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Chapter 193
Girls Among Themselves
Bella
It was Saturday morning.
And what a glorious morning it was. My family was in a splendid mood. Edward had made a splendid breakfast. The sun was shining splendidly outside. The snow glistened splendidly through it, but it was too cold for it to melt. Everything was splendid. Thus also my own mood.
We were clearing the table together when my son made a very important observation.
"It's Saturday!" he said in feigned deadly seriousness, standing before Edward with the same expression.
"Hasn't escaped me," he replied succinctly.
"What time do you guys think you'll be back from shopping?" then Jake asked right after.
He knew the weekly routine.
Shopping, cleaning and only then everything else, whereby my fiancé was very quick with the house cleaning. It had never bothered me much to have to clean and tidy up regularly, it was just part of the job, but by now Edward was doing it almost all by himself. If he didn't finish in a few minutes, I would really feel guilty about it.
"Could take a while. David is coming here today with his family, so we have to buy enough for both houses ... You don't mind if the kids sleep in one of your attics again, do you?", I explained and directly remembered to ask. I had wanted to do that yesterday, but I had forgotten. Somehow my little daughter had been here 'right away' only much later.
"Oh, nonsense. It was funny the last time," Leah said immediately.
"Yeah. Totally funny," Jake agreed, and rubbed over his chin.
The exact spot where Emma's foot had knocked him out.
But he smiled.
"I was going to suggest something to you regarding the Harley anyway," Edward began to say while still wiping the table.
"Since we're going to be here most of the weekends now ..., what do you say we bring the bike over here too. There's plenty of room in Rosalie's workshop. Everything we'll need going forward is there. It would also be considerably warmer with Ced keeping us company. Besides, with Rose now working on the bus with Marcus, you'd get to spend some time together, too."
"Is the latter an argument for you or for me?", Jake dug deeper with a mischievous smile.
"For both of us," Edward admitted.
"As long as we're going to be on the road, you could bring it here," Edward was still saying.
Apparently Jake was already mentally delighted.
"Nah, we'll do that together. Not that I'll break anything."
By the time Edward helped me into my jacket, our kids were already sitting in Ced's play corner, looking heavily occupied. They just casually waved at us when we said that we would be gone.
We smiled and left.
Since Edward only drove the BMW to school so as not to provoke any chatter about his new Jaguar, only the BMW was here. His luck. Only this car of his had darkened windows all around.
As always, he gallantly led me to the passenger door with one hand behind my back, opened it and offered me his hand to better enter.
These were gestures that my fiancé never forgot.
We had almost reached Saco when a dark blue Audi came towards us.
I waved, he waved back, and only then did I remember that he couldn't have seen my greeting through the dark panes.
"I'm glad that Marcus and Leah are getting along so well, even though they're not together anymore," I commented through that brief encounter on the street.
"Yeah, me too. I by no means expected that they would still spend time together," Edward replied.
"Must be weird for the two of them though, isn't it?"
"They don't feel that way. They are not indifferent to each other. They care deeply about each other's welfare and contribute as much as they can to each other's well-being. Marcus has missed not only Leah, but also life with us, which is completely different from his own home. On the other hand, Marcus is a sort of guarantor to Leah that there are things that will always remain, no matter what may happen. It's already a quite tricky situation, but I'm sure they know how to handle it. Because both of them are fully aware that there is no way back for them."
"That's too bad. They were such a beautiful couple," I resigned.
"Oh yes, they were," Edward also sighed.
The shopping dragged on a bit.
We had to stock up considerably on the beverage supplies in both houses. And chocolate in every variety. Chocolate bars and candy bars, cocoa powder, spreads, puddings, cakes and pastries, ice cream. And unless we wanted to mess with predators, the same was true for food in general. We had two shopping carts full and under both of them were as many boxes of beverages as could be placed on them.
The scary part was that most of it wouldn't even survive until the next weekend, and I would even have to pick up fresh ingredients to cook with during the week.
