Bella listened to Edward's soft, steady breathing beside her in bed as he slept and she stared at the shadows on the ceiling. She had no doubt that the only reason Edward was able to sleep was due to pure exhaustion on his part. For the past two months since their picture had made it to the magazine section of the Washington Post they had become regular fixtures in the gossip pages across the country and very visible parts of both Senators Volutri and Cullen's campaigns.
In those two months, Aro had kept Edward on a tight leash and she could see that the stress was starting to affect him. He didn't sleep well anymore. Whenever they were both in Washington at the same time they spent the night together, but more often than not she would wake up in the middle of the night only to find the bed empty beside her. If she got up to look for him, she would find him standing by the window, staring out at the city, obviously lost in his thoughts. At first she had pleaded with him to come back to bed. She stopped trying when she realized he would always tell her than he would be there in just a minute and then take his time coming back so she would fall asleep waiting.
Tonight, it was her turn to lie restless in the night. To say that things had been hectic over the last two months would have been an understatement. She'd been traveling a lot with Senator Cullen's campaign, which was now in full swing. There were speeches in front of farmers in the Midwest, fundraisers on the west coast, and media appearances in the east. And, while she was getting tired of living out of a suitcase, she was happy to have Edward to come home to whenever he happened to be in Washington at the same time she was.
The Volturi campaign was also in full swing. Less than a week after the paper debacle, Senator Volturi had announced that he was also seeking the party's nomination for President of the United States. Edward had been stressed, but then he had also been grateful that the announcement had taken some of the heat off of him and Bella. But, that didn't mean that the media still wasn't interested in their relationship. Not by a long shot.
Neither Edward nor Bella spoke about it, but neither Senator was happy about how their relationship had become public knowledge. Though they did damage control, Victora's vitriol had done its damage. They were openly dating now and their picture was a regular fixture in magazines across the country, but people still couldn't help but speculate about how their love life was affecting their jobs.
Sighing, Bella got up and left Edward sleeping soundly as she made her way to his kitchen. She spent more time at his place than she did at her and Alice's. Of course, Alice was now spending more time in California, and Bella just usually went straight to Edward's whenever she was in town. She actually hadn't seen the inside of her apartment in close to three weeks.
After getting a glass of water, Bella made her way to the living room and booted up her laptop, once again working on the speech that Senator Cullen would be giving at the party dinner they were having in just two days. Both Senator Cullen and Senator Volturi would be speaking at the engagement and whatever they had to say would go a long way in helping one of them take the lead in securing the party's nomination. She had been working on the speech for weeks along with some help from other staffers, but for the most part it was her baby. Both Jasper and Senator Cullen had looked it over and were impressed with her work. Carlisle had even joked about saving the speech for his inauguration just because it was that good.
As she continued to put the finishing touches on the speech, the sun started to rise, lighting up the sky in brilliant pastel hues, but she didn't notice. She only looked up from her laptop when Edward came up behind her and kissed the nap of her neck before inhaling her scent with a deep breath.
"Morning, darling," he said in a sleepy voice before he kissed her neck again and made his way towards the kitchen. "Coffee?" he asked.
"That would be great," she said, looking over her shoulder at him. She couldn't help but smile as he stumbled towards the kitchen. He looked adorable in his sleep pants with the crisscrossing marks from the wrinkled bedsheets imprinted on the skin of his back.
As he moved around the kitchen, he yawned. "How long have you been up?"
She shrugged and looked back to her laptop to print her work using his printer. Senator Cullen, ever old fashioned, preferred to edit off of hard copies. "A while. I just couldn't sleep."
He chuckled and moved to sit next to her on the expansive dining room table where they had set up two separate workstations of sort at opposite ends of the table, papers, articles, and manila folders strewn about her end in disarray while his was end was made up of neat and tidy piles. Setting her coffee next to her he shook he head. "I thought I was the one suffering from insomnia."
She smiled and let out a satisfied sigh after sipping at the coffee. "I just have a lot on my mind," she said, "Don't worry about it."
He chuckled and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "That's my usual excuse." After taking a gulp of his coffee he started to get up. "You want some breakfast? You don't have to go into the office today do you?"
She smiled. "Breakfast would be great. And, nope, don't have to go in. Just have to drop off something at the Senator's house by tonight."
"Good," he called back as he started to rummage through the fridge. "I'm glad we're both in town till this dinner thing. Gives us some time to spend together." He walked away from the fridge, his arms filled with various items to make omelets, "It'll be nice to just be together instead of worry about one of us having to go off to God-knows-where. We at least…," before he could say anything else the buzzer on the intercom went off and he arched a brow and looked at her, "You expecting someone."
She shook her head and had to keep from chuckling. Despite the fact that he had told her several times that she should move in and consider this her home, she wasn't at the point of inviting anyone over yet without telling him first.
Answering the intercom attached to the buzzard, he simply said, "Yes."
A young voice answered, "Uh. Hey…Edward? It's Alec."
Edward looked surprised. "Hey, Alec." Bella gave Edward a questioning look, but he just shrugged, obviously not knowing what this was about. "I'll buzz you in. Come on up."
Edward pressed the button to let Alec in the building. By now, Edward had told Bella that he was close to Senator Volturi's teenage son and had hinted at all the problems the kid had.
Bella smiled at him and just winked. He already knew that Bella wouldn't say anything about Alec or his problems and she had actually expressed an interest in meeting the kid. Now was her chance.
"Bella, dearest, perhaps you'd, uh, like to get dressed?" Edward stated after looking her over. He loved the way she looked in nothing but his sleep shirt, but he didn't need a horny teenager getting an eyeful.
Looking down at herself, Bella blushed and laughed. "You're probably right. I'll take a quick shower and change. It'll give you and Alec a chance to talk." She got up from her seat and kissed Edward before turning towards the bedroom. "Don't let him leave without my meeting him!" she called out over her shoulder.