The great move

Standing in the partially packed living room of our apartment, we all stood. Edward was seated on one of the couches, while Carlisle and Esme stood together in front of Rosalie and me.

"So…the two of you are…together?" Carlisle asked in surprise as well as amazement.

I looked at Rosalie, who was standing next to me, then back at Carlisle, shrugging my shoulders. "Yup," I said, giving Carlisle a toothy smile.

"Oh! Isn't this wonderful!" Esme said, clasping her hands together in joy as she gave Rosalie a hug.

"I won't lie, Adam, I had hoped a relationship would form between the two of you, but…so quickly?" Carlisle said, raising one of his brows questioningly.

I shrugged again. "It was bound to happen," I said, giving Carlisle a cheeky smile.

He stared at me for a moment while Esme and Rosalie talked, ignoring our banter.

After a moment, Carlisle slowly smiled at me, his eyes showing a gleam of emotion I could only describe as pride.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I raised one of my brows. "What's that look for?" I asked.

Stepping close to me, Carlisle patted me on the shoulder. "It's nothing, Adam. I'm just proud of you, is all," he said, turning towards Esme and Rosalie, who were having a whispered conversation.

"This calls for a celebration!" Carlisle said jovially as Esme and Rosalie turned to us.

"That is a fantastic idea, my love," Esme said, walking over to us and giving me a quick hug.

That first night was one of joy and happiness, with Carlisle happy that he won the bet with Julius, and Esme happy because she saw us as her family.

Edward, on the other hand, was in one of his dark moods, which I could guess why. He was lonely and figured he would stay that way for the rest of eternity. But I figured I would just let him be and deal with it when it came to a head.

By the end of the night, we were all in high spirits. I even saw Edward try to hide a few smiles as I told some of my old stories.

Now, even though Rosalie and I were…together, we still weren't quite ready to be sleeping in the same bed together and everything that 'went' with it, if you catch my drift. It was a mutual decision. We had only known each other for a short time and felt that taking that step should at least wait until we were married or something.

We packed the apartment over the next few days, deciding what we needed with us and what we could live without for a few weeks while it was all shipped to our new home in Tennessee.

Anything of great value that we didn't want to leave behind, I had taken to the New York Gringotts bank. They had armored cars and other such things that were designed to transport valuable items. If it were up to me, I would have just shoved it all in suitcases, but everyone else had different ideas about how priceless artifacts should be transported, so I was outvoted.

It's not my fault my artwork alone is now worth tens of millions of dollars. Blame Leonardo, who wrote extensively about me teaching him nearly everything he knew in one of his journals, allowing historians to track down a number of my works, which were found in nearly every Gringotts bank.

And the only way they could figure out it was me who painted them, since I never signed them, was if they were able to get up close and do some in-depth examination of my works, finding similarities in how I painted between them all. I had to remember to stop them from letting people do any in-depth examinations of my works.

Because when carbon dating is invented and it is found out that most of my works are decades apart spanning hundreds of years, there will be some questions asked that won't be answered. I can already see my artwork being a part of some iceberg conspiracy sheet.

Some good news, though: I'm apparently the first Banksy, painting the world as it actually was instead of making the world look prettier than it actually was, painting cityscapes where I showed the great amounts of poor people and the brutality of the world at the time.

Anywho, it was decided that we would drive to Tennessee. Figuring we had too much we were already taking with us to take on a flight, and that putting vampires on a plane high up in the sky in a metal tube wasn't the most logical idea.

Sure, the Cullens had extraordinary control over themselves around humans, but all it would take is a paper cut and we could be in a bad situation, Carlisle being the only one unaffected.

And besides, it would be good for Edward, Rosalie, and Esme to see the country. Hell, even me. The last time I had seen any part of this country besides New York was during the late seventeen hundreds when I was a Statesman.

Leaving New York, we passed through New Jersey, making it to Maryland by the end of the first day of driving. We stayed there for two days as we went to museums and landmarks.

What I liked the most about it was going to the Smithsonian museums. In one of them, they even had a rather large section dedicated to me, which I hadn't known about. They had some items that apparently used to belong to me, and letters between me and other notable figures of the time.

My favorite was a letter between me and Washington where I ended the letter with a fart joke. When I had written the letter, I was visiting New York…in the middle of the summer.

If you didn't know, back then large cities smelled bad, but when it got hot outside, the smell intensified by a hundred percent. In summary, I had written to him to inform him of my safe arrival in New York and ended it by saying, I was seated next to the Adams cousins for the entirety of the creation of the Declaration of Independence, and not even they could produce such foul smells as this city!

Nowadays, that seems like a poor attempt at a joke, but back then, that was top-shelf humor. Rosalie was surprisingly mostly interested in the mechanical side of our museum tours, always stopping to look at cars or planes, wanting to see what the engines looked like.

Carlisle and Esme were into the art, while Edward liked the literary. By the end of the fifth day of our trip, we had made it all the way to the bottom of Virginia, another two days from our destination in Tennessee.

I would like to say a lot has changed in the nearly two hundred years since I had last seen this part of the country, which a lot has, but at the same time not that much.

Sure, the towns we passed through looked more modern than a bunch of wooden houses that looked ready to topple over at the first gust of wind to roll into town like I remembered some of them being, but it was all also so much the same.

Meaning, I quickly lost interest in the trip. That's not saying everyone did. As far as I could tell, everyone was having a ball with the trip.

Which was easy for them to say, they don't get stiff from sitting down all day during the hours of driving we were doing every day. It nearly brought tears to my eyes when we reached our new home.

Gatlinburg. The town was nestled between mountains and was quite quaint.

But I was hardly paying any attention to the city as I focused solely on Carlisle's car in front of me, ready for my own bed and a week of relaxation. Walking across Europe was easier in my opinion. Because if I'm walking, I don't get a stiff back and legs while doing it.

Driving down a dirt road, we finally arrived at our new home. It was a large two-story log cabin with five bedrooms and four bathrooms.

It used to belong to some big city rich guy who wanted a hunting retreat for himself but died of a heart attack before he could even stay a night here.

Opening my car door, I slowly maneuvered my way out of the car, holding my back.

"You alright, dear?" Rosalie asked as she exited the passenger side.

I nodded my head. "I'll be fine in an hour or so. Just need to move around," I said, twisting my body, silently deciding the next time we moved somewhere, I'll fly while the others can drive themselves.

Or better yet, I'll just buy a damn plane, learn to fly it, then fly us wherever the hell it is we want to go. Because, damn it, I'm getting too damn old for this.