"I think our kids would make me destitute just from their omnipresent hunger!", I stated dryly, gulping as I just became really aware of these masses, and we stood in the checkout line.
"For such little things you have me," my angel smiled and kissed me sweetly.
Fortunately, the BMW was pretty roomy, but while packing in, we already had to figure out what should go in which house.
At my house in Saco, we stopped and brought in the bulk of it. While I put everything away, Edward carried the various boxes into the house that were destined for here and quickly took care of all the bathrooms.
I always attached importance to that. The bathrooms had to be clean. Everything else had time. Vacuuming, for example.
While I hadn't finished putting the groceries away, Jake showed up and the men packed the bike into the back seats of the car. Wrapped in bedsheets, which I wanted to discard anyway, so that nothing in the car got dirty. But since it could not be identified as a motorcycle at the moment, there were additionally many boxes with countless individual parts.
Carefully everything was strapped down, and we drove further.
Jake was running. There was no room for him in the BMW. But that didn't bother him much. It would be wonderful to run in the forest, although he had to dodge many walkers.
When we arrived at our second home, the little game repeated itself, so to speak.
I put everything away while Edward did the house cleaning.
But without the twins' bathrooms/rooms. General educational measure. Esmé had stood behind me on this point. If they already had something like their own apartments here, they would also have to learn to keep them clean and tidy. After all, they wouldn't have a mother to clean up after them at college after this summer. So they could get used to it already and slowly learn how to do it. The kids had already started to do some tidying, with Edward now seemingly stuck in their rooms. Edward was supposed to give them a rough introduction to the secrets of cleaning.
When I was through with the groceries, I got a bottle ready for Ced. He hadn't asked for one, but according to Leah, he hadn't had one since breakfast.
Ced was sitting with Becky in his corner at the little table and they were drawing a picture together. As soon as Ced saw the bottle, he quickly climbed off Becky's lap and crawled hurriedly in my direction.
I snuggled up with him on our sofa.
Actually, Ced wouldn't have to drink from the bottle anymore. He was adept enough that a cup would do the trick. But after five and a half weeks, I wasn't ready to give up my baby as a real baby. Edward and I were in agreement on this. We would give him his blood in a baby bottle for as long as he would allow us. If necessary, we would also discuss this with our baby.
So I cradled him lovingly in my arms, as was proper for his age. At the last drops Edward was sitting with us, but then all the men were already gone.
I sighed.
A little offended, but overall happy.
I went to the kitchen to rinse the bottle directly.
Blood was obstinate once it dried.
When I got to the kitchen, there were two unmotivated and bored girls sitting there. I smiled.
They spent so much time together that at some point they too reached the point where they didn't know what to do or what to talk about.
So they sat there, both once again with a drink from the coffee maker, their heads propped up on one arm and idly sipping their cups. They hardly paid any attention to me.
"What are you offended about?", I asked, placing a little bowl of chocolate ice cream with 'Canadian Smarties' (1) on top in front of each of my girls.
They smiled and immediately took the spoons handed to them in their hands.
"We're not offended," Becky tried to correct me.
"We're just bored," Leah wanted to set the record straight.
"I can see that, but that's not all!" I stated on the other hand.
They were silent, but I was a mother.
Of course I knew what was bothering my girls. Or in this case, simply disturbed.
"What's bothering you more?" so I dug deeper. "That your boys are busy and you're not ... or that they're busy with Edward?"
Both looked at me with wide eyes. Furthermore in silence.
Well, yes. I was also a girl, albeit a somewhat older girl, and I also had nothing to do right now. Therefore, I had also just thought about what disturbed me. Whereby disturb was of course an exaggerated description for it. The men were busy, whereby they did not necessarily miss us women. For Leah it would be also additionally a little bit jealousy. Father and son had found a common hobby, but father and daughter had not. To what extent Becky was thinking along those lines, though, I didn't know, but the girls peeked pretty much the same way.
