I wish you all a happy Easter. There is another chapter for this!
Chapter 73
Zoey
Bella
I didn't really know what was going on.
Jake was on the way, that much I understood. Edward had stopped mid-sentence to list all the things that could happen.
I thought it was kind of cute how he was worried about Jake, but Jake wasn't a little kid anymore. He had a mind of his own. It wouldn't have mattered what I said earlier, Jake would have walked himself either way.
They had mentally exchanged thoughts about what had happened in the woods and what Seth's intentions had been. So far, I had been able to follow the one-sided conversation. Then the conversation as such seemed to be over, still Edward remained sitting in front of Leah. He probably eavesdropped very devoutly on her thoughts. Watching his face in the process didn't help me much in figuring out what was going on between the two of them - or should I say the three of them.
I just stood there and angrily put my hands on my hips.
"Sucks when he does that!" Emmett confirmed my mood just as angerly.
I nodded doggedly, but my angel seemed to be busy elsewhere at the moment.
It began almost distorted with pain, so I sat down with him. He pulled me close to him. Then he appeared surprised, until towards the end he had a more and more loving expression.
Leah left the room and came back dressed shortly after.
"Boys always take a little longer to do that!" chuckled Leah gleefully.
"It seems so," Edward said, smiling, touched.
It's all Greek to me.
"For what?" I therefore asked.
Edward pulled me sideways onto his lap and hugged me, but he said nothing.
Then when Jake and Becky arrived, I was even more confused.
Jake and Edward embraced each other in a very intimate manner.
"So, how's Billy doing then?" asked Jake with amusement after the two had disengaged from each other.
"Raging with enthusiasm!" interjected Emmett, grinning.
"He refuses to leave Seth's side," Rose added.
"And you're going to Carlisle's right now!" Edward now sternly threatened Jake, directing him the way.
Jake took Becky by the hand and shuffled through the door a little guiltily. The others followed the two.
"You exaggerate!" I stated, chuckling, after we were alone. To me - a non-medical professional and sometimes perhaps overly concerned mother - Jake looked perfectly healthy, while HE was starting to act like a mother hen.
"I don't care!" Edward stated and took me in his arms.
"What happened between you earlier?" I asked, looking into his dreamlike eyes. I had to concentrate not to forget my own question.
"I just got a son," he said meaningfully, telling me what had happened.
That Jake had seen his biological father and now accepted Edward as his real father. Leah had already been aware of this feeling for Edward for some time.
I was moved.
We were a family! Only one little thing was still missing ...
"Has Alice told you when you will finally be mine?" I asked.
"No. She shrouds herself in silence. Mentally, too! ... Has she told you anything?"
I shook my head.
"However long it will be before I put your wedding ring on the finger, I love you and I'm yours! Forever!", Edward whispered lovingly and kissed me.
My God! I just could not get enough of his kisses. Those cold and soulful lips danced over my mouth and intoxicated me. My pulse quickened and my blood slowly bubbled up as Edward ended our kiss way too quickly.
He smiled indulgently at me and waited for my heart to calm down.
"This is never going to stop!" I whispered, clinging to him and reminding that I had to keep breathing.
"I should hope so!" Edward chuckled and continued kissing me as he carried me to the sofa.
I sat on his lap, my hands caressing his neck. His lips slid tenderly over my skin and his hands seemed to be everywhere. It felt like only a few moments when the door opened.
"Wait ... I found her," Leah said, entering the room with my cell phone. "Zoey," she handed me the phone.
I swallowed and stared at the device indecisively for a moment.
Zoey was the last person I had to talk to about Edward and whose opinion I was really interested in. Her sister-in-law had broken her foot in a complicated way and she had flown to her and her brother to help the family a bit. So, I hadn't been able to talk to her yet.
"Hey, Zoey. Are you back already?" I asked endeavoring to sound cheerful. In truth, I was pretty scared.
"Hi, Bells. Yes, since this morning. Are you home, I'll come by. In a good half hour, I would be there. I'm still with my parents," she briefly enlightened me.
"With your parents? ..."
I pondered.
Her parents didn't live far from here at all. Just a few miles from the main gate. Was there any way I could get around her wanting to see me today? Did I need more excitement today? But it was Zoey after all. I wouldn't be able to stop her from driving to my place. No matter where I was.
Edward and Leah exchanged an explanatory look.
"Invite her over," Edward whispered to me, who had probably seen where Zoey's parents lived in Leah's thoughts.
Damn.
I gathered all my courage together at once.
"How convenient. No, I'm not at home. I'm at my fiancé's," I immediately spoke plainly before I no longer dared to.
