had this stored properly and the strings replaced. So it probably doesn't need tuning after all." I told her as I pulled out the small bench, sitting down and lifting the lid on the keys. "It looks and feels the same." I told her as I ran my fingers gently over the keys causing a tinkling to echo throughout the room.
"Play me something." She asked as she sat down on the arm of the couch.
I smiled closing my eyes as I let my fingers do the talking. I played a song I had written for my mother when I was nine years old like I had never stopped playing. I hadn't touched a piano since Christmas in Boston but I had written a number of compositions since then.
"What song is this?" Bella asked quietly.
I finished the song with a flourish before answering her question. "It's a song I wrote for my mom when I was eight. I always just called it Mama's song." I told her as I shut the lid on the piano and turned on the piano bench to face her.
"It's beautiful, Casanova. What are our plans for the birthday party this weekend?" She asked as I stood up standing between her spread legs.
I smiled and shook my head. "That is all taken care of, baby. Rose is going to take you girls to the spa and shopping Saturday morning so us guys can get everything set up. That is all you need to know." I told her with a quick kiss to her lips.
She giggled and nodded wrapping her legs around my waist. "That's fine. Let's go break in the kitchen. We haven't made it that far yet." She said giggling.
Our love life has really taken off since we broke that barrier last Friday night. Bella was a quick learner in whatever she set her mind to it seemed. She had set her mind to christening each and every room in our house and so far we had made it through every room upstairs and about half the rooms downstairs and the entire basement. We only had until tomorrow evening to finish with the downstairs and we were determined to make it before everybody else got here.
"Jasper, aren't you suppose to go pick Esme, Carlisle, and everybody up at the airport in like twenty minutes." I asked Jasper who was pouring ice over the drinks in the kiddie pools we had set up around the pool. It was the day of Bella and Alice's surprise party and we were scrambling to get things done before they got back from the spa. We had uncovered the pool and tossed in some floaties and beach balls and noodles so that it was ready to go when they all got here. We had tubs of water balloons set aside waiting for a water fight. We also had water guns loaded and waiting. There were balloons swaying in the gentle breeze attached to the lifted pool cover.
He looked at his watch quickly before cursing and slamming the lid on the ice chest. "I'm on my way!" He said as he slipped on his flip flops and raced through the side gate that led to the driveway.
"He would never even show up if people didn't remind him of things." Emmett said as he flipped the burgers on the grill.
I just laughed and nodded. "Yeah, I know. Normally Alice keeps him on time to things but with her not here he's at loose ends." I told him as I set the dishes out on the patio table we had gotten.
"Hey, dude, can I peek in at Blakely's room while Rose isn't here?" Emmett asked for about the millionth time since they had arrived Thursday evening to find the door locked.
I laughed and shook my head. "No, Emmett, no." I told him laughing at the pout that formed on his face.
"Dude, I promise to act surprised when Rosie see's it." He said with his bottom lip stuck out.
I shook my head again. "Not going to work, Emmett, and don't think I didn't hear you trying to pick that lock last night." I told him as I went into the kitchen to get the cake ready for the birthday girls. Their cake was commissioned from a local bakery that went all out on birthday cakes. It was a two tiered cake, each tier a flavor for each girl, the bottom was a white base with stripes of different shades of pink and silver running down the sides with balls of each color lining the silver tray it sat on with a ribbon with their names in the front. The top tier was a base shade of white with polka dots of different colors to match the bottom with the balls again at the seam of the tiers. On the very top was wires with a bunch of stairs on them with '18' in the front and center. It was simple yet gorgeous. The nurseries were a surprise we wanted to share once everybody got here.
Carlisle and Esme along with Bella and Alice's parents were coming in for the party as well as Lesley and Rachel from across the street. We had invited Carlisle and Esme to stay with us but not Bella and Alice's parents considering they had only spoken to them once since Christmas. Hell, we weren't even sure they were going to show up but Jasper and I had extended the invitation out of respect and even booked them a flight to arrive the same time as Carlisle and Esme's. In the two years that Jasper and Alice had been dating, he had only met their parents a handful of times and didn't have favorable reviews for either of them but especially their mother. Bella and I have been dating for almost four months and I have never even spoken a word to either of them and really had no desire to.
We finished setting things up for the party and was lounging on the back deck when I heard Jasper's rented truck pull into the driveway. I would be glad when we could stop renting vehicles and just have our own here. We were going to drive them from Chicago to Savannah the day after graduation, then Bella and I were going to fly to Nashville when Gavyn was born to pick him up.
"Edward! Emmett!" I heard Esme call out from inside the house.