"Well, if our boys are busy doing boy stuff, then we'll do girl stuff," I said, casting a meaningful glance at the clock. "Sonya and David weren't going to be there until 7:00, and it's not noon yet. So we'd have plenty of time to stroll around Portland," I suggested.
They looked at me, then at each other, then back at me, and then they both jumped up and ran up the stairs.
They had only comfortable clothes on, with which they would not go out of the house in this weather. Well, maybe Leah did, but her sweatpants with the tear on one knee were not exactly suitable for going out.
I put away the ice cream bowls, they were empty of course, while I reached for my cell phone. I asked Edward if there was a car on this property that I would dare to drive. He had to consult with Rosalie. Finally, he was at the door with his Audi.
Okay, I'd driven that one a few times before, but ...
"So how does Marcus get home?", I inquired.
"He has a later appointment and will stay here until then," my angel smiled contentedly.
He unmistakably enjoyed spending time with all his 'sons'.
"I guess we'd have to get another car, so we don't get into such a predicament again that we have to look for a vehicle for you. What do you think of a nice Mercedes sedan? Or even an SUV like the BMW? Porsche is supposed to come out with a new model in the spring that I'm sure you'd really like!"
"Don't you dare!" I grumbled. "We own enough cars!"
"So what are my angels doing with the car now?" he asked, though.
"Well, if you're going to hang out and behave like real boys, we're going to do the same thing, only the female version," I expressed mysteriously.
"If you were Alice or Rose, I'd assume shopping, but you don't do that sort of thing," Edward reflected teasingly.
"It just depends on the company! With you I would certainly like it, as long as you do not go crazy and completely overdo it!"
"So I'll carry you off shopping sometime soon? Just the two of us? Maybe to Boston? Or a weekend in New York?" he murmured enchantingly.
"Sounds very inviting," I purred. In the process, shopping would probably become more of a secondary matter, which pleased me even more.
I kissed my angel, when Becky and Leah appeared in the entrance area. I put on my scarf, Edward helped me into my jacket as usual, I stuffed a beanie into my purse for the time being and we were ready to go.
"But ... how is Marcus getting home then?" pondered Leah as she walked through the front door.
"Your daughter!" stated Edward smiling on it.
I shrugged my shoulders knowingly.
"He's staying with us until you get back," he then said to Leah, however.
"Nice of him," Leah commented, and we all gave Edward a kiss before getting in.
"Behave yourselves and bring me something nice," he murmured cheerfully after us.
That's how we drove off.
It took us only slightly longer to get to Portland from this house than it did from my house in Saco.
As soon as I parked, Leah's stomach growled so loudly that Becky and I started laughing out loud. I was standing right next to a Baguette shop. Therefore, we stopped there first of all, so that my daughter did not starve.
But then we strolled through the freezing cold streets of Portland.
They took me in their midst and linked arms with me.
I had a lot of fun roaming the stores with the young girls. It wasn't so much about buying, but simply dawdling, having fun, being together.
Nevertheless, we all quickly had some kind of bags in our hands.
I had bought a little toothbrush and strawberry-flavored toothpaste for Ced. We had not thought about it this morning because of all the food. I also bought one for Edward. To show off. I could hardly hold back my laughter at the thought of how Edward would teach this to our baby.
I had also purchased the licorice candy canes that all the kids loved.
Becky had a new piece of jewelry for her navel piercing.
Leah took along a 'paint by numbers'-picture for herself.
She had enjoyed making them in the past, but today it was more because of the subject. A world map in modern abstract art. Quite colorful, but still very beautiful.
Becky was standing outside a tattoo studio looking at the pictures.
"I once read that - if you have a tattoo - that would just be the beginning. That you then start to collect," I opined.
"Yep ... I can confirm that," Becky nodded decisively.
She had been thinking about getting another one for a few days, but she didn't know what. It was going to have some reference to Jake, but she didn't want to just have his name. Something personal and little that it wasn't so obvious and only said something to the two of them.