"What? Engaged? I was only gone for a week and a half! Bella? What happened? Did you fall on your head? Are you on drugs? Joined a cult?" she screamed so loudly that I held the phone away but still understood every word.
Edward and Leah chuckled to themselves.
"Listen. He doesn't live far from your parents. I can't really leave here right now, but I could send Leah over to show you the way," I said, and Leah was already nodding.
Zoey agreed and Leah took the Audi instead of walking.
The constant dressing and undressing was getting on her nerves.
"Seth's waking up," Edward said after I hung up, considering if there was any way I could duck out of it. I might accidentally fall down the stairs. Get lost in the house.
But that's how we went to Seth.
Apart from Carlisle - who was putting Jake through his paces - and Esmé, who was scurrying around the house all the time, only Jasper was there.
He stood patiently in the hallway and endeavored to ensure that Billy, fueled by his feelings, did not set the house on fire out of sheer disgust. With all the vampires in it of course! All the other vampires had yielded to Billy's wrath and were out of sight for the time being.
Edward walked with me into the small guest room where Seth was lying in bed.
Emily was sitting with him and Billy had also finally stopped ranting. Probably only pausing his cursing and would continue as soon as he saw that Seth was definitely recovered.
Seth still appeared weak, but otherwise looked good. Not as pale as before.
Edward said it was just the side effects from the anesthesia, which he would recover from quickly.
Quite quickly even, Edward then paused
Seth had opened his eyes, blinked a few times, smiled at Emily, and immediately straightened up.
Wow ... That was fast. Even Jake had sat up more hesitantly and carefully than he had.
"Where are the two of them?" he asked immediately, looking in our direction.
"Relax, Seth. Jake and Leah are fine and they're not mad at you either," Edward said quickly.
Seth let himself fall back into bed and breathed deeply once in and out in relief.
Edward tried to walk toward Seth, but Billy rolled into his path.
Seth noticed it.
"Billy?" he asked, uncomprehending.
"I'm not letting any of those goddamn parasites get to you!" declared Billy adamantly.
He would probably like to growl at Edward, but he was only human after all.
Seth looked at Emily, who just gestured to him that Billy was just being stubborn.
I caught myself chuckling, which of course caused Edward to look at me in confusion.
"How many times today has he already wished he was part of the pack himself?" I asked him in a whisper. Actually, it was not funny, because he would probably have this wish only to kill MY vampires.
Edward smiled mischievously, however.
"Very often!" he indicated and gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead.
Seth had also understood me with his wolf hearing and visibly as well suppressed a chuckle. He sat up again after overcoming his smirk.
"Forget it, Billy. Your reservations about this family are baseless," Seth said in a firm voice.
Billy's face changed abruptly. As if struck by lightning. He had probably just lost his last ally.
In disbelief, he turned to Seth, who immediately continued speaking.
"I've seen it, Billy. Jake and Leah have shown me everything that has happened here since they left La Push. Vampires are our enemies. That will not change, nor will the pack's mission. But this family is not one of them. I have seen how this family deals with each other and they try to make only the best of this life that they can. And I call them family deliberately! Because they are nothing else! ... You are under the protection of the treaty but I would even go so far as to say that this treaty has become meaningless anyway. They are the friends of the wolves! ... And if you have a problem with that, please take it up with the new chiefs of the Quileute!" said Seth emphatically and Billy was silent for some time.
"Chiefs?" Billy then asked, confused.
"Yes. Chiefs! ... Leah and Jake took back their entitlement from me together ... They stripped me of my command and separated from the previous pack, that is, from me. I was their enemy. They could no longer hear my thoughts. That's the only reason it all went so wrong. If Edward hadn't been there, they would have killed me," Seth explained further.
There was an occupied silence on all sides while Billy rolled over to the window with his back to us, snorting. He also didn't turn around when Jake, Becky, and Carlisle entered the room.
"Hello Seth. I'm Carlisle. You gave me quite a scare," Carlisle introduced himself and the two shook hands as if they were normal people.
And as if it was about something like a harmless appendectomy.
"Your friend is here," Edward whispered to me.
A little startled, I turned to him.
Damn, the time had passed quickly.
He pulled me reassuringly into his arms and breathed a kiss on my temple.
"Do you want me to come with you or do you want to talk to her alone first?" he asked.
"I'll call you if I need you," I replied, getting another overwhelming kiss to give me courage.
Then I went downstairs, hugged my best friend, and went with her into the huge eat-in kitchen to avoid the vampires as much as possible for now.
Somewhere in this house there were always scattered vampires during the day, except now in the kitchen of course.
