Till Death Chapter 13

The first thing I did when we got home was to finally move all of my things into Rosalie’s room; now our room. After Rosalie had proposed and we spent the night celebrating in the most amazing ways that I was sure only Rosalie was capable of, we had gone over how our lives would change with the engagement and then the future marriage. The first thing I had decided after spending so much time sleeping next to Rosalie, was that I didn’t want to sleep without her again.

After we finished out our time in the cabin, which was amazing and I wouldn’t mind having a repeat of that time every year, we went home. Rosalie and I both decided to hold off on telling our families until a day or so afterwards just to give ourselves some time for just us and getting used to our new dynamic… not that much had really changed, but being able to call the Rosalie Hale my fiancé is amazing.

Moving my stuff into her room wasn’t nearly that hard or took that long as most of my things were already there, but I was able to bring in the stragglers so that I could set up the space as an office for me to work from. If everything worked according to how I had planned, I would be able to work from home; but I wasn’t worried about that yet. For now, I wanted to enjoy my time with Rosalie before she had to go back to school. She had decided to continue on with her doctorate and I was very proud of her to do that; I was looking forward to seeing her grow in her professional life; just as she had told me numerous times.

I was looking up different desks that I thought would work well for me when Rosalie walked into the room while on the phone, clearly wanting me to be a part of the conversation even if I wasn’t on the phone.

“I understand Alice, but at the moment, we haven’t done anything worth sharing.” Rosalie said with a roll of her eyes. It was common knowledge that Alice somehow always knew things about people and even sometimes events before they happened. It was a running joke that you can never bet against Alice because it was practically guaranteed that she was right. So keeping our engagement from her was always going to be a challenge.

“I want to tell Charlie first because you know the second they know, Alice can’t keep a secret to save her life when there is a party involved.” I cautioned. In all fairness, Alice could keep a secret… when it suited her. But both Rosalie and I knew there was no way Alice wasn’t going to throw us an engagement party, or a congratulations party or whatever the heck she wanted to call it and the second she started to plan it, word would easily spread and Charlie would probably know about it before Bella could get to his house to tell him. Charlie wouldn’t talk though, he would just have a grin on his face that told others he knew something they didn’t, but he wouldn’t actually say anything. So Bella wanted to tell him first, then the Cullen’s then her mother. In that order.

“Is that Bella?” Rosalie had apparently decided to her on speaker so I could actually be a part of the conversation instead of just a bystander; that was fair, Alice was technically my best friend after all. “Bella!! You’re going to get married.” Alice screamed at the top of her lungs and even added a squeal at the end from her excitement. Bella couldn’t help but laugh at Alice’s exuberance. She hadn’t wanted to talk with Alice because for the life of her, she couldn’t keep secrets from Alice, but Rosalie could. But Rosalie couldn’t help but give into Alice’s whims if Alice played her cards right; which she always did, which was why all three of them were on the phone now. Alice always got her way, one way or another.

“Sshh Alice!” Bella loudly scolded, trying her best to get Alice to stop being so loud when they weren’t at the same location. She had no idea where Alice was or who she was with, but she wanted to make sure as little people as possible knew until she told people; she didn’t want people to think she wasn’t going to tell anyone. “I haven’t actually said anything.” Bella reminded her.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself again sister.” Rosalie gently warned, a smile on her face, clearly amused by Alice’s exuberance. “We just wanted to call and let you guys know that we were home and that we would be making our family dinner night, that was all.” It was usually a bi-weekly affair that the Cullen’s all tried to get together to have dinner together; sometimes not everyone could make it, but usually after holidays, they were all still there and could get together. She had originally told them that they wouldn’t be able to make it since they may have been still be in the cabin, but that was no longer the case as I hadn’t wanted to be away from everything and everyone anymore. As much as people thought I was homebody, I was only as long as there was easy access to my friends and family and being in that cabin for too long made me feel too isolated… no matter how much Rosalie tried to convince me otherwise. And trust me, her ways to try and convince were very… well, convincing, but her tactics would only work for so long.

“Oh, we already knew that.” Alice said with a flippant voice and I could imagine her waving her hand in the air like she was waving off the idea of us not showing up. “I made sure that everyone will be there, so we will all get to hear your news together.” Alice said and I could hear the wide smile in her voice.

“We don’t have any news to share.” Rosalie said in a deadpan sort of voice, not wanting Alice to know she was right; that woman’s ego couldn’t get any bigger and we definitely didn’t want to try and see if it could. “We just want to have a nice dinner with our family that we do every week.” Rosalie said and if I didn’t know otherwise, likely just like Alice, I would have actually believed her. “Is Edward going to be there?” Rosalie had told me that she was nervous about Edward being there when we announce our engagement, not because she was worried about Edward trying to win me back, as if that could ever happen after everything he had said, but she was worried about how sad it would make Edward. Edward was a romantic and had thought he and I would have a happily ever after; but now he was the last child that was single and as far as anyone knew, that didn’t seem to be likely to change anytime soon. Of course, that isn’t to say we didn’t want it to, but Edward was so caught up in what he thought a perfect woman would be that he forgot that he wasn’t the author in his own story and the chances of some magical woman behaving and acting just as he imagined and hoped was likely not ever going to happen.

“Yes he will be, and I don’t think he will be a problem; at least not either of your problems.” Alice said and her frown was very evident in her tone, out of all the siblings, Alice was closest with Edward just like Rosalie was closest with Emmett, “He just needs to work on some things for himself and until he does that, he will be stuck in his rut but that isn’t something you two should worry about, it’s something mom and dad are already working on with him.” Alice assured us both. And while I’m sure Rosalie wanted Edward to just get over his fantasies of the perfect woman, she knew that was something that wouldn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t her job to help him; that was a job for his parents and they were already working on it with him. We were the kids and I was the ex and soon to be in-law, that had to hurt him, but he would need to get professional help to get over it, not help from his siblings that didn’t really have the experience or knowledge to help him.

“I know, I just wish my happiness wasn’t at the expense of his.” Rosalie said as she gave me a sad smile, Rosalie wouldn’t have not asked me to marry him just to save her brother’s feelings, but she definitely would have been happier if her happiness didn’t hurt Edward. As much as I appreciated that from Rosalie, I knew how greedy Rosalie was in her personal life and outside and normally Rosalie didn’t care if she hurt someone to get what she wanted, Edward was her brother and she truly didn’t want to hurt him. She had been so mad at him for how he had acted when she broke up with him, but now she just felt sorry for him.

“It’s not.” Bella told her, cutting off whatever remark Alice was about to make, “He made his own choices and as sad as it is, his life is his own, not yours.” Rosalie gripped my shoulder in thanks; normally she was the strong one, it was nice to be able to comfort her, even on something that was so small in the grand scheme of things.

“Well, let’s not dwell on things outside of our control, especially unhappy ones,” Alice said, reminding us she was still very much in the conversation. “How are you going to tell us about your engagement?” Alice asked and I could practically see her holding her chin up with both her fists and looking at us wide-eyed with her complete attention on us.

“We’re not engaged.” Rosalie said with no small amount of exasperation in her tone but a smile on her face that Alice more than likely could hear. “And all we’re looking forward to is a nice a dinner and perhaps a chat over dessert.” Rosalie said with a smile, not looking at me as I gave her a disbelieving smile, of course she would cave in to her sister.

Alice’s squeal was enough to tell me that perhaps I should have Charlie over for dinner either tonight or tomorrow if I want to make sure I’m the one that tells him the news first. I couldn’t help the fond smile grow over my face as I heard Rosalie talk about would be plans ‘if’ we were to get engaged and how our ceremony would look like. She was giving more information to Alice about our future wedding, which was thankfully definitely going to happen now, than we had talked about. Perhaps I should take notes?