"His heartbeat," I suggested, lost in thought. I didn't know exactly who had told me about such a thing and tried to remember. It had been a long time since I had heard of it, and I had liked the idea then. "His heartbeat as an EKG line. Like a fingerprint, it's unique."
She seemed to like the idea.
She entered the store and inquired about how expensive something like this would be. Since it was basically just a few lines, it was quite cheap compared to the pictures she already had.
I promised her, since she was going to surprise Jake with it, to deliver the EKG to her via Carlisle.
"Look, Mom," Leah nudged me meanwhile, pointing to a photo on the wall.
A young lady was pictured on it who had two tattoos. One like a ring around her ring finger. She was combing a strand behind her ear with this hand, where she had another tattoo. Three little stars.
"I'd like that, too," Leah agreed.
"You're afraid of needles," I reminded her.
She sighed.
Yes, she was, though not as badly as that sometimes manifested itself with Jake.
"I would find it very pretty," I said, however, and stroked my daughter along behind her ear. She had short hair, to that extent it would always be visible, but I thought it was quite subtle and really ornamental if it were such small, graceful ornaments.
"But what would the wolf say?" asked Becky then, when we were back on the street.
"Surely that's an injury the wolf will want to heal," I reasoned as well.
Leah shrugged her shoulders ignorantly.
She'd talk to Carlisle about it sometime when she got a chance. Or talk to Seth on the phone. Or both. At the same time. But she wouldn't want to get stars. She would think very carefully about a possible motive, because - if so - she would have it forever. With Becky, I felt like she was already subconsciously examining possible body parts. Her fingertips landed gropingly behind her ear, on her shoulder, on her elbow.
When we sat in a Café in the afternoon, the ankle was probably also on the shortlist.
Favorite, however, was apparently the inner wrist. There she could easily cover it with our family bracelet, since you never knew what employers thought of tattoos.
"So what are we going to do next time the boys play in the garage?" asked Leah as she ate a sumptuous slice of chocolate cream pie.
I wonder where she left all those calories?
"I think going dawdling every Saturday is going to get boring fast," Becky reflected.
"I think so too, but I'm up for almost anything," I said, which in itself made the girls happy.
Me too. So we would do a regular counter event, but what kind of occupation was suitable for that?
We thought about it together and immediately discarded many possibilities.
With something athletic – they were both pretty into sports, after all – my lack of balance would not cooperate. Unfortunately. I thought that was a real shame. We would run out of movies sooner or later. We couldn't agree on a series, but neither of us had been that enthusiastic about that anyway. To paint or something similar, we all lacked the necessary talent to some extent. The weather was not suitable for gardening. Cooking and baking were not an option. From now on, the three of us would generally do that together more often.
"Theresa told me something the other day," Becky recalled, pulling out her cell phone.
She tapped on it a little bit.
"You mean Theresa from the writing workshop?" inquired Leah.
Becky nodded.
I asked what a writing workshop was.
I could not imagine anything about that.
"It's sort of a club of a few people at the school who like to write as a hobby. They meet after school in one of the classrooms along with Mr. McNamara and share ideas with each other. They read each other's writing, give ideas on it, and so on," Leah explained.
Mr. McNamara was Edward's English teacher in the advanced course. Jake had also had lessons with him once, and at a parent-teacher conference he seemed to me not only very committed, but also quite overqualified. If I wasn't mistaken, he even had a doctorate in English literature.
"And when they're happy with something, they upload it to this site on the Internet," Becky added, placing her smartphone on the table.
A web page was open.
Fanfictiondotnet.
I scrolled down a bit and got a listing to choose from.
Books, Movies, Series ...
"Well?", I asked irresolutely.
"Well. All three of us love to read. Maybe we should try the opposite and write something ourselves," Becky said.
Leah smiled as if the first ideas were already coming to her. However, I was not yet ready.