Esmé was fantastic. All the cupboards were filled as in any other household and something was just in the oven.
Well, my two predators were rarely not hungry.
I made us some coffee and we chatted until I finally had to come out with it.
"This house is terrific! Is it your boyfriend's?" Zoey asked, looking around.
So now we have arrived at the important topic.
I got nervous and chewed on my lower lip.
"No. His parents," I explained. "Edward's house is that one in the back. A nice cozy little cottage to feel at home in," I pointed through the window facade as we sat at the kitchen counter.
"And that one on the right?"
"On the left is the same again ... Those belong to his siblings."
"Seems like a very harmonious family when they all live so close together," Zoey chuckled.
Yes, there was a reason why her brother lived so far away. The two were always very even-tempered and affectionate with each other, but that only lasted for a maximum of two days. They needed the distance from each other. The sibling love worked very well as long as they saw each other only on holidays and otherwise only talked on the phone.
"Yes, they are. Right now, they're all here in the house, too." Up to this point, the conversation was still easy, I thought to myself.
"Well, finally come out with it, Bella. I've only been gone a week and a half and you're already engaged? You're not usually so ... I'll call it erratic."
"It's a little complicated!"
"How complicated can it already be, considering this very short time?" she grinned at me, laughing mischievously.
"Edward is quite young. At least that's what he looks like," I said so.
Zoey sipped on her coffee and just looked at me.
I had no idea what was going on in her head, but she didn't appear as shocked as I would have expected. Oh Bella, so far you haven't really said anything yet either!
"Edward sounds a little old-fashioned, don't you think," she joked.
That's why she was my best female friend. She noticed how I felt, even if I tried to control my emotions. And she had almost the same talent as Angela. She was curious, but didn't immediately summon all the information at once - as Alice did, for example - but gave me the choice and the time to tell it when I was ready. And until that happened, she liked to state harmless things to distract me. Only this observation was not quite as harmless as she thought.
"As old-fashioned as he is at heart, too. He seems to come from a different time and is much more grown up than he appears to be," I began to say as Esmé entered the kitchen.
"Excuse me. I don't want to disturb you, but they're hungry up there," Esmé explained and fetched some food from the oven for the wolves.
She greeted Zoey warmly and they briefly made some small talk while she filled some plates lavishly with baked ziti and asked us to help ourselves.
She always made much more than even the wolves could eat. And for a vampire, she cooked pretty well.
Then she left us alone again.
"Nice person ... His sister?" asked Zoey, sounding quite casual.
I took a deep breath.
"No ... his mother," I looked her in the eyes and tensed up for her reaction.
She nodded unconsciously at first and then seemed to start calculating in her head. Her eyes widened a little.
"As I said, Edward is still pretty young," I helped her sort out the numbers in her head a little.
"If Esmé is our age, which I think I'm already reaching pretty high with, then your Edward can be at most as old as your children ... You said that's how he looks, at least ... What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked more concretely, however.
I had discussed it with Edward. I wanted to tell her partly the truth. About as much as Sonya also knew. Because I would not be able to lie to Zoey.
"That's the complicated thing at it. Edward looks like a teenager ... but he's actually even older than me."
"What does 'actually' mean?"
"It's best if you form your own picture of it," I said, and not twenty seconds later Edward appeared.
Zoey's mouth dropped open when she saw my angel.
I smirked.
Edward introduced himself in a very polite and overly friendly manner before standing behind me and putting an arm around me.
It took a moment for Zoey to regain her speech. She swallowed.
"How did you get to know each other?" she asked, seemingly reassuring herself.
"Do you want the official version? ... Or would you rather have the truth?" I asked.
"Start with the official one. Then we'll see," she urged.
So, Edward began to tell what we told to all those who were absolutely not allowed to know about the supernatural world. So, except for Zoey and those who were already initiated - David and Brandon - the rest of the world:
Edward went to school normally and had learned that Jake and Leah were extremely good at science, which, on the other hand, was his weakest subject. So, he asked both of them for tutoring, who in turn had referred him to me. I had been tutoring him for three weeks and we had gotten to know each other. In the process, we had discovered that we not only got along very well and had the same interests, but also felt an attraction beyond that. At first, we had forbidden ourselves these sentiments, because it was not proper, but the feelings were simply stronger and we had decided to allow them. Period!
"Sounds like a bad soap opera."
"If you have suggestions for improving this version, go for it!" I suggested to Zoey.
"Okay, shorty! I've known you for ... woah ... are we old ... quite a long time. You don't find the love of your life in two weeks and get head-over-heels engaged. And certainly not when he's half your age already!"
