Bella

The house is quiet. Too quiet. And if having a kid has taught my anything, it's that silence can't mean anything good. I had been busy unpacking the groceries and telepathically swearing at the movers, when they called to tell me there was a problem with their truck and our stuff wouldn't be delivered today. That wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that neither my son or I have a bed or a couch to sleep on because of this.

Luckily my son's survival-instinct is through the roof and he decided he would create a tent in the back yard, using a tree and some sheets he told me he would be looking for in every closet in the house. I still can't believe I consented to it, but I love that kid so much it physically hurts me.

"Nate," I yell, looking around in our way too big of a house. "Nate!?" I hear some soft laughing and grin widely. Where's the monkey hiding this time?

As if I'm spy, I sneak through all the rooms, carefully opening the doors and looking inside. I had to give it to him, he's gotten a way better hider. I miss the days he would just stand behind the curtain or I could spot his feet miles away. My son has gotten too smart.

"BOO!" I reach for my heart when I enter the bathroom and my little ghost jumps from behind the door.

"Why you little-" Immediately I grab him and start tickling him without any mercy, pinning him to the ground. Then I plant some kisses all over his cheeks and head. "That's what you get for scaring your mother."

"Eww," he says laughing and after a while of simply lying on the bathroom-floor, we both get up. "Sorry, mom."

I ruffle through his brown hair, which he obviously has my genes to thank for. His blue eyes on the other hand, aren't mine. "Did you find anything useful, soldier?" I ask, to which he salutes me and shakes his head.

"All empty, ma'am" he states with a sigh.

I smile lightly, but let it fade when I realize what'll happen now. I had to promise, in case we needed a plan B. I only wished we wouldn't have to. "Alright, let's go ask our new neighbor if he can borrow us some," I mumble with dislike. I have no desire to face him after what I did, at least not this soon.

My son on the other hand has already taken a liking to Edward, so he rushes downstairs. Also not my genes to thank for. I make my way to the house next to ours and notice my son subtly scooting over behind me. He always has had a shy side to him.

Within less than a minute after ringing the door bell, Edward opens the door and seems utterly surprised. "Well, if it isn't the friendly neighborhood-tackler," he says with a smile. He won't be letting that one go, anytime soon. Damn it.

"Bye, Tarzan," I say and start to turn around again, but my son grabs my hand and takes over.

"Mom," he says, "We need to ask him." He pouts his bottom-lip and I groan. The kid knows how to win me over.

"Ask me what?" Edward jumps in, still with that mischievous smile on his face.

I sigh. I really didn't want him to think I was some helpless woman. I also strongly dislike being in debt to people and by now I already have a lot to make up for. Unfortunately we haven't gotten a chance to get to know our other neighbors. "There's some problem with the moving-truck, so our things won't be delivered 'till tomorrow," I begin. "But my brilliant son got me to agree with building a fort in the backyard to sleep in."

"Yeah!" Nate says, backing me up. "But we don't have any sheets. Or strings."

Edward smiles. "I'll take a look if I can find you some, kiddo," he says. Although his company is nothing more than painful reminder of my own mistrust in people, he's kind to my son. I had to give him that. "Can you make sure she doesn't deck my while I do so?" Never mind, smug bastard.

"Ay-ay, sir!" Nate salutes him, but gives me that worried look he always gives me when I'm about to tickle him to death. "We need him, mom," he nods in his defense. He's right, and I hate it.

Soon Edward returns with a whole bunch of linen and a role of ribbon. "Think this 'll do, kid?" he asks Nate, who happily takes over the sheets and almost completely disappears behind them – making him look like a ball of cotton with two legs coming underneath.

"Yes, sir!" he responds enthusiastically, after which I proudly smile. "Thank you." I taught my son well.

"No problem," Edward replies kindly and hands me the roll of string, locking his green eyes onto mine. "Don't you need blankets or pillows?"

I shake my head. "Makes the experience more 'real'," I quote my son. Seriously have got to learn how to say no to him.

"Aha," he chuckles. "Well, I wish you the best of luck. You can stop by any time, if you need any help."

"You should come see our fort later," the bundle of sheets with legs replies. Leave it to Nate to make some friends, although I'd wish they would be of his own age. It's hard enough being stuck with a only a mother, though I have to say he turned out pretty amazing so far.

Edwards looks at me for permission and I nod, with only a slight feeling of regret. He did give us the sheets, plus Nate would love it. "Maybe I'll come by later," he states and my pleasantly enthusiastic son disappears to our backyard.

"I'll have 'm washed and delivered back to you. Though I'm not liable for any damage that may come to them."

"Don't worry about it," he says, the corner of his mouth pulling upward. "I don't need them anymore, I've been thinking about throwing them away. This way they get a decent farewell."

"We'll be sure to do them justice," I say sincerely. "Thank you, Cullen."

"Any time, Swan," he respond and I go search my son in our garden, who already has laid out a bunch of the sheets. Normally I wouldn't let him out of my sight, but one of the privileges of our new neighborhood is that traffic is to a minimum. Nate's also a smart kid, I'd trust him with almost anything.

The whole afternoon and evening we do our best to create Fort Awesome – as Nate and I have named it. It may look easy, but building a fort with nothing but some string, sheets, a tree, and some stuff we found in the garage, isn't easy at all. Each time we would be done with one side, the other would have collapsed. However my son being my son, he found a way to keep it up and afterwards we even created a campfire out of candles so we could make some 's mores. Not the best or healthiest dinner, but the kid had a blast – and thus, so did I.

My son was asleep before it was even completely dark, so I moved him inside the fort – I luckily had been able to convince him to at least let me put down one of the bedspreads, so not to sleep on the grass. How he continued to sleep still baffled me though, since my body already is sour all over – I have the tackling to thank for that - and I haven't even lied down yet, part from a short time with Nate next to me. I treasure those moments.

Silently I roast another marshmallow and continue to eat, when I hear some ruffling noises from the bushes on the other side our picket-white fence, separating my yard from Edward's. I'm ready to go look for my baseball-bat, when I suddenly see Edward appear, resting his arms on the fence.

"So, how's the camping going?" he asks, sounding sincerely impressed. "I didn't think you'd be able to pull it off."

"You underestimate a mother and her young son, whom – I may add – has already abandoned me by falling asleep," I say dryly.

He grins widely. "Mind if I come over?"

I shrug my shoulders. "At your own risk," I say, doubtfully looking at him for a second. Although I hate asking for help or any kind of assistance, my son's wellbeing exceeds my personal flaws. There's nothing I wouldn't do for that kid. "Could you perhaps bring a blanket? I just wanna make sure the little soldier doesn't get cold." He nods and I continue to roast marshmallows, stuffing myself with them. Now I remember why I usually try not to buy them. They're completely addictive.

After a while he reappears at the same spot by the fence, tossing me the blanket. "You can come through the door, if you like," I inform him.

"What? I thought you were trying to go for the 'real experience'," he says laughing and starts climbing over, grunting as he does so.

"I was just trying to save your dignity."

He huffs and looks at me, after he has jumped down. "What makes you think I need it?" he asks. Smug bastard. Though I have to give it to him, he did it quite smoothly. No way I would be able to pull that off.

After I have put the blanket on my sleeping son, I simply continue what I was doing and hand Edward one of the long forks we have been using.

"Marshmallow?" I ask him. "But you should know we ran out of crackers a long time ago." He laughs and gladly accepts them, keeping one above the lit candles.

"Aren't you afraid you might go into some sort of diabetic shock?" he asks teasingly, to which I respond by putting one more in my mouth.

"Says to person has enough booze to drink himself into a coma about ten times." I'm not the only one keeping up the bad habits.

He swallows away one of the marshmallows. "In my defense, I don't plan to drink that all by myself," he adds. "My older brother's bachelor-party is tomorrow."

"Aha. Should I be worried about strippers exposing themselves in front of my son?" I ask cautiously. No way I was about to explain that to Nate. I'm already worried about having 'the talk' with him some day, since it was a completely traumatic experience when my father did. And seeing I got knocked up in high school, it wasn't all that effective.

To my luck, he shakes his head. "No, don't worry. Emmett already has been forced to call that off by the majority of women in my family. It's just going to be a small gathering of friends and family."

"The big guy's going to be disappointed," I say surprised and yawn. Maybe I'm more exhausted from moving and creating a place to sleep, then I'd like to admit.

He shrugs his shoulders and eats another one. "He'll get over it," he says. "I'm just happy the chances of having a visit from the cops tomorrow have just plummeted… Speaking of cops…"

Urgh. I knew he wouldn't be able to drop that. But I have no desire to talk about it, so I just lie down to look at the stars. For merely a second I let out a groan when I painfully touch the ground, rubbing my shoulder.

Worried Edward looks at me, "You okay?

"Even though you went down fast, you're quite hard to run into," I admit. "So I blame you for this."

"Really now?" he asks amused. "My apologies, I'll start eating a lot more fast-food. Maybe that'll make me softer."

"You should," I respond calmly and continue to look at the sky, keeping quiet for a while.

Edward however just keeps looking at me with those damn dreamy, green eyes of his, so I might as well start talking. Somehow I trust him not to judge our little family. Plus I kind of owe him.

"Our previous neighbors were asses," I state simply, and they were. Immediately he smiles satisfied, knowing what I'm about to tell him. "They had this idea in their crazy minds about how our neighborhood should be. Anything out of order had to be eliminated as soon as possible. No noise, no messy yards. They even tried to talk me out of letting Nate play outside, because it disturbed their precious peace and quiet. I, of course, wouldn't hear any of it."

"Of course," he repeats and I stomp his arm.

"Shut up, Cullen. Do you want to know or not?" I ask yawning, to which he gestures zipping his mouth shut and comes lie down beside me. I'm not sure whether I mind or not. "Thus the war started," I continue. "They kept nagging about Nate's toys, I parked my truck in front of their garage. They had it towed, I ordered several dozens of pizza to their house. And so on, and so on." I sigh. "But one day they went too far and dragged Nate into it. So I did something that made 'm call the cops on me." But I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him. "No, I didn't kill anyone and I didn't even get charged with anything." Though I probably have my father – who is Chief of Police – to thank for that.

"What did you do?" he asks curiously.

I respond quickly, "Doesn't matter."

"C'mon."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"If you tell me, we're even about the whole tackling-thing." Ugh, he has me there. I roll my eyes at him and turn to my side, so I can look him directly in the eyes and give him my most powerful, motherly strict stare. To this day it has always succeeded in making my son realize he's about to be in a lot of trouble. Not that Nate's not a good kid, he simply is a kid – and I have yet to master the art of refusing him anything.

"You have to promise you'll never tell anybody," I say, squinting my eyes at him.

He nods. "Promise."

I sigh and roll on my back again, hiding my face in my hands. "I filled their house with livestock."