"And about what?", I asked namely.
"I'm sure we'll come up with some kind of topic," Leah nodded in affirmation.
Meanwhile, I tapped on the 'Books' link and came to another list. I smiled at what popped up at the top.
'Harry Potter'. However, I could only remember seven books, originally at least. Not 782,000. Other names familiar to me, at least by title, were also pretty much up there. 'Lord of the Rings. 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. 'The Tributes of Panem'. 'Fifty Shades of Grey.' But also something that doesn't mean anything to me at all. 'Twilight'. Twilight. Sounded very mysterious. It was in second place. I must have missed something - from a literary point of view.
Becky saw, where I was currently located within this page.
"There are not only these categories, but also free works, so to speak. So, we wouldn't have to go by something that's already there, but can also come up with something completely freely," she said in response.
I chuckled involuntarily at a memory that just caught up with me.
"Remember when Edward presented us with the remodeled house?", I asked them both. "When I asked what I should do on my side of the study? That's when he got the idea that I could write something and I actually came up with an idea ...", I told them what had been going through my mind at that time.
That, objectively speaking, our family offered enough potential for horror stories with Spirit Warriors, vampires, and half-beings, only that in our case it had little to do with horror. And that it would certainly result in funny stories if these beings had not lived among humans so far and had adapted accordingly, but would now be confronted with the world of humans for the first time. Completely overwhelmed with the situation.
"Dad in the middle of a city and with a headache from all the voices he's hearing at once," Leah laughed.
"Jake, who wonders why everyone is running away from him," Becky joined in.
"And everyone is afraid for the cute baby sitting on his back, but no one dares to approach the animal and come to the child's aid," I laughed as well.
So after our jovial laughter died out, the matter was quickly resolved.
We would start writing in threes. Amusing short stories about a monster family.
Now that mother and daughter/daughter-in-law had found a common hobby, the other thought also came back to me.
"Is it possible that you might be a little jealous?", I asked them both. "Because Edward is involved with the boys, but not with you?", I specified.
Both of them suddenly looked at their cups quite busily, playing with the handles, stirring even though they were almost empty.
That was a bull's eye!, I thought to myself.
"Then just tell him that. Edward will be happy if you want to do something with him. If he may do something with you. With his Princesses. And Edward is also considerably younger than me and talented in many things. The possibilities are not as limited as they are with me," I said straightforwardly.
Then the two smiled and already looked at each other challengingly.
"Music," Becky immediately suggested.
"I have no idea about that ... He could teach us to paint," was Leah's counter-suggestion.
They beat the suggestions to each other around the head, until we had finished drinking and I had paid.
Sports, photography, cooking, origami, hiking ... I had ended the repartee by suggesting that perhaps they should include Edward in their considerations.
In a good mood, we then continued to roam the streets. We still had time.
Leah needed some new clothes to sleep in. In her dark time she had torn some. The fact that she lay naked in bed, only with a man at her side, did not happen now anymore.
She quickly found something suitable.
Everything oversized. Leah liked it fluffy at night. That's what she said. She also found a pair of pajamas for me, or rather for her father. We shared such clothes fairly between us. It was so pink that it gave me a toothache. The color reminded me so much of colorful and sticky sugar stuff. But somehow I liked it. I took it with me, in Edward's size, of course.
And Becky eventually found one too - but without a toothache.
Hers was gray and pale pink plaid. It looked cute. At Jake's size, she almost drowned in it, but it was still cute.
My girls talked me into a Bubble Tea.
They were THE fashionable drink when I went to college, but were then quickly forgotten. Just now this tea drink experienced a small revival with growing popularity.
With the last of the leftovers in our cups, we were sitting on a bench across the street from a sporting goods store we were headed to.
Becky needed new hair bands for volleyball.
She lost and misplaced hers all the time, and only the expensive branded ones lasted an entire game without slipping or getting loose.
But since we quickly got cold sitting there - Becky and I at least - we went to the shop windows behind us. The bench was right in front of a jewelry store.