"Shorty?" chuckled Edward briefly between them.
This little remark gave me courage. Edward wouldn't feel like smirking if Zoey had already rejected us outright in her thoughts.
"She's three months older than me," I explained casually.
"And don't you forget it! ... I know you too well to buy that story ... Try the truth."
"I told you once, that I had found the love of my life. A very long time ago," I asked then.
Zoey asked for a short time to think it over and got a new coffee.
Edward whispered to me that she remembered correctly. I asked him to get me one of the old photos of us that Esmé had taken out and hung up after I returned to this family. However, only from the second floor and in selected rooms, so that an uninformed guest would not see them.
"Where were we? ... Your childhood sweetheart!" Zoey resumed our conversation as she sat back down. "Before your kids' dad, who died, you were in love. High school, if I'm not completely off base."
I nodded.
"You're right. I don't get engaged head over heels ... In truth, I've been in love for almost twenty years ..." I mumbled and put the picture frame on the table, whereby I still covered Edward with my hand.
Zoey looked at it and for the time being only made a comment about how apparently we were young once after all.
"... and namely still in the same man," I added.
Hesitantly, I took my hand off the frame.
Zoey straightened the frame a bit, looked at it for a long time, kept looking over and over at Edward, at me ... and toppled fainting off the barstool.
Edward caught her before she hit the floor. He gingerly carried her next door to a sofa and let his cool hands rest on her neck and forehead.
"That worked out stunningly," he teased me.
"She could have also run away screaming," I countered.
I quickly went back to the kitchen and looked for something to drink for Zoey.
Something very specific and actually found it.
Sparkling wine. Her favorite drink, as long as there was a halfway credible reason for it. I took two large glasses - you couldn't get far with Zoey with champagne flutes - and poured us each some. Me, however, only half a glass.
Zoey was just coming around when I walked through the door. She saw the sparkling wine and immediately reached out a hand for it.
With Edward's help, she straightened up a bit.
"Here's to your engagement!" she bumped her glass against mine and took a rather large sip. "So, Edward is the same guy who dumped you back then," Zoey stated indecisively, and Edward and I immediately told her our story.
Like Sonya, we left out all the explicit terms and gory details, just not the immortality.
"There would be many other things to tell you about, but that's all I can tell you of the truth," I apologized as dusk slowly fell and we ended.
"Sounds like true love."
"It is!" confirmed Edward, looking at me in love and giving me a soft kiss on the lips.
"So what do the kids say?" asked Zoey after a moment of just looking at us.
"Unlike you, they know the whole truth. Also, what I'm really not allowed to tell you ... They see in Edward the father they've always wished for."
"They don't have a problem with Edward being their age?" Zoey dug deeper in disbelief.
"No. Not from the beginning," I said, whereby I had already wondered a time or two why that was.
"They already knew when we first met that I was older than my appearance would suggest. Therefore, in terms of our love, they never thought about it. But of course, they are aware that our relationship can make a lot of trouble on the outside," added Edward.
"You're talking quite openly about all this, although obviously you're not supposed to. From that, I take it, I'm not to tell anyone," Zoey stated as we sat back in the kitchen and helped ourselves to Esmé's baked ziti.
I nodded seriously.
"But what about Alex? How much do you want to or are you allowed to tell him?"
"You are the best friend I have and I trust you. That's why I also want to enlighten you about something else," I started to say and collected myself for the rest. "One day - and I don't know when that day will be - I will ask Edward to make me an equally immortal being. Then I will disappear from the scene because I will not change from that point on. I haven't really thought about it yet, but most likely we'll fake my death or something, because my parents also can't know about all this ... Then I could only see those again who know about me or us beforehand. And this knowledge is actually already dangerous in itself ... That's why I leave it up to you to decide what you can tell Alex ... I'd rather he didn't know. I want to keep the circle that knows the truth about us as small as possible."
Zoey would think about it. She had understood the seriousness of this information, even if it was actually a very small part of the truth.
She still got to know the other vampires, but immediately said she only wanted to hear the official degrees of relationships.
Zoey basically reacted exactly as I expected. As long as I didn't lie to her, she would understand pretty much anything. I was sure that I could also have told her everything without seeing Zoey as a danger to our secrets. Carlisle had even agreed with me on this, which reassured me a lot.
After Zoey had completely drained the second bottle of sparkling wine, Edward took her home in her car.
I didn't doubt that Zoey would squeeze and scrutinize him some more along the way.
"How's Seth doing in the meantime? ... And Billy?" I then asked.
Thanks for reading!
