The turn off for the driveway was really hidden. Bella almost thought they were swerving off the road for a moment, until she saw the branches hanging down were framing an opening that lead to a dirt path. "The entrance to the Batcave is probably easier to find." She muttered and then had to grimace as Emmett's laugh was too loud for the enclosed Jeep. They were going much slower, but they moved further and further into the woods. "Damn, you really hate neighbors, don't you?" Bella muttered as the driveway went on for what must be miles. It made sense for the Cullens to live far away from others, but she'd never seen a house so far away from the street before.

"We're almost there." Emmett told her, even as they took one last turn and a house was revealed.

"Nice." Bella muttered as the house came into view. It had an inviting covered porch, deep enough to sit on even in the rain and stay dry. That was important in a place like Forks, no point in a porch if it didn't protect from the rain. It was three stories tall, and seemed big, but then they had a lot of people living in it. "I wish I had a porch." She found herself saying.

Emmett just chuckled at her. They pulled up alongside the house and without the house in the way she could see there was a second building there, a garage. It made sense, knowing their love of cars. Emmett just parked on the side of the house and left his Jeep out though. "Come on, Esme's dying to hear how your day was." Emmett told her and Bella noticed Rosalie give her an amused look, before Rosalie slid out of the Jeep. Bella opened her door, and before she could make the short hop it took to get out of the Jeep, Emmett was there to help her down. His hands dwarfed hers, and his arms were huge. She knew she weighed nothing to him, but still felt odd about his picking her up by the waist and putting her down on the ground safely.

"Thanks." She gave him a small smile, but let go of his arms as soon as she was down, and took a step back away from him. His vampire scent clung to her a little. The traitorous blush was back and she looked at the house, while hoping it would go away.

"Well, let's head in." Rosalie spoke, and Bella found her giving Bella a small smile and pointing toward the front of the house.

Bella's eyes took in the lightly furniture porch eagerly. She noticed the house was an older style, so when Emmett opened the door and she followed him in she stopped just passed the entry way. "Oh, open concept. Sweet." She took in a large living space, one that older houses never had. The flooring was all a rather light color, mostly wood, and it made the room seem even more spacious. The furniture was perfect, modern, clean lines, everything she'd ever wanted. She glanced around at the ceiling, and noticed the beams. It had been remodeled, there used to be walls. The most striking thing about the huge room though, for Bella was the entire wall of windows on the back side of the room. "Oh," She took a step towards it, taking in the amazing view.

A light feminine laughing tore her eyes away from the window and Bella turned her head to see Esme watching her, standing in front of a piano. "I guess you like it." Her smile was radiant, something Bella could have done without since she was already embarrassed about not even seeing her there. She didn't need to look like a movie star, because that made it all the sadder that she'd been overlooked to begin with in Bella's excitement of seeing the perfect room.

"I think she drooled a little." Emmett spoke up and Bella turned to give him a playful glare.

"I'm giving you a tour." Esme spoke up and Emmett started to groan. Bella noticed that Esme's eyes turned to stare into his, and there was a bit of a challenge in them. "Come along Bella. I know you'll appreciate all my hard work." And that one guilt trip was all it took for Emmett to not insist that Bella sit down and play video games immediately.

Vampires were fighting over her time. It felt kinda good. She couldn't remember a time when she'd ever been tugged around like this. "I'll kick your butt soon enough, get a soft pillow, you'll need it when I'm done." Bella boasted, but she knew she was going to be losing a lot of video games today.

"Ohh," A voice from the stairs called down and Bella glanced up to see Jasper giving Emmett a teasing look. "Did you teach her to trash talk?" He looked at her. "Hi, Ma'am. I'm Jasper."

"Nice to meet you Jasper, I'm Bella." She gave him a small smile, but noticed he preferred to say hello from way up on the top of the stairs. She didn't make her way over to him, in case there was a reason for that.

"Alice is all excited about that shopping challenge you gave her. She'd be out to say hello, but she's researching on the internet for the trip." He grinned and Bella sighed. She shook her head and Esme lead her away to see the rest of the downstairs as Jasper headed back to wherever he came from.

"Actually I told Alice that you came here today as Emmett's friend, and she couldn't steal you because he'd been waiting weeks for you." Esme told Bella quietly, as if it was just the two of them hearing it.

"And then you stole me the minute I was in the door?" Bella gave the brunette vampire a raised eyebrow, and she got a mischievous grin in return.

"I knew you'd want to see the place. I didn't know you'd be so enraptured of it you wouldn't see anyone standing in the room." Esme teased her and Bella sighed heavily. "Once I saw that I knew the tour had to come first."

"You did an amazing job. Did you get it open concept or did you remodel it yourself? Did you put the windows in yourself or did you find it this way?" Bella asked, her words coming faster than normal and Esme seemed to love answering her questions, but they stopped in front of a doorway hidden behind the massive staircase. Esme pushed it opened and Bella stepped into a large, lightfilled kitchen. It looked like a kitchen any serious cook would drool over and Bella knew it was never used. Still she took a few steps in and looked at the breakfast nook, which had an entire wall of windows, and she took in the layout and the cabinets and countertops. "Oh, this is nice." She whispered, as she resisted the urge to open the impressive doors on the fridge, because there might not be anything in there.

"You are definitely an unusual teenager Bella." Esme told her and pulled Bella out of her petting the stone countertops. They were so smooth. Bella had never had anything better than laminate.

"You have no idea." Bella gave Esme a smile and focused her attention on the fact she could smell cooking, in fact she could smell cookies. That was so sweet, she knew vampires didn't like the smell of food and Esme made that for her.

"Would you like some cookies? I made some today." Esme offered and then pulled out a dish of them.

"Oh they smell good." Bella reached out and grabbed two warm cookies. She managed to pretend to not see the hint of a wince as she bit into it. "You are a domestic goddess." Bella reassured Esme and found the woman seem to relax again. The word goddess made Bella feel a little awkward, she probably shouldn't use that word around here, it was too easy to stick her foot in her mouth if she started using that word.

"You can bring those. I want to show you a few more rooms, and my office." Esme led her to the large stairway again, and this time they went up it.

The first room on the left they ran across had an opened door. "This is Rosalie's room." Esme told her and Rosalie was in it. The blonde vampire gave her a small smile, as she looked up from her bed, which she appeared to be sitting on doing homework. It looked a little staged, actually.

The room itself was nice, a little more traditional than the first floor, so that was probably her or Emmett's style. They were lying, because Emmett shared this room and Bella knew it, but she also knew that if they were really seventeen, as they claimed to be, that would be a huge no-no for the parents to even allow that.

Bella ran her eyes over the room quickly, but she was searching for something to say. "If you open the window, you can hear the river from here, can't you?" Bella looked passed Rosalie to the large window her room had as well. A soft smile crossed Bella's lips at the thought of listening to the water while trying to sleep, but then Rosalie didn't sleep, so she didn't say anything about that.

Rosalie had a small mysterious smile for just a moment, "Yes, I can." She said and Bella found herself blushing at the blonde again. She moved her eyes off of Rosalie and back to her room again, fully aware that Esme was watching them too. "Are you really challenging Alice to a shopping contest?"

Rosalie's words had Bella looking back at her and away from the stack of magazines on her dresser. "I didn't call it a contest." Bella frowned at the idea of challenging Alice to any type of shopping contest. "Maybe we should buy the comfortable shoes first." Bella mused, and heard Emmett laughing from downstairs.

"She cheats you know." Rosalie added. "You might want to bring a referee."

"I do not Cheat!" Alice yelled out and Bella glanced at the doorway. The small vampire wasn't standing there, she sounded like she was still in her and Jasper's room.

"Thin walls." Esme muttered to cover up Alice's mistake. She shouldn't have heard any of their conversation. Of course Emmett could claim he wasn't laughing at her, but something on the TV, but Alice really screwed up. Perhaps since Bella was determined to ignore everything, Alice's visions weren't helping her out too much.

"I heard they have a spray foam that you can use on that." Bella went with the excuse. "I spend every morning at Charlie's dreaming of the stuff, because I share a wall with the only bathroom." He was trying to be quiet, but there wasn't much you could do with a bathroom. Still, it made it seem like she believed the lie, hopefully.

"I'll look into that." Esme spoke up a little too quickly. "As for Alice, I'm sure she won't cheat Rosalie."

"I don't know how she could, unless she hides receipts." Bella added, knowing there were ways for a psychic vampire to cheat. "It doesn't really matter though. I'm not as competitive as you seem to think. I didn't call it a contest, she did. If she wants to kill herself trying to beat me she can do it. I just want to get some clothes."

"Okay, just don't ever bet against her on anything. She finds ways to always win." Rosalie added and Esme, for once, just nodded. Bella liked to imagine that was so Alice wouldn't hear her agreeing.

"It's got to be her eyes." Bella nodded like she had figured it out. "She has puppy dog eyes."

Rosalie chuckled, "Yeah, that's got to be it."

"Okay," Esme ushered Bella out of Rosalie's room gently, and they moved across the hall. "This is Carlisle's office." Esme didn't open the door. His being a doctor was reason enough to not go in there, but Bella wondered if there was another.

They moved on to what Bella was told was "Alice's" room. Alice had her door opened as well and was sitting at what was clearly her makeup table, but she had a laptop in front of her. "I'm looking at sales." She seemed to make a grimace at that.

"Before we go, I'll show you what I have already." Bella told her, thinking that it would make it easier for Alice to help her shop.