I forced myself very hard to keep a neutral face as I just realized from the store sign that it was the very jeweler where Jake and Marcus had purchased the engagement rings.
"What are you smiling at that's so weird?", Leah addressed me though.
So much for my neutral face. But I could think of an excuse.
"Oh, nothing. Only that ring back there vaguely reminds me of mine," I said, demonstratively showing off my engagement ring. One of them. The blue one.
"True. Has a certain resemblance, but yours is prettier," Leah stated expertly.
"That one's cute," Becky pointed to one.
There were two rings that ran under an oval stone. One quite plain, the other like a thin string that drew playful curves and even loops.
"Only the stone shimmers so strangely ... Is that supposed to be green?" she pondered skeptically.
"Could also be a brownish glow," Leah looked more closely.
"Or yellow?", I was also still a little undecided.
"It would look better in pink or something," Becky then categorically clarified in conclusion.
"And what would you like?", I asked Leah curiously.
Her gaze quickly roamed over the shop window.
"That one," she pointed to one rather quickly.
Very simple, but not inelegant. Modern, yet classic. Pretty.
"But without the engravings next to the setting for the stone," she added.
Yes, that's what I had thought. Either quite ornate and artistic or quite plain and simple. There was hardly anything in between for Leah.
Our Bubble Teas were then empty, we threw the cups into the trash can and entered the sports store on the other side.
Becky walked purposefully to the rack with her favorite hair bands.
I met a colleague from the Prescot Institute, with whom I chatted a little. He was here with his son, who urgently needed new sports shoes and already had half the shelf lying around him. He complained - played theatrically - that buying shoes with his daughter would be much easier. More expensive, but easier.
We also chatted about news from the company, which projects I had missed so far and that no one could really understand why I had been terminated.
I acted quite ignorant on this subject and a little indignant about my boss's decision, but opined that it gave me the time to write my doctoral thesis. In this respect, it would not have been wrong at all, and I am not in a bad way because of it.
I was about to say goodbye to him when I saw the girls rolling through the store in the background.
I had to look twice.
Yes, they definitely had to roll on something. They were too fast for walking, and their bodies were too still for running.
I caught them at some point.
They had rolled through the store on electric-powered skateboards, but so slowly we had to head home.
On the way to the car, as expected, Leah jumped in at 'Dunkin Donuts' briefly.
It was a rather long car ride ahead of her of a good half hour, believe it or not.
On the way back, I also filled up the car.
The fuel light wasn't on yet, but I would find it unfair if Marcus had to fill up because of our trip.
We arrived home in good spirits.
I heard already before the front door that Edward sat at his grand piano. As soon as I opened the door, the melody changed.
My Lullaby.
I smiled enamoredly at my angel from the entrance area. And he smiled back just as much.
I put down the bags and my jacket and went to him, but the girls had been faster than me. They were still standing by him in their winter coats, and each picked up a kiss of welcome without my song stopping.
"How was your day? Did you have fun together?" asked Edward immediately.
"Yes, we did," Becky said directly.
"It was very nice," Leah also confirmed.
"And do my princesses allow me to do things with them sometimes, too?" enquired Edward.
The girls peeked quite gobsmacked, but I smiled when I finally got to my man and pressed a kiss to his velvety lips.
"That's what they were going to ask you to do," I said. "And what was it like here?"
"Apparently very tiring," he smiled, nodding his head toward our sofa.
Curious, the three of us went to peek.
Jake was stretched out on one side - with a pillow under his torso, Marcus was likewise on the other side, and a baby was sitting between them. All three of them sleeping. Ced even had the rest of a cookie in his hand.
My song faded out and Edward came over to us.
"What did you do?", I asked in amazement and knelt in front of my baby.
I tickled his cheek while Becky kissed her wolf out of sleep.
Ced rubbed one of his little eyes with one hand, peeked indecisively, saw the nibbled cookie in the other hand, which he immediately shoved into his mouth.
"Mommy!" he noticed me a little delayed and with his mouth full that he spit half of it back out.
Thereof also Marcus became awake, who sat up still somewhat sleepily.
"Hello, my little darling," I picked up my baby and kissed him on the forehead. "Did your daddy do so much to you that you fell asleep?", I asked him.
Ced nodded, but grinned as he did so.
By then I had his hand with the remaining cookie against my cheek and saw what the men had done.
At least to some extent. Work in the workshop, on the Harley and the bus, lunch, more tinkering, a snack, a swim, another snack, and then a race from Carlisle's house to this one. Ced had won. Carried by his daddy, but Ced passed that over in his brief summary.
The roast for dinner with our best friends Edward already had in the oven. So we still had some time before we had to start with the side dishes and the children had to leave for their appointments.
So now we told each other in a little more detail how the afternoon had gone, and we unpacked our little achievements in the process.
Leah had left a donut for each of the boys, who ate them as we did so.
"We also brought you something, as requested," I said, handing Edward the toothbrush.
He peeked ... desperately.
I also got the one for Ced out of the bag, who could muster more enthusiasm for it.
Leah helped him unpack it and he started using it right away.
He used it to try to brush his messy hair. That wasn't quite the point, but I was confident that Edward would teach him that soon enough.
Edward asked - presumably to change the subject - what his girls had in mind as a common pastime.
They started rattling off the long list that had already come to them in the café.
But this time they interrupted themselves and asked Edward if he had any ideas. Becky and Leah couldn't agree on any of them yet, and they didn't know what Edward would also think.
"You both really enjoyed learning to dance," Edward reflected.
"That's right," Leah seemingly recalled back to those two afternoons.
"Oh yeah. I think that looks pretty cool when a couple can really dance," Becky also agreed.
Jake looked a little startled at this remark, however, which Becky didn't notice. She was sitting in front of him.
But 'a couple' somehow included him.
"And what else did you buy?" my son now changed the subject, so that I had to chuckle.
We also showed the rest, which Edward put in the washing machine after inspection.
Newly bought clothes should always be washed. Some time ago, I had picked out an article for him on the Internet, after he had only neatly distributed the purchases from our first shopping trip into the cabinets. This had something to do with dyes and sometimes chemical substances that were used in the production, but not washed out. Theoretically he knew the manufacturing processes, practically vampires could not get skin irritations or even rashes from such things.
The youngsters made out that Marcus would take our three back to Saco. They didn't have any of their cars here, however, still enough time not to have to run over as wolves.
They went upstairs to get ready for their meeting.
The group only met at a pub of sorts, but Jake was only wearing sweatpants, Becky was dressed quite thickly for the city's frigid temperatures, something she wanted to change, and Leah had spilled with her chocolate cake.
"How was it for you to spend the day here?", I asked Marcus in a conversational tone while still standing in the kitchen with him.
"Funny," he chuckled, and Ced chuckled along on his arm.
"And if Leah had been there all day, too?", I asked a little more quietly. My wolves had quite good ears, after all.
"It would have been just as funny, I'm sure," he said, but of course had understood the background of my question.
Edward also just returned to the kitchen from the washing machine.
"It's kind of weird when you think about it. We're not together anymore, and yet we'll continue to see each other to some extent ... Leah is not part of me anymore. I wish it were different, but my hopes for her are extinguished ... But I'm glad we can continue to be friends."
"We are very pleased about that, too. So you remain a part of us," Edward confirmed.
(1) Smarties are colour-varied sugar-coated chocolate confectionery. They have been manufactured since 1937, originally by H.I. Rowntree & Company in the United Kingdom, and now by Nestlé. Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 12 mm (0.5 in). They come in eight colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, mauve, pink and brown. Smarties are sold primarily in Europe, Canada, South Africa, Australasia and the Middle East. (Wikipedia)
Thank you for reading!
