Final chapter everyone! Sorry if it seems too short and/or not enough detail or lemonstuff. I really wanted to keep it simple and sweet for these two crazy kids :) Another huge thanks to Sarita Dreaming for all the beta assistance and mega love to everyone who's reviewed and been super patient through the slow updating times. Very excited to hit the complete button on this one!
~Edward~
I don't think I ever took so much notice of my own ceiling 'til tonight. At the moment, though, I really didn't feel capable of much else. I assume, as far as ceilings go, ours is pretty standard issue. Even Alice and Esme, with all their hifalutin ideas about interior design, couldn't come up with too much to do there. Don't get me wrong, we've got some impressive chandeliers in the Cullen hut, but ceilings themselves are pretty much flat and white.
Lost in my own musings, I felt Bella shift beside me and turned to look at her. She seemed to be studying the ceiling with equal intensity.
"Hi."
She looked at me real quick and then back to the ceiling again before replying. "Hi."
Well, that was exactly five times now we'd had the same exact—conversation?—in the past ten minutes. On top of that, she'd shifted her left ankle once, her right pinky finger twice, and breathed in and out exactly 632 times. Her left eyebrow had one hair that was three millimeters longer than its neighbors, and it was waving in the slight breeze coming in through the open window.
Of course, none of this mattered: the ceiling, her eyebrow hair, how many times I'd watched her chest rise and fall—uhm, watched her breathe. What mattered was I was the world's biggest coward because I didn't have the balls to take this perfect girl lying next to me into my arms and show her exactly what the best thing about being a vampire was—well, best thing according to my sex addict siblings. I wouldn't know, now would I, unless I reached down and found a pair sometime in the next century.
"Edward?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we, like, I don't know, play video games or something? I'm starting to feel like an after-school special lying here like this."
I laughed. "We'd be prime time at least. Look how good that Buffy the Vampire Slayer crap did. And those vampires were ugly."
She giggled and I thanked the fates once again for giving me a girl who knew exactly how to make me relax.
I rolled onto my side. "What do you think of the bedroom? Esme and Alice went into hyper-vamp mode today turning it from a bachelor pad to a boudoir. At least, that's what Alice called it."
She lifted her upper body off the bed and propped herself on her forearms canted behind her. I loved how comfortable she looked in my bed as she turned her head this way and that, taking in the lace curtains, silky bed covering, and mauve walls.
"I dunno. I don't think it's us. How mad would they be if we painted the walls brown and pinned up tons of 80's hair band posters?"
I shuddered. "Ripping." Wait a second. "You like 80's music?"
She raised an eyebrow, the other one. "Are you kidding me? Bon Jovi? Def Leppard? Metallica? What's not to like? Living on a Prayer is so our song."
Her mouth opened, my mouth opened: "Ohhhhh, we're half-way there. Oh HOH, living on a prayer!"
Of course, hilarious laughter ensued. I heard Emmett shout up the stairs, "Dude, we are so getting out of here. You two pathetic dweebs have fun. Maybe by the time we all get back tomorrow, you'll have finally done the deed."
Doors slammed and they were gone. Bella and I each immediately flopped onto our backs again and resumed studying the ceiling. If only a bug would walk across it or something.
At least the family was all getting along again. It'd been pretty tense around here for a while after the whole James and Alice thing. But the way they acted, like it had never happened, put everyone at ease a lot quicker than I would have thought possible. Rose almost seemed put out at first, like she wanted to see some sort of soap-opera worthy fighting from the two of them. But I knew better than anyone how much Alice wasn't to blame for what happened and exactly how completely Jasper had forgiven and forgotten.
Suddenly, Bella gave a loud huff beside me and sat up. In one move, she whipped off her black Angry Birds t-shirt and threw it on the floor. My mouth dropped open in shock, and I slowly rose into a sitting position. Before I was completely upright, she'd yanked her yoga pants off, too, and tossed them straight out the window. She winced when a loud, "Woo hoo, baby! Take it all off!" came in response. Guess my family hadn't gotten very far yet.
Terrified she'd move to cover herself, I grabbed the nearest heavy thing I could find and tossed it. A large thunk followed by, "You, ass!" let me know I'd hit my target with the Magic 8 ball I'd stolen from Alice ten years ago.
"Get outta here, Emmett!" I yelled.
Bella's face was in her hands now, but the shaking of her shoulders and the odd little gagging inhales told me she was merely laughing herself to death. Waiting her out, I goggled her chest, figuring it was okay now that she'd so cavalierly revealed it to me. Well, kind of—, there was still the damn sports bra. Still enough quivering of the peaky-outy parts, though, to hold my interest.
When she finally moved her hands, her eyes were bright, and she had a big smile on her face. "So much for trying to be sexy around here. Geez, Cullen. No wonder you've never brought anyone home before."
I smiled at her and took her hands in my own. "You know damn well why I haven't brought anyone home, and it's not because of my turd siblings."
Exaggerating the movements, I looked her up and down with a confused look on my face, craning around to see behind her and lifting her arms up. "Now, how the heck does this thing come off?" I muttered, taking one hand and attempting to pull the bra down from the front while the straps were still on her shoulders.
Giggling, she did that cool thing girls do when they take something off over their head and whip their hair around. Yeah, I may be a vamp-virgin but that didn't mean I hadn't ever watched a movie with some frontal nudity. The bra landed next to the big, red bird on her shirt. I could've swore it was checking her out, too. My body made the appropriate response, and my lady love quickly found herself pinned to the bed with a very horny vampire lying between her legs. I lightly rested my chest on hers and gave her a kiss on the chin.
"Why is this so hard for us? It's not like we haven't been making out like fiends every chance we've gotten,." I said asked.
She scoffed. "Dude, making out in closets or on my couch ten minutes before my dad is due home isn't exactly the same. You and I both know we've deliberately stayed far away from any spot where we could actually take off all our clothes and go for it."
Yeah, she was right. I shrugged and then kissed her again, this time a much better kiss that involved lips and tongues and all that fun stuff. Yummy.
Well, suffice it to say that we were decidedly uninterrupted this time. Things were inserted into things exactly like how they were supposed to be, and we enjoyed the heck out of each other for the next, oh, five hours. Yeah, I'm the man—well, vamp-man anyway. And, wouldn't you know it? We went right back to staring at the ceiling as soon as we were done, this time with very odd smiles on our faces and her soft bum nestled deliciously against my, ah hem, a proper vampire never tells.
It's hard to believe it's only been a few months since the first day I met Bella. A high school cafeteria seems such a commonplace spot to begin one's life anew, but that's where it started. She was morose and terrified; I was bored and apathetic. Together, we're that annoyingly, blissfully happy couple everyone loves to hate.
Bella finished her change just fine. Thankfully, she never did develop the typical newborn tendency to kill every human in sight. Carlisle was relieved, Jasper's jealous, but I had pretty much known all along she was going to rock the whole vampire thing.
Bella and her dad got to spend a lot of time together really talking about things and getting to know each other as complete people, and not just two lost bodies missing their shared soul. The three of us went back to Rhode Island and paid our respects to Mrs. Swan. They showed me around, and I got to know Bella as she'd been before it all happened: a spunky little thing adored by her parents who adored them, and mischief making, in return.
Now, it's time for the Cullens to move on. Chief Swan was fine with it since he knew how happy she was and that there would be plenty of visits. We're on a plane now, heading up to Alaska to introduce Bella to our closest friends. Little does she know, this plane is taking just a slight detour to Disney Land.
