I am so sorry! I hate that it has taken me this long to update! I apologize and I hope that I haven't lost any of my loyal readers. I'm hoping that my life has settled enough for the moment that I can update my stories more now. I'm excited to dive back into them! I hope you enjoy this chapter and once again I apologize for the delay.

Chapter 9 – EPOV

"Good morning Edward!"

I turned my head towards the welcome desk, "Good morning Mrs. Cope. You sure are looking lovely this morning." I gave her my famous smile and winked at her. She's been around this hospital since I can remember. She always tells me I'm her favorite around here.

She blushed, which I didn't know women her age were still capable of doing, but it's sweet and it reminds me a lot of my late grandmother. "You're always such a sweet talker Edward. You here to see your dad?"

"Yeah if I run into him, but I'm mostly here to see Bella. You know the usual." I smiled and looked down, and holy crap! I'm pretty sure I just blushed! What is up with that? When I looked back up I noticed Mrs. Cope's smile had faded. "Everything okay Mrs. Cope?"

She gave me a sad smile, "I'm sorry sweetie, but I've been told that Bella isn't taking any visitors today."

I immediately frowned. "What? Why? Is she okay? Did something happen? I thought she was doing better, I mean as well as she can considering she can't walk and she's basically orphaned, but I mean I thought…" Mrs. Cope luckily put me out of my miserable rambling.

"Oh no, sweetie, calm down. Take a deep breath." She said as she came around the corner and put her arm around me. "It's just… oh your dad is probably going to give me a swift kick in the butt for what I'm about to tell you, but oh well, I think you should know." She looked around us to see if anyone else was listening, then she pulled me off to the side. "Bella isn't alone in her room today."

This piqued my interest. "What do you mean she's not alone in her room? Is there… is it… is there another guy in there with her?"

Mrs. Cope quirked an eyebrow at me, "Now why do you sound disappointed about that? And why would you automatically assume it's a gentleman caller in there with her?" She placed her hands on her hips and stared me down.

"I… um, uh…. I just…" I tried to come up with a good reason, but was coming up empty handed.

"Relax sweetie, it's not another guy. I'm pretty sure your chair in her room is a hard one to fill." She winked at me and then her face grew serious once more. "Anyway, Bella's little roommate today is the hospital's favorite visitor Miss Lily. Lily's father passed away during the night. Poor thing is devastated and to make matters worse, her mother just walked out. She didn't even stay to comfort the poor girl, she just up and walked out of here. She almost looked like she was a zombie when she left." Mrs. Cope just shook her head like even she couldn't believe what she was telling me.

"Well, maybe her mom was just in shock, you know, I mean that has to be terrible to lose your husband."

"Edward, it doesn't excuse the fact that she left her child here with a bunch of strangers, I mean technically we're not really strangers to Lily anymore, but still that lady doesn't know us from Adam!"

"You're right, that is pretty careless. Has anyone gotten in touch with her since she left?"

"Yeah finally about an hour and a half ago. She said she just needed some time to process everything and then she would be back. She asked if Lily could just stay here for a couple more hours. Can you believe that? I never wanted to believe your father, but I guess he was right." Mrs. Cope muttered the last part as she walked back to her chair behind the counter.

"What was my dad right about?" I leaned against the counter waiting for Mrs. Cope to continue.

"That Lily's mother is a heartless bitch!" Mrs. Cope gasped after the words flew out of her mouth and smacked her hand to her mouth. I fought back a laugh from the shock of those words coming from sweet Mrs. Cope. "Oh I'm sorry Edward that was so rude of me to say that out loud. It's just your father had told me that he had spoken with Lily's father quite a bit when he was still coherent. Apparently sweet little Lily is adopted. They adopted her when she was a baby. However, the father was the one who actually wanted to adopt and start a family. The wife didn't really want kids, but she did it for him. She constantly worked and wasn't home, so Lily barely knows her. Her father became a stay-at-home dad once they adopted her. The poor thing will just be lost without him now. Now she's stuck with a heartless…" Mrs. Cope sighed heavily and moved on with the story. "She's with Bella, because Bella is the only able to console the poor child. Bella and your father asked that no one disturb them today. Sorry sweetie." She gave me another sad smile and patted my hand lying on the counter.

"That's okay, thanks for telling me what's going on. I'm going to head on up there anyway, and see if by chance my dad will let me in there to see my girls." I started to walk off when I realized what I said. I turned back around quickly to correct myself and found Mrs. Cope grinning widely at me. "That's not what I meant, I meant to say…"

Mrs. Cope held up her hand to stop me. "No honey, you had it right the first time. Now get on up there." She smiled and winked at me.

When I got off the elevator I pretty much collided with my dad. "Hey dad!"

He looked up from the file he was reading and smiled tiredly at me. "Hey son. Um, Bella isn't…"

"It's okay, dad. Mrs. Cope filled me in downstairs and don't be mad at her for telling me, she thought I should know." He just nodded at me. "Look I know that you guys don't want anyone bugging them, but I've gotten pretty close with both of them, and I'd really like to see my little lady and make sure she's okay. "

My dad sighed and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. "Alright, but only because I think you might actually do some good going in there. Go ahead, but… just take it easy alright?"

"Got it, dad. Thanks." I gave him one our usual man-hugs and made my way towards Bella's room. This day is definitely not going how I was thinking it would go when I woke up this morning. I was thinking that I could come visit Bella today and maybe work on the scaring Jessica away again. Kissing her was just so incredible the other night. I loved it and would really love to do it again soon. However, right now there's a little lady in her room who could use a couple of friends to lean on. I got to Bella's room and slowly pushed open her door.

It was dark in her room except for the light coming from the window. I saw Bella lying on her bed with Lily pressed up against her side. It looked like Lily had a death grip on Bella, she had Bella's hospital gown gripped tightly in her little fist. Her head was resting on Bella's shoulder. I could see that Bella was awake and was watching the television that was turned down so low you could barely hear it. As I walked further into the room I was able to see Lily's face and saw that her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep.

I raised my eyes to meet a pair of deep brown ones; I gave her a small smile and nodded towards my usual chair. "Is that seat taken?"

She didn't speak, but shook her head. I walked over to the chair and quietly moved it closer to the bed. I sat down and noticed then the way Bella was holding Lily. It was… protective… a tad bit possessive, and dare I say… maternal. The child's things that I found in Bella's bedroom came flooding back to me in that moment.

I cleared my throat to get Bella's attention since her eyes had drifted back to the television. She turned her head towards me. "You're a natural with her." I said as I nodded towards Lily.

Bella looked down at Lily and tightened her grip on her. "She makes it easy." She said quietly.

I smiled at them. "Yeah she makes it kind of hard not to like her. How long has she been asleep?"

"Not too long. She's been dozing off and on." Bella leaned her head down so it was resting on top of Lily's. Bella cleared her throat like she was nervous all the sudden. "Look, I'm sorry about the other night, the thing with Nurse Stanley. That was very inappropriate of me."

It hurt me a little bit that she apologized for kissing me. I certainly didn't regret it. "Don't apologize Bella. I appreciated the help on getting crazy Nurse Stanley off my back, but I'm still not sure if she's off my back completely yet. I might need your help again." I laughed trying to lighten the mood, but it didn't seem to work. "Hey look, don't worry about it okay? I certainly don't regret it. I enjoyed it actually."

I was honored with seeing Bella blush and look down. "Listen Edward, you're a nice guy, but I'm not… there's so much that you… I just… I can't I'm sorry." She kept her eyes down while she spoke.

I swallowed down the piece of my pride that got hurt. "It's okay Bella I understand. You've been through a lot and there's no way in hell I'm going to pressure you into anything. I'm really happy with just getting to be friends with you. And if that's all I get then I'm happy with that, but I wouldn't also mind seeing where this goes and possibly becoming more than friends." She started to speak, but I stopped her. "I know, you're not ready and we certainly don't know each other well enough yet, but that's what being friends and dating are for." I winked at her. "I'm going to be honest with you Bella… I like you. I think you're beautiful and funny. I really want to get to know you more and help you remember more things from your life. I love watching you with Lily; you'll be a great mother someday." I saw her flinch when I spoke the last words. I reached out and took one of her hands. "Just… let me be your friend Bella. Don't shut me out. Please don't shut me out."

She looked at our hands and she squeezed my hand tightly. "Okay," she whispered. "Friends." She nodded and graced me with a small smile.

I nodded and smiled back. "Friends." I agreed, but in my head added the words "for now."

Okay so let me know what you think! We'll be hearing more about Lily and her father's passing in the next chapter. Thanks for being patient! :)