A/N: I don't own this. We all know who does.

Thanks to goldentemptress, BellaEdwardlover1991, and bugsmama07 for pre-reading this. :)

Thanks to MariahajilE for keeping me in line and fixing my brain spewings. :)

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Chapter Ten

Saturday arrived sooner than I'd planned when I was awoken at six in the morning by my very excited son.

"Mommy, when's Uncle Edward coming to get me? When are we going to the ball game? Do you know what kind of lunch he's bringing? Where's my lucky baseball hat?"

I tried to hide my irritation and sleepiness with laughs and groggy answers to his never-ending questions. Finally, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him down alongside of me on the bed.

"Honey, the game doesn't start until almost lunchtime, and Mommy's tired. Let's get some more sleep, because otherwise, you're going to be too tired to stay awake all day. I' sure don't want you falling asleep in the middle of your lunch."

He giggled and squirmed into my side. "Okay, Mommy," he said just before closing his eyes. He never fully went back to sleep, but at least he lay still in the bed for another hour and a half. He probably would have stayed longer except that Mckenna woke up and was a little jealous about her brother getting to lay in my bed with me and her not being involved. After they played and whispered and laughed for another twenty minutes, I got up and made them breakfast.

We were all dressed and Collin was ready to go when Edward and Emily showed up.

"You got sunscreen on, buddy?" Edward asked Collin.

"Mom! We forgot it!" he said with a look of horror on his face. I was certain that he was remembering the sunburn he'd gotten the summer before when Alec took him swimming. It hadn't been too bad, but it was painful enough that he knew he didn't want another one.

"Come on," I said, whisking him away to the bathroom so that we could get him all lotioned up.

When I returned to the kitchen, I could hear Edward teasing the girls as he tried to steal a few of the cookies Mckenna and I were making for our Girls Day. "Mommy say you get a spankin' if you steal cookies, Unca Edward," Mckenna scolded him.

"Oh, your mommy would never spank me. I'm too sweet; I'd never do anything bad enough to need that," he told her as he pulled a cookie from the cooling rack and shoved it all into his mouth.

"Mommy! Unca Edward's takin' cookies!" she shouted just as I entered the room.

"Well, I guess we'll have to spank him, won't we?" I joked, met by laughs and squeals from all three of our children.

"Spank him, Mommy! Spank him!" Kenna and Collin yelled as they jumped up and down and clapped.

I was a bit taken aback at their excitement over it, but was happy to see them enjoying themselves.

"Uncle Edward's been a bad boy, hasn't he?" I asked them with a smile, putting my hands on my hips to exaggerate the severity of the situation.

"Now, Bella..." he said, taking a step away from me.

"Spank him!" Emily shouted as she continued to giggle and clap alongside her cousins.

I turned to look at Edward, smiling at the look in his eyes. I couldn't tell if he was enjoying the moment or concerned that I might really spank him. I was only planning to tap him a bit on the arm, and when I did, the kids erupted in displeasure.

"Spank his fanny!" Mckenna yelled, which caused me to turn quickly and look at her.

"Kenna!" I said in surprise, only to be met by Collin and Emily both repeating the phrase over and over again.

I turned back to Edward, seeing the smirk on his face. "I've been a bad boy, Bella. You'd better spank me."

My heart stuttered, and my stomach dropped to my feet. Suddenly, the room felt about thirty degrees warmer, and when he turned his body just a bit, keeping his eyes locked on mine but his backside accessible to me, I let out a stuttered breath.

"You want me to spank you?" I asked him quietly.

"I was bad. I guess I deserve it," he shrugged, his smirk growing even wider.

He was enjoying my discomfort for some odd reason. But then again, as I looked at him and listened to our children, I realized maybe it wasn't discomfort. Maybe it was something else, something more… something different. Maybe it was nervousness. Maybe it was anxiousness. Maybe it was excitement.

"Okay, you asked for it," I said, the smile on my face faltering for a moment as I got closer to him and really thought about touching that part of his body. Before, it always would have been considered inappropriate, being that we were both married people. But now... it wasn't so black and white anymore.

I reached my hand out and gently tapped his butt, for just a moment letting myself feel the denim that covered his muscles and skin and blood and everything that he was made up of.

"Harder!" the kids called out to me as Emily fell to the floor in a laughing fit.

"Come on, Bella. Give me all you got," Edward whispered to me, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

I smiled brighter at him, then pulled my hand back and smacked him hard.

"Ouch!" he yelled, jumping forward and rubbing his butt as he put on a show for our squealing children.

"Yay! You got him, Mommy!" Mckenna laughed as she danced around the room.

I knew the hit wasn't too hard, but it was hard enough that it brought back memories of the night I met Edward.

"She's the birthday girl! Everyone's gotta give her a birthday spankin'!" Alec shouted, then proceeded to line up all of our friends who were at the bar celebrating the night with us. Some hit hard but most were just light taps, and I was drunk enough that I wasn't feeling any pain or anger over it. Finally, it was Jane's turn.

"This will hurt me more than it hurts you," she laughed, then gave me a smack that wasn't too hard but wasn't the softest of the night, either. Behind her in line was Edward, her new boyfriend that I'd just met that night.

"Sorry, Bella," he said in a quiet voice.

I laughed. "It's okay. You only turn twenty-two once, right?"

"I guess so." He smiled at me, and his cheeks turned a bit red as he got closer to me. "Happy birthday, Bella," he said softly, then lightly tapped by butt with his open hand. In my drunken mind, I thought maybe his hand lingered there a bit too long, that maybe his lips grazed my cheek in a barely-there kiss before he pulled away. I wasn't sure, but I as he got farther away from me, I felt a warmth that had been building in my chest begin to fade.

There was something different about him, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"Happy birthday, baby!" Alec said loudly, kissing me as he spanked me, letting his hand remain on my butt cheek as he squeezed and pulled me tight against him. "You ready to get outta here?" he asked before pulling me behind him and out the door.

"What?" Edward asked, watching me with a puzzled look on his face.

I shook my head. "Nothing. Just remembering something." The smile on my face was meant to reassure him, but it also showed how I felt at the moment; happy.

"I was just joking with all the talk before. I didn't really mean anything by it, you know... if you thought I was being inappropriate or something." He was stumbling around his words, which Edward rarely did, and I watched as his hands twisted together in nervousness.

"Don't worry," I said, reaching out to touch his upper arm. "It's fine."

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him with a smile and a wink. "Now, don't you boys have a ball game and picnic to get to? Us girls have a whole afternoon planned, and there are no boys allowed!" I said.

The girls squealed and giggled as Collin ran for the front door. Edward's smile as he left the room caused my breath to catch for a few seconds, as did the wink he gave me just before he turned the corner and took my son on his first official father-son outing.

He might have been the wrong father, but something about the two of them walking out the door together felt very right to me.

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