Lolo: thank you for pre-reading xo. Thank YOU for putting my story on alert and for all your reviews – I love you all and adore 'meeting' you via PMs.

Alright, FuzzyFur asked for Edward to have a heart to heart with Adam. This is as fluffy as Edward gets with the guy who's stolen his daughter's heart. But first, Bella has PMS. Read on!

Chapter 13

It was back to life, back to reality, after the summer ended. September was another busy month with everyone returning to school and me trying to work on my novel. Rosalie wanted to read the first ten chapters by the end of the week, so I had my work cut out for me.

Each morning, I sequestered myself in my office with all the necessities I needed to write: coffee, laptop, and some form of sugar. That particular day, it happened to be Bella's not-so-well-hidden stash of M&M Peanuts.

First mistake - don't touch Bella's emergency stash.

Bella arrived home shortly after four in a fowl mood. I heard her banging things around before she knocked on my office door and let herself in. I smiled at her but instead of returning it, she scowled at me instead.

"Did you eat my M&M's?" she asked, glancing around.

With my foot, I shoved my garbage can under my desk, hiding the evidence. I turned my eyes back to my computer screen.

"You had M&M's in the house?" I tried to feign innocence.

Second mistake – don't lie to Bella.

"We have been married a long time, Edward. I have been hiding M&M's, and you have pretended not to notice for years now. Kind of like how I pretend not to know about your downloaded porn collection."

"That's work related," I scoffed.

Bella lifted one eyebrow and I slightly cowered in my seat.

"Where are they?" Clearly, she was not amused.

"Maybe Leah or Charlotte ate them." I suggested.

She leveled me a look. No pout needed, I dropped what I was doing and offered to go to the store for her.

"That's not the point, Edward. I bought those for me. I don't go around eating your Twizzlers."

"You don't like Twizzlers, though." I pointed out.

"Again, that's not the point."

"I wouldn't care if you ate them, just saying."

Third mistake – keep mouth shut when wife is already pissy.

"Oh, so you're better than me now because you wouldn't care if I ate your snack, is that what you're saying?" Bella put her hands on her hips.

"That's not what I'm saying at all. You're PMS-ing aren't you?" I meant that in the nicest way possible.

My fourth mistake put the nail in the coffin. Bella's face went red in anger and she spat her words out at me.

"Yeah, maybe, I am. But you know what PMS actually stands for? Plainly, Men Suck. Pass My Shotgun. Potential Murder Suspect." Bella was seething as she narrowed her eyes in my direction.

Odd, because in my head, PMS meant so many other things.

Psychotic Mood Shift.

Perpetual Munching Spree.

Pardon My Sobbing.

Pass Me Sweets.

Pissy Mood Syndrome.

Poor Man Suffers.

Pleasing My Self.

Sadly, I identified with the above two the most. Obviously, I kept all those to myself. I wasn't that stupid.

"Come here, baby." I went to her and attempted to wrap my arms around her, knowing a hug would make her feel better.

Bella pushed me away. "You want sex, don't you?"

"What? No! I just thought a hug would make you feel better."

"You know what would make me feel better?" Bella smiled at me sweetly. Too sweetly. "Eating my God damned M&M's."

"I said I'll go get you some."

"Nevermind, it's fine."

Fine. Yeah, I knew exactly what that meant. I was a writer, I knew all the acronyms.

F – Furious

I – Irritable

N – Neurotic

E – Emotional.

I grabbed my keys, put my tail between my legs, and kissed my cranky, yet beautiful, wife's cheek. I went to the bulk bins at the local grocery store and bought forty-seven dollars worth of M&M peanuts. Before I made my way home, I picked up several of Bella's favorite dishes from PF Chang's.

When I got back home, I handed Bella the massive bag of M&M's first, then the Chinese food. She got tears in her eyes and threw her arms around my neck to thank me.

Just another day in the life with a PMS-ing Bella.

Thank God for chocolate and Chinese.

The next day, I went back to the grind, plugging away on my still untitled novel. Well, that's not entirely true. The novel wasn't officially named but I needed to save it as something. Being that the main character's name was Will, it was temporarily inappropriately titled 'Good Will Humping'. Rosalie always had a laugh over my preliminary titles: Pulp Friction, The Godfondler, Bitchcock, Cum Dog Millionaire.