"You don't have much at all do you?" Alice said after a moment of slightly odd silence.

"Alice." Esme scolded, and Bella smirked at the two vampires. Was Esme even older than Alice? It was probably a close call.

"Oh, you are not going to last shopping with me, if that's your attitude missy." Bella teased and shook her head. "Don't worry, no one ever does."

"Well, we'll see." Alice teased back, pretending a gauntlet had been tossed. Alice's body relaxed from its fake tense pose and she smiled. "I have spare art supplies here." Alice pointed to a dresser in the corner, but the supplies must be inside it. "I could probably find everything you need to start that portfolio that we're working on now."

"Oh, you two have a class together?" Esme asked and she seemed pleased.

"We have two classes together." Bella added and noticed Esme nodding in approval.

"And Bella is in Biology with Emmett and Rosalie." Alice added.

Bella and Alice talked briefly about her day, and then Alice was standing up and close again. Bella blinked as the little vampire undid the tied on scarf gently. "Before I forget." Alice muttered, her eyes focused intently on her work. Alice gently placed the scarf on her bed and smiled at her.

Esme continued the tour and seemed to be very pleased with the next room she was going to show her. "This is my office." Esme told her and opened the door. Before they could step inside, Emmett was at the top of the stairs.

"Remember, you came to play games with me." Emmett told Bella and glanced at the door. "You can sit around in Esme's office talking about carpet some other time."

"I'm just doing a tour today Emmett." Esme told him a little firmly, but when Bella's eyes drifted into the office she saw sample books and bookshelves with catalogs. She could see tile samples, and carpet samples. There was a paint color sample booklet on the table near the window, spread out as if Esme had been picking colors recently.

"She's drooling again." Emmett muttered and Bella found herself blushing. "It's like when Rose sees a new car with the hood up."

"If you'd like you could come over sometime this week and we can find that green color you wanted to paint your room." Esme spoke gently and Bella looked back over at her with a smile. They could design her bedroom here, Esme had everything. Bella could take the design and get things over the next few months as she could afford them, or even find some things on sale. Esme smiled at her reaction and rested hand on her shoulder for a moment. "We're just going to take a peek at my office Emmett, and then I'll give her back."

"You better give her back. I've got the cookies out and the game up and ready to go." He seemed to pout a little and Bella gave him an apologetic look, but she wanted into Esme's interior design office. She followed the brunette female into her lair happily, thinking about how she'd wished she'd had access to a place like this when she was buying her house, or trying to buy her house.

"Have you ever heard of a dresser desk?" Bella asked as she glanced over the catalogues.

"I can't say I have." Esme looked intrigued, so even though Emmett was waiting, increasingly impatiently, Bella explained.

"I saw it on HGTV. They took the top off a dresser, put one inside the casing of the body, and put a slide out shelf down, before putting the dresser top back." She grinned. "So right under the top of the dresser is a shelf that you pull out, just as wide as the top, and it can be used as a desk. I was thinking I need make something like that for my room. I don't have a lot of space, I need to make it work."

"Are you good with tools?" Esme asked her and Bella sighed.

"Not that good, and I don't know what Charlie has, but I'm going to try once I find a dresser that will work." She was determined to make something of her room, since she couldn't make something of a house.

"Let me know what you're looking for. Sometimes I run into deals." Esme offered and Bella was inclined to accept. She needed to look at the catalogues to show Esme what she was thinking, but Emmett had been waiting. "I'd love to see what you're thinking of, maybe I could help. I need a new project."

Bella smiled at her, feeling eager and happy. She'd never actually met an interior designer before, she'd always just did her best to take care of it herself, and to have Esme offer her help was amazing. The tour ended there, and Bella pretended to not notice they didn't see the third floor because Emmett wanted her, but she was sure there were other reasons. Hopefully Edward wasn't actually home.

Emmett was sitting on the floor by the tv, controller in hand, sighing heavily, when she got back to the main floor. "Now that all the females are done trying to steal you away, can we play?"

"Rosalie didn't try to steal me." Bella muttered, as she moved to sit down in front of the other laid out controller.

Emmett's smirk was wicked, "Why, did you want her too?"

"Ass." Was all she could say, her blush shaming her again. Apparently she hadn't hidden any of her responses to Rosalie. Luckily Emmett didn't seem anything but amused.

Mentally she begged him not to say anything else, because she knew everyone was listening. He just gave her a soft smile and started up the game. For a moment Bella thought she was off the hook. "Don't forget my mom's married." Emmett muttered just as the game was starting and Bella found her character killed by the first thing that came along.

"Restart." She growled at him, making him laugh.

He did restart the game, but right before it was going to start he opened his mouth again. "Don't go asking my sister to pose naked for your portfolio."

This time Bella managed to still dodge the enemy in the game, but she didn't manage to not blush. "I heard that men with big cars and big muscles were trying to compensate for something." She shot back verbally, while trying to figure out how to shoot at the enemy on the screen.

"Was that a request to see it?" Emmett asked.

"Does your father have a microscope here?" Bella asked him just as casually.

This time there was no missing the feminine chuckle and Bella glanced to the side to see Rosalie standing in the entryway watching them. There was a blast from the television and Bella looked back at the screen to see pieces of her character all over the terrain.

"Oh that's rich, Rose you have to stay and watch us play." Emmett gave Bella an evil grin and Bella sighed heavily and shook her head.

"Bella, my man is perfectly proportioned." Rosalie told her as Bella's character came back to life.

"I only have your word on that." Bella teased, but she kept her eyes off of Rosalie and on the tv screen. She could hear Rosalie settling down on the couch behind them though, and she soon heard the flipping of pages.

"I'm not going to let Emmett be the first man you see, you'd never fully appreciate him that way." Rosalie teased her just as a battle started on the screen and Bella found herself scrambling to try and get to safety as she was startled by the cheating.

"Assuming a lot aren't you?" Bella muttered as she shot at the hordes rushing toward her character.

"Have you seen a man, Bella?" Rosalie's teasing voice was gone and it was a little harsh, a little concerned. The magazine sounded like it was wrinkled in that moment. Bella frowned and wished she could turn around for a moment to see Rosalie's expression.

She couldn't really admit to having seen much, because she was sixteen now and it was when she was older. She had never even imagined seeing as much dick as she did at her one and only college party, where when she wasn't looking it turned into an impromptu male revue, and she heard later, because she left, a bit of an orgy. Apparently the men did not lose the bet after all. "I did have the internet." She tried to play it offhand, and smiled a little, but she didn't miss that Emmett glanced sideways at her. "I miss it so." She grinned evilly at him.

"Don't be in too much of a hurry to grow up Bella." Rosalie spoke quietly and Bella said nothing in return. There was a lot more to those words than a teenager would hear, and she didn't want to shrug them off. Rosalie was concerned, and it was touching. She knew what Rosalie meant, but as she really was a born again virgin, she shouldn't know.

After a moment, Bella did whisper. "I'm not dating this year at all." It was her reassurance to Charlie. She could hear Rosalie settle back into the couch and pick up another magazine.

"Good."

Emmett spoke up, of course. "You'll have to work on that resolution Bella Bear, because you have a bit of a following at school already."

"Nothing tempting though." She made a bit of a face, and Emmett laughed.

They slowly got into a comfortable groove and Bella was learning to play the game. It slowly became possible to not be too distracted by the fact that Rosalie was watching and making comments about her magazine once in a while.

A sound of disgust reached her from behind her and to the side of her and Bella was a bit confused, but when ten minutes later she started to smell dinner cooking she realized she was up for a performance just as much as they were. Blind and stupid, she reminded herself, as she played on with the game.

"Bella, you did tell Charlie you were staying for dinner didn't you?" Esme asked as they reached another level, so there was time to look away from the tv.

"Emmett told me I better." She smiled at the woman. "It smells great too. Did you need help?" She put the controller down and wiggled her fingers a little. This was too much gaming all at once.

"Oh, I've got it." Esme told her. "It won't be much longer."

"Great, I'm starving." Emmett managed to say, but if you were listening you could hear some sarcasm.

Bella excused herself to go to the bathroom before the game could get going again. She did notice a few eyes watching her hands as she tried to stretch them out as she walked away.

Dinner was around the dining room table. Esme had made enough to put food on everyone's plate. Carlisle was missing the production because he was working late, but they placed Bella in the middle of the table. Five minutes into dinner, Bella understood why, and worked to help their scheme work.

Alice sat at one side of the table and Esme on the other. It turned out to be strategic, because when Bella looked over to talk to Alice, when Alice started a conversation, the vampires she wasn't facing spent time hiding food. After a few moments Esme would break into the discussion and then the other side of the table was hiding food. Others worked their way into that scheme, to keep things moving, even Jasper.

Bella gave all of her attention to the people talking, absolutely all of it, but she also kept eating, so that it wouldn't be dragged out too long. Poor Esme wasn't probably as used to pretending to eat as the others.

"You seem happy." Jasper said at one point near the end of the meal.

"This is nothing like the dinners I have with Charlie or Renee. I like it." Bella managed with a straight face, but she knew her amusement was easy for him to read. She should probably give him something to think it was. "Renee spends meals talking about when I was little, and I get bored of that fast. Charlie talks for maybe three sentences and then it's all about the food." She shrugged. "This is nice." A few vampires smiled at her when she said that, and Bella focused on her food for a little bit to try and catch up to those who had hidden their food faster than others.

….