LPOV

I arrived back in La Push just in time to go to another fucking party with another damn cake. The icing covered son of a bitch laughed at me from center stage on Charlie Swan's dining room table. It laughed so hard it snorted maliciously each time Jacob stomped past me, pointedly avoiding eye contact. It was infuriating being ignored when I had so much to say, while, at the same time, feeling so little need to actually say it. I didn't know how to voice what I needed to shout in Jacob's face, nor did I think that I'd found the appropriate time and place to do so.

It was bad enough that my little brother knew something was up. I didn't want to alert every single other person I knew to mine and Jacob's confusing whirlwind of a relationship.

How could that bastard go and do something like tell my brother—even hint to him—about what had been going on between us?

The Swan house was filled with a variety of unresolved tension. I could practically feel my underwear riding up my ass from that tension, like a fucking wedgie of anxiety. I couldn't pick it out with everyone watching, and it damn well felt like every single eye was on me.

Except for Jacob's, and that was even worse.

Crammed inside of Charlie Swan's middle class house wandered Bella and Edward Cullen, their darