Wow guys, thank you so much for your positive feedback! It makes me feel so awesome. I would have posted this chapter last night, but my computer was acting weird last night. I hope you like it!

Jake was in a much better mood by the time we made it to the beach. He hopped out of the car and ran around to open my door for me before I could even take my seatbelt off. When he opened the door he flashed me my smile and gave me a mock bow.

"My lady"

I rolled my eyes and playfully shoved his shoulder as I walked around him and the open door. I heard the door slam shut and a warm arm go around my shoulder as we walked to the small group of mostly overgrown teenagers, who were all sitting in a circle around a small fire.

When we walked up Quil and Embry automatically started in on the fact that Jake had his arm around me. I started to blush as the cat calls got louder, and tried to shrug Jake off, but to no avail. Jake just pulled me tighter and flipped his brothers off behind my back, making the lot of them laugh.

We sat down next to Sam and Emily who were, just moments before, caught in a very intimate moment. As we sat down Emily playfully pushed Sam away and scooted closer to me. I took the opportunity to shrug Jake off and distract myself from the immature pack of boys. I loved talking to Emily. She was the sweetest person in the world, and for the last three months she has been kind enough to fill yet another empty hole in my heart.

Although she was no Alice, she was just as good as Alice, but in different ways. While Alice was all about making me happy by doing extravagant things for me and treating me like her life size Barbie (which I loved by the way), Emily liked to listen. She knew so much about me, just because when she was around you wanted to talk to her. She had a very soothing personality. I spent a lot of my afternoons with her, while the boys would be patrolling.

Emily smiled sweetly at me as she took my face in her hands, examining me. I laughed a bit, and looked at her like she was nuts.

"Looking for something? I'm almost certain I look the exact same as I did three days ago when you saw me."

She laughed and dropped her hands, "No. It's just…something is different. Your eyes don't seem to be holding as much sadness today as they were three days ago. Did something happen?"

I looked down at my hands and over at Jake quickly to see if he was listening to us. He seemed to be very into a conversation with Quil and Leah, but I knew him better than that. He usually was listening to me, not intentionally, but just out of habit.

I turned back to Emily with pleading eyes. "Is there somewhere we can go to talk privately? I really need to talk to you."

Emily winked and turned to Sam, who was talking to Jared and Seth. She leaned up and whispered quickly in his ear. He turned his head and kissed her chastely and winked. He smiled at me over her shoulder and I smiled tentivaly back. It was a little weird. Sam never smiled at me.

Emily stood up and motioned for me to go with her. I started to get up when I felt a warm hand grab mine. I turned and looked in to Jake's quizzical eyes. I smiled and squeezed his hand lightly.

"I need to talk to Emily about girl stuff, so we are going to take a walk. We won't be far and if we need you we will yell."

"Ok. Be careful." He leaned to talk to Emily, who was standing behind me, "Watch this one. She could trip over a pebble."

I pulled my hand out of Jake's and hit him softly on the arm, knowing if I hit him too hard it would hurt me more than him. He just laughed at me and turned back to Quil. As Emily and I walked down the beach I could feel his gaze on me.

We walked down to this little alcove that is made of these huge smooth rocks. The sand that the rocks surrounded was the softest on the beach and perfect for sitting on. I looked around in amazement, never having seen this place before.

Emily smiled at me as she sat down, facing the ocean. "This is a place that Sam and I sometimes sneak away to when there is a party down here. It is great for privacy."

I blushed thinking about what kinds of things Emily and Sam did down here and it deepened when a random, shocking thought went through my head. I could imagine me and Jake laying in the sand here, doing all sorts of things that Charlie wouldn't approve of.

I shook my head to stop the thoughts.

"What did you need to talk about?"

I took a deep breath and laid back on the sand. I looked up at the sky and thought about where to start. I decided the beginning would be best. I told her about the dream and then what happened that morning. Then I told her what I had been thinking about Jake, and how confused I was over the entire situation.

Like she always does, Emily listened intently. Adding in encouraging statement now and again to urge me to really tell her how I felt. When I finally finished, I felt so much better. We sat there in a comfortable silence for about two minutes before I heard Emily take a deep breath.

"Want my advice?"

"Of course I do."

"Ok. Well, I think that you need to talk to Jake. We both know how he feels about you and he would be thrilled if you were wanting to give him a chance to make you happy. But, when you talk to him, unless you are completely certain that is what you want, I wouldn't get his hopes up. You are the most important person in Jake's life Bella. If you were to love him and then leave him, he might not be able to take it. So if you decide to love him, then love him."

I nodded and blinked away the tears that built up behind my eyelids. "I understand what you're saying, and your right. I still have to think about this, I never want to hurt Jacob."

Emily and I stood up and she put her arm around me in a gentle hug as we started to walk back.

"Just to let you know, either way I will always love you, but it would be so nice to have you around as a sister."

I smiled and let my mind drift off to think about how happy I felt during the dream that I had about Jake. As we came around the bend and in view of the fire I saw both Jacob and Sam noticeably straighten and look towards us. They both had their eyes locked on us, as they continued the conversation they were having with each other. Emily broke our hug and went instantly to Sam's side, taking his hand and smiling up at him lovingly.

My eyes roamed back over to Jake's who was staring at me intently. I walked slowly over to him and asked him if he was ready to head back to the house. We promised Charlie and Billy that we would be there to help Sue with the last of the food preparations.

"Oh yeah, that's right. Good thing you remembered, I would have been in trouble when I got back to the house."

I, once again, rolled my eyes at him and laughed just a bit as I started towards the direction of Jake's car.

"Hey, Bella!"

I turned to see the entire group staring at me. "What?"

"Are you too good to tell us bye?" Asked a smirking Quil. "Cause you know what we do to people who think they are better than us?"

I shook my head and looked to Jacob for help, but he was standing next to Quil, looking apologetic.

"Quil. You know I don't think I'm better than you. We've been over this before-AAHHH!!!" My speech was cut short as I was lifted and hoisted over the young werewolf's shoulder. "Quil! Put me down!!"

I heard him laugh as he walked slowly towards the icy ocean water. "Please don't throw me in the water…Quil…please?"

He stopped right at the edge of the ocean, the water lapping up on his bare feet. "I don't know Bella. I walked all this way, seems like a shame not to go through with it. But then again…"

But I wasn't listening to Quil, I was looking behind him at Jake and Embry as the snuck up on the two of us. Jake motioned for me to be quite and winked as he gently took my hands fully into his. I then looked at Embry and nodded. Embry then held up his hand counting down from five. When Embry made a complete fist Jake suddenly pulled me out of Quil's grasp as Embry pushed the shocked boy as hard as he could, launching him into the water.

The laughter was contagious. I held on to Jake for support as a wet and mildly pissed off Quil lumbered out of the water. He walked over to where me, Jake and Embry stood and shook violently, spraying us with cold water. I squealed and used Jake as a shield.

"Next time Bella. I will get you, girl. Don't you worry about that."

I laughed and pulled Jake away from the group, yelling my good byes to everyone as we made our way to Jake's Rabbit.

***

When we got back Sue had almost everything done. But there was plenty for us to do to help her finish. Jake was put in charge of mashing and seasoning the potatoes and I was in charge of filling the deviled eggs. I ended up having to move to the opposite side of the kitchen from Jake, because for every two eggs I finished, Jake would eat one.

We finished everything and set up all the food, buffet style to make it easier for the hungry teenagers to get their food faster. By the time that the last hot dogs and burgers were being taken off the grill, four vehicles pulled up and the nine missing guests piled out.

As Jared and Paul made a bee line for the food, they immediately stopped when Sue shot them a look. She cleared her throat and everyone instantly looked at her.

"Kids, you all go in and get cleaned up before you start touching all that food. Let the adults and all guests that are not teenage boys get some food first, before you destroy this beautiful table."

There were groans and protests from almost all the wolves as they trudged into the house to wash up. I giggled as Emily pulled me towards the food.

I don't remember the last time I ate that much food. It was all so good, I just couldn't stop. I figured that Jake's appetite was rubbing off on me.

The game came on an hour later. All the boys and grown men piled into the small living room to watch on Billy's new big screen tv.

Emily, Leah, Sue and I all worked to clean up. With all four of us it only took us about twenty minutes to clean up everything. When we were done, Leah and Emily both went to join the boys. Sue started making some coffee and taking out a bunch of dessert foods. I sighed and walked out onto the back porch. I sat down on the bench and looked at the sun setting.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and looked out on the beautiful scenery. I was instantly reminded of my dream when I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I gasped and looked up to see two black eyes smiling at me.

"Football not your thing?"

I smiled and made room for him to sit next to me. "Well, it's not that. I just wanted to get some fresh air and some quiet time."

Jake smiled and looked out at the sun set, his arm on the back of the bench, behind me, "We are pretty rowdy."

I leaned into Jake and his arm automatically folded down around me. He held me close, warming me, even though I hadn't even realized I was cold. I felt so content and happy that at that moment there was just one thing I wanted to do.

I pulled back and looked up at Jake. He looked down at me, an emotion in his eyes that I 'd never seen before. His head lowered towards mine and I should have stopped him.

But I didn't want to. I loved Jacob. He could make me happy. I could make him happy.

That was the moment I decided I wanted to try this thing with Jacob.

Jake was still getting closer to me when I started to meet him half way. Our lips connected for the briefest of moments when Jake pulled away. He looked at me, scared of my possible reaction. I smiled brightly at him, to ease him and he returned it with my smile.

He put a warm hand on my cheek and started to pull me forward towards him again. I willing let him.

Right as we were about to kiss the door was thrown open and Paul ran out, laughing, followed by a very angry Jared, who was covered in what appeared to be the banana pudding that Sue had made. In a sudden, we were surrounded by the entire pack and guests as we laughed at the quaralling boys.

While the entire group was still watching as Paul dodged Jared advances, I felt a gaze on me. I looked up and smiled at Jake. He smiled back and leaned down to kiss me. It was the most precious and perfect kiss I had ever had. When he pulled back he winked at me before getting up to join to ever growing scuffle. Sue sat down next to me and chuckled at the commotion.

I sighed and pulled my knees back up to my chest, watching my friends have fun and listening to the laughter of some of the most important people in my life. My heart felt like it could burst with the happiness that I felt.

I gazed out to the crowd of boys and searched for a particular pair of black orbs. When I found them I smiled brightly. Jake smiled a big goofy smile and waved right before he was tackled by Seth and Jared.

What do you think? How was it? Now I'm not really sure what I am going to do for a conflict yet...I don't want to use something that has been done a million times. Got any suggestions? Let me know. I'm still thinking about it so it may take a few days for the next update.

Peace and love to all!!