I groaned and got up out of the chair I had been stretched out in. "Don't you burn those burgers, Emmett. The girls should be here soon." I told him as I headed into the house only to be swept up into a hug by Esme. "Ma, I can barely breathe." I grunted out despite her fierce hold.
She just laughed and released me with a kiss on the cheek. "Hush, you, I've missed you. At least when you are at Bella's I know you are just right down the road not clear across the country. Where are my girls?" She asked as she looked around the living room and kitchen.
I laughed. "Sounds like you really missed me, Ma. They should be on their way, but they have no idea you guys are coming. It's a surprise. Where are Jasper and their parents?" I asked them quietly.
Esme rolled her eyes. "They had Jasper take them to their hotel so they could get changed from their long flight." She said sarcastically.
I laughed as Carlisle barely held in his snickers. "That sounds about like them from what I hear. Want a tour of the house?" I asked them.
They both nodded and that is what I did for the next twenty minutes or so until I heard Jasper's voice coming from the stairs. "Edward!" He growled out.
I quickly stepped out of mine and Bella's bedroom to find my brother standing there with his fists clenched and his jaw set in anger. "What's wrong, Jazz? Are they not coming?" I asked him.
"Those damn people grate on my last nerve. Claudia complained the entire time about the humidity and what it was going to do to her skin and hair. When I told them that it was going to be a pool party and bar-b-que I thought she was going to explode from instantaneous combustion." He said with a roll of his eyes.
I couldn't help but laugh at that image even though I didn't even know what their parents looked like. "Can I stay hidden up here until the girls get back?" I asked him as we walked into my bedroom where Esme was admiring the bedroom suit that she had commissioned for Bella and me and Carlisle was sitting on our roof giving Emmett grilling tips from afar.
"No you cannot. Plus, that's why I'm up here. Rose just texted Emmett and said they were about five minutes out and you need to meet your in-laws before someone kicks them out of our house for being idiots. Plus you need to help me protect them from Ma when she hears and sees how they treat those girls."
"Hmm… we should let her loose on them." I told him as we walked down the stairs with Esme calling Carlisle to come back in off the roof.
Jasper and I separated when he hit the ground floor. I headed for the front room and he headed for the backyard. I found who I assumed was Bella and Alice's mother standing in our music/play room eyeing the small shelf with both Blakely and Gavyn's sonogram pictures sitting atop with their name pieces sitting in front of their respective picture. The shelf contained both blue and purple wicker baskets with soft toys, extra blankets, things to change diapers, and a few change of clothes for both Gavyn and Blakely and sat in the corner opposite Big Bertha. "Mrs. Brandon?" I asked quietly as I stood in the doorway.
She whirled around to face me. "Who's having a kid?" She asked pointing to the baby stuff.
I smiled. "Bella and I have a little boy due in late May and our best friends and roommates, Emmett and Rosalie, are expecting a baby girl in late August." I told her with a huge smile on my face because I wasn't about to hide my son and I wasn't ashamed of him in the least. Yes, we were both young but at least we were taking responsibility for him.
"My Bella's pregnant?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
I shook my head. "No, but we are raising my son together when he is born. We plan for MY Bella to officially adopt him as soon as he is born." I told her of our future plans.
She sneered. "Your Bella? I've never even heard of you before. Why should my daughter be stuck raising your mistake?"
I tightened my features immediately at my son being called a mistake. Yes, he may have been a shock, a surprise, very unplanned, and made with the wrong woman, but he would NEVER be a mistake. "You will have to take that up with your daughter but if I were you I would refrain from calling OUR son a mistake because he is far from that. They should be here any minute if you would like to come outside to greet them and argue that point with a daughter you abandoned almost a year ago." I told her turning around on my heel heading out the backdoor to where my friends and parents were standing.
Carlisle immediately noticed something was off because I kept running my fingers through my hair nervously. "What's wrong, son?"
I shook my head as I heard our rented car pull into the driveway. "Not now, the girls are here. This is there day." I told him as I heard the girls chattering as they rounded the corner of the house.
"Oh, if that woman says something to ruin those girls' big day your mother is going to have a field day with her." He said as he noticed their mother standing inside the living room watching all the activity through the windows.
The look on Bella and Alice's face when they saw Carlisle and Esme was priceless as they launched themselves at them, Alice nearly knocking Esme back into the pool and Bella causing Carlisle to stumble back a few feet with her exuberance. "What are you guy's doing here?" Bella asked as they swapped parents.
"As if anything in this world could make me miss my daughters' big day. You only turn 18 once and next year you, sweet girl, will be a mommy on your birthday. You will see but it makes a difference." Esme said as she cupped Bella's face in her hands kissing her on the forehead as she swiped the tears from Bella's cheeks.
"YOUR daughters?" I heard from behind me and groaned as quietly as I could manage.