Yes, I'm a sick, sick man. You love me for it, I know.

In case the kids ever used my laptop, early on, Rosalie taught me how to encrypt all my files. That is exactly what I did after my final edit. Before I could back up to my USB stick though, my laptop unexpectedly shut itself down. I quirked an eyebrow at the blank screen and pressed the space bar. When nothing happened, I hit it again and again, probably a little more forcefully than necessary. I held down the power button waiting for my MacBook to reboot. Nothing.

What the fuck?

I had ten chapters sitting there, ready to be pre-read by Rosalie, and I couldn't get my fucking computer to turn on. I had encrypted the file but not backed up. Shit. I always backed up except the fucking computer died before I could. There was potentially hours of hard work gone.

No, no, no, this was bad, very, very bad.

I'm not exactly computer illiterate. MS Word, email, Google, Facebook, no problem. Certainly, I can find myself around a porn site easy enough. However, faced with a black screen, I was completely helpless.

Frantic, I left a panicked message on Rosalie's voice mail hoping she could help me or have someone from IT call me back. I stomped off to the kitchen.

Where the fuck were those damn M&M's? If they worked for PMS, surely they would help with this.

A voice in the kitchen startled me.

"You okay?"

I turned and faced Adam who was sitting at the kitchen table, with a textbook open in front of him.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you in school?" I growled. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and I wasn't in the mood for company, especially someone who was screwing my daughter. What? He was.

"I don't have classes on Friday's this semester, so I drove home last night. I'm waiting for Leah. She's done early on Friday's and is upstairs getting ready. We're meeting some of her friends for an early dinner." Adam twirled his pen between his fingers as he explained.

While he was talking, I found the coveted stash of chocolate, which Bella had cleverly hidden behind her box of Fiber "Make You Shit Your Pants" One cereal. (I was more of a Coco Puff type of guy.) I shoved a handful of M&M's into my mouth.

"You looked stressed." Obviously, that was his polite way of telling me the vein in my forehead looked like it might explode. Truthfully, it felt like it might.

I snorted, almost choking on the M&M's.

"Yeah, I'm stressed." I answered with my mouth full. "My laptop died and I was just finishing up an editing assignment that's due tomorrow."

"You have a MacBook Pro, right? That's what I use. I can take a look, if you want?" Adam offered.

"Naa, it's fine. I'll wait for your mom to call me back, hopefully she can hit me up with someone from the IT department later."

"Did you try to reset the computer's PMU, SMC, or PRAM?"

Apparently, I wasn't as computer literate as I thought.

"Are you even speaking English, boy?"

Adam laughed. "Come on, let me take a look. Is it in your office?"

I nodded and led the way. Adam sat behind my desk and pressed the space bar first, then held down the power button.

"Yeah, I tried that. You sure you know what you're doing?" I chastised.

"Just checking." Adam informed me as he wiggled, unplugged, and re-plugged the power cord. He pressed the power button again but nothing happened. Carefully, he flipped the laptop over, removed the battery, and blew inside. I snorted, like that was going to help anything. Adam ignored my snort as he put the battery back in and tried the power button again. Nada.

"It doesn't look good does it? Fuck!" I cursed then apologized. "Sorry."

"It's fine. It's possible that the SMC could have encountered an issue that may have caused unusual system behavior. Before it shut down was the computer acting odd? Running slow? Was the fan extra loud or not working at all? Was the SIL working?"

I looked at Adam blankly.

"I have no idea what the hell a SIL is or if it was working correctly. I was using Microsoft Word —it works about as fast as I can type — and I have no idea if the fan was extra fucking loud. It's a fan."

Adam smiled. "Well, when was the last time you backed your files up?"

I frowned as I rubbed my hand over my face. "I usually back up every day."

"Usually?" Adam asked.

"Well, the friggin computer died before I could back anything up today. I encrypted, and saved the file to my desktop, but never officially backed up."

Adam made a face.

"It's that bad?"

"Potentially, yes. I'm going to try to reset your PRAM first and then your SMC. It may take me a while."

"Can I get you something while you work?" It was the least I could do.

"Uh, some ice water, if you don't mind. Oh, and can you tell Leah I have to bail on dinner?"

"You don't have to do that, Adam."

He grinned. "I'm sure I could use the bonus points with my girlfriend's father."

He was, after all, doing inappropriate things with my daughter, bonus points couldn't hurt.

"I'll get that water."

Two hours later, my computer turned on. I was so happy, I wanted to kiss the boy. I offered him a beer instead, which he took after I assured him I wouldn't hold it against him, being that he was a minor drinking alcohol.

"Is my file there? The one I was working on when it crashed?" I was optimistic.

"Let me see. It's not on your desktop. Hhhmmmmm. Let me do some digging here. What did you save the file as?" Adam looked at me expectantly as I hummed and hawed for a minute.

"Good Will Humping," I finally stammered, as I nervously bit my fingernail. I tried not to blush.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Adam asked.

I cleared my throat. "Good Will Humping." It really was a clever title if only I hadn't had my Godson slash daughter's boyfriend trying to search for it.

Adam cocked me an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that. I just edit the documents. It's the writers that come up with the crazy titles." I smiled sheepishly, and waited patiently for him to find my document.

"I think I've got it here. Yup, Good Will Humping. It's still encrypted."

I let out the breath I felt like I'd been holding since the computer crashed.

"You just saved me, Adam. Thank you!"

I all but pushed him out of the way to check my file. Immediately, I went to decrypt the file but it wouldn't work. I cursed and told Adam I was having trouble and we traded seats again.

"Let me take a look. I've used OFTE before."

Say what? I smiled and nodded like I knew what the hell he was talking about. Adam's fingers flew across the keyboard

"I think I've got it but I'll have to re-load each chapter individually, should take a few minutes for each.…." His voice trailed off and his fingers stalled.

"Something wrong?" Oh God, please don't tell me everything was lost?

"Is this is E.A. Masen's new novel?" He asked in a low voice.

"Pppffff, no. Why would you say that?"

Oh Fuck.

"Maybe because the title page says 'Good Will Humping by E.A. Masen.' Is it?" Adam waited for me to explain myself with a tilt of his head. At that point, I knew he knew the truth, but decided to try and bluff my way through. Operative word: Try.

"Uh, no, I mean yes, actually it is. I was, uh, pre-reading the first ten chapters for him, uh, or her."

As far as everyone knew, I was an editor, so the lie was very plausible. If I hadn't stuttered and stammered my way through it like a moron, Adam may have believed me.

"My mom told me she is the only one who has ever dealt with the author in twenty years. Said he or she is very particular about only meeting with her specifically." Adam stared at me intently. "I believe she said he was completely anal. Highly irritable, often irrational. Even an asshole sometimes. Her words, not mine." His slightly raised eyebrow was full on cocky.

"Rosalie's, uh, been busy and, uh, tired lately. Growing a human and all. I was, uh, helping her out."

"Uh huh, sure. What's your middle name?" Adam eyed me suspiciously.

Like I said, I wasn't good at lying, especially on the fly. If I were, I would have said my middle name was Robert or Patrick or something. But no, I didn't. Idiot.

"My middle name? It's, uh, Tony," I croaked out.

"You mean Anthony." It was a statement, not a question. "Edward Anthony. Initials E. A. Interesting." Adam stroked his baby-faced chin thoughtfully.

"Heh, heh. I never realized that before." I chuckled.

"Did you know that people who laugh nervously are usually lying?" The boy could lift one eyebrow like he was a Cullen.

I glared at him. "What are you, a psychology major now?"

Adam ignored me and went straight for the truth.

"You're E.A. Masen, aren't you?"

Bella and I always said that if our kids ever asked us a question, point blank, we wouldn't lie to them. For example, when they asked if Santa Clause and the elves were real, we told them the truth. If they were old enough to think to ask the question, they were old enough to handle the truth.

I felt no shame in lying to Adam. He wasn't my kid.

"Yeah, right. Hi, I'm E.A. Masen and I'm a married man with kids and I write romance novels." I snorted for emphasis. "That's hilarious. Sorry, Adam, I'm just a boring editor."

"You're him! That's why that Sunday afternoon you were defending his ass and why it bothered you so much that I wasn't a fan of his writing. I'm totally right, I can tell by the look on your face. Holy Shit. You write porn!" Adam clapped his hands together once as he figured it out.

"Ssshhhhh!" I shushed him, even though we were alone in my office with the door closed.

"You are E.A. Masen."

"I didn't say that," I protested.

"You didn't have to. I love this. My Godfather, the man who is supposed to mentor me in life, writes smut. This is priceless." Looking smug, Adam leaned back in my office chair, hands laced behind his (fat) head. I resisted kicking his ass out of my seat simply because I really needed him to restore my chapters. Damn it.

"My role of Godfather is strictly limited to giving you birthday and Christmas presents." I informed the little punk.

"Riiiight."

"Are you done retrieving my document?" I skirted around the whole issue.

Adam folded his arms across his chest. "I'm not sure I can retrieve the document after all."

Asshole.

"Excuse me?" Adam asked, amusement in his voice.

Shit, that was out loud. "Nothing."

"Tell me the truth and I'll see if I can fix things."

I wanted to wipe the grin off his face – with sandpaper. Fucking, cocky, son of a bitch, punk-ass, little fucker.

Running my fingers through my hair, I sat down across from him. I needed to think, and fast. Then it came to me. Two could play at this game. Smile plastered on my face, I faced the pain in the ass.

"Listen, Adam. We all have secrets. Some are embarrassing things you wouldn't want anyone to know. Especially your girlfriend. I'm sure it would be really embarrassing for you if Leah ever found out about the snot collection you used to keep on your window sill."

Adam snorted like he didn't care. I needed to dig deeper. Pun not intended.

"I could always break out the photos of you in ballet when you were six."

He had the gall to roll his eyes at me and gestured at my computer screen.

"You sure have an abundance of porn and explicit videos on your laptop. I wonder if Auntie Bella knows? Or worse, does Leah know her father has such an extensive collection?"

I wanted to yell that it was for research purposes but managed to restrain myself. Was Adam really going to blackmail the blackmailer? Oh, I don't think so.

"There's also a little video tape of a certain happy, yet indecent, elf I'm sure I can get my hands on. Were you in sixth or seventh grade when that happened, I forget. It's a shame you didn't know the waistband maneuver technique back then." I cocked him an eyebrow and wasn't able to hide my smirk.

If you have no idea what technique I'm referring to, ask any male over the age of fifteen who's suffered a boner at an inopportune time.

"You wouldn't." Adam challenged me.

My smirk grew. "Oh yes, I would."

For obvious reasons, Adam didn't want the video of him in the Christmas play to surface. Red-faced, he turned his attention back to my laptop, his fingers hitting the keys harder than I thought necessary. A few minutes later, he turned to face me.

"Look at that, I think your Word document is perfectly fine, Mr. E.A. Masen."

"Excellent. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

I cleared my throat, needing to get serious.

"You're now part of a very select group who know about me, Adam. Your parents, my brother, Esme, Alice, Jasper, and Bella, obviously. You've read some of my novels and know of the, uh, sensitive material it covers. I'm sure you can appreciate why it's not something I want anyone else to know, especially my children."

Adam nodded. "Would it be really inappropriate of me to tell you that some of your work was rather … inspirational?"

I glared at him. "Considering you are dating my daughter? Yes. Highly inappropriate."

"Forget I said that."

"I will."

Then there was silence.

"Okay, looks like you're up and running. Do you have a USB stick?" I handed Adam one and he saved my work to the device.

When he was done, Adam and I both stood up and I extended my hand to him and he shook it firmly. We both knew it wasn't just a thanks. It was also a silent agreement that he wouldn't reveal who I was, and I wouldn't mention his soft porn Christmas play again.

"Thank you, Adam."

"Don't mention it."

"Yeah," I snorted. "Let's not."

At five, we made our way back to the kitchen. Adam and I had spent three hours together and I didn't kill him, I was proud of myself. Bella was standing at the island, preparing a salad for supper. She looked surprised to see us together.

"Hi, you two. What's going on?" She looked suspiciously between us.

"His computer crashed and I was able to fix it." Adam grinned widely as he threw his arm around my shoulder.

"Yes, and apparently Adam thinks we bonded more than we actually did." I wanted to glare at him but, damn it, he had saved the day.

Adam's cell phone rang; he pulled it from his pocket and smiled. "Excuse me, it's Leah. Hi, baby." He walked to the living room as he chatted.

Bella came over to me and fed me an olive from the Greek salad she was making. I sucked her finger in my mouth and raised my eyebrows at her.

"Not going to happen." She scolded me as she removed her finger, wagging it at me. "Besides the fact that Adam is in the next room, and Charlotte is upstairs, I need you get the kebobs on the grill."

I attempted to pout, sticking my bottom lip as I looked at her. Epic fail as Bella started laughing.

"Your pout needs some work, Mr. Cullen," Bella said between giggles. She swatted my butt with her hand. "The chicken's on the counter. Now, go."

I grabbed the meat, and some tongs, and went out to the backyard. While I was waiting for the grill to pre-heat, Jacob came home from football practice. As we tossed a ball around we chatted about his day at school. Adam came out to say he was going to meet up with Leah, and her friends, and I thanked him again for his help.

It was a nice evening so we decided to eat outside, enjoying the weather while it was still warm enough. Charlotte helped Bella bring the plates and side dishes outside while I taught Jake the art of grilling perfect kebobs. I was the grill master, after all.

The four of us ate a leisurely meal on the back deck, turning on the heat lamp when the night air grew cooler. It was nice to chat with the kids about their classes, and teachers, as well as hear about Bella's new class of little ones. Jacob, of course, was thrilled about being in his final year. He had decided to drop all other sports to focus solely on football, really hoping to earn a scholarship.

Charlotte had decided to try out for the cheerleading squad and with her dance background, I had no doubt she would make the team. Immediately, I was worried about Char being around all the football players and then I saw Jacob's face.

"Great, now I have my work cut out for me. I'll have to captain the team and make sure none of the guys try to get with my little sister," he grumbled.

"Whatever, Jake. I'm not interested in any of your friends." Charlotte flicked her hair off her shoulder as she spoke.

"Uh huh, sure. Because you've never tried to go after one of my friends before."

Charlotte glared at her brother.

"Are you talking about Alec?" As I questioned, I saw confusion flicker across Char's face. Shit. I'd found out about Alec by way of not-so-politically-correct sleep talk probing.

"How do you know about Alec?" Charlotte asked, glancing between Jacob and I.

"Don't look at me!" Jake held his hands up innocently, which left me looking rather guilty. I shrugged my shoulders and Bella tried hard not to laugh.

"That's it! I want a lock on my door so you can't interrogate me while I'm sleeping. I'm pretty sure that's illegal." Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and I couldn't help but to laugh.

"Any information I learn while you are sleeping is not obtained under duress. Besides, it's not my fault you like to talk in your sleep. You can thank your mother for that."

"Great, I get the talking gene from mom and the hair from you. Awesome. Thanks a lot you two."

"Don't forget you also got my sparkling personality." I teased. I had to agree, she kind of got the bum wrap on all accounts.

We were still outside at ten when Adam and Leah came back home from their date. Despite the rough start to the day, it ended on a high note as we all stayed up late, talking and laughing.

As I sat there, I realized that my family of five was now six. Adam fit in, as much as I didn't want to admit it. Leah was as smitten with him as he was with her. When we were only a few years older than them, Bella and I were married. Something told me her and Adam would be married before I knew it. He'd better ask my permission, punk. I realized I needed to stop lording over Leah and treat her more like the adult she had become. Poor Jacob and Charlotte. Me letting up on Leah meant they were about to pick up the slack.

I wish my hubby would buy me $47 worth of M&Ms, damn it!

Hope you liked Adam and Edward's little chit chat. Fun times!

Next up: Charlotte turns sixteen and Edward plans a date day for the two of them. I hope you will stick around to read! Maybe a teaser if you review? Hhhmmmmm

xoxox