Grey Skies and Blue Eyes

Chapter Sixteen

For the next few hours, until the storm was directly overhead, Evie hung out around her friends. Emmett had been doing his best impression of a whale on drugs for the past three minutes, making Rose completely ignore him until he promised to never, ever do that again. Evie, unable to help herself, had collapsed in a fit of laughter, laughing so hard that it was extremely difficult to breath. Tears of joy were running down her face, her mouth open in a silent peal of laughter, and her hands clutching her stomach which hurt because she was laughing so hard. It was around this time that Edward and Bella decided to rejoin the family and watch as Evie laughed herself into a complete mess. Carlisle, unable to keep his gaze away from the blue eyed Swan, was helping to keep Evie from falling to the floor by holding her steady, his eyes alight with joy and love. The rest of the family was just watching the scene before them, all with a fond sort of smile at their, almost, complete family.

When Evie managed to calm down, which almost didn't happen as Emmett made a big show of being pierced through the heart by Rose's icy glare, she accepted the tissue from Esme to wipe her eyes with. Rose, now ignoring Emmett altogether, approached Evie with a small smile. "I heard from Edward that you have a fondness for a certain holiday treat, and I know they are hard to come by when it isn't winter, but I managed to find these for you." Alice appeared by Rose at this point, holding something behind her back. Evie, already knowing exactly what the present was, started to bounce excitedly in her seat, which happened to be Carlisle's lap. A deep chuckle vibrated through her, almost causing her to shudder, almost. Jasper, the damn empath that he was, sniggered into his hand, making Evie glare at the vampire.

"Aw, what did we miss?" Emmett, confused as to why Evie was now glaring at the openly laughing blonde vampire, pouted slightly. Everyone else, aside from Edward who was also sniggering into his hand, had a slightly confused look on their faces. Evie blushed bright red, though her glare never lessened or wavered from its victim.

"Nothing, Em, you missed nothing," Evie said to the curious vampire. Jasper, who apparently had a death wish, leaned over to whisper in Emmett's ear. Emmett, now on the receiving end of Evie's best glare, laughed so loud the windows shook.

"Aw, did someone get a little hot and bothered?" It seemed that, with those words, everyone else who was still slightly confused suddenly understood what was going on. Rosalie and Alice smirked at Evie, who was now hiding behind her hands and trying to disappear into thin air. Bella, fully understanding her older sister's pain, blushed and laughed at the situation. Esme, the only vampire that Evie could look in the eye at that moment, just smiled kindly at the red faced girl and glared at the rest of the heathens she called family. Evie chanced a quick glance up at Carlisle's face, but the look in his eyes made her already bright red cheeks flush once more. Alice pranced forward and held out a box of candy canes with a little red bow on it. Evie took the box with shaky hands, not even looking the vampire in the eye as she mumbled a small 'thanks' under her breath. Mere seconds after this, all of the vampires and Bella, excluding Carlisle who Evie was still sitting on, seemed to disappear.

Evie went back to hiding her face in her hands, praying to any and all Gods she could think of that the ground would swallow her whole, but it seemed as if the Gods were taking pleasure in her humiliation as Carlisle began to chuckle once more. She felt, rather than saw, him move to take her hands in his and pry them away from her face. Holding both of her hands in one of his, he pushed her chin up slightly with his other hand, his thumb rubbing gently against her cheek. Her eyes automatically found his, taking in the pitch black irises, alight with lust and love. "Do not hide your face from me, Evelyn." Evie, trying to pretend that nothing happened, merely huffed and rolled her eyes, though her cheeks reddened once more against her will. "You shouldn't be embarrassed, love. It pleases me more than you know to know you are attracted to me, and you should know that I am just as attracted to you, if not more so." For a long moment, the couple just sat there, staring into the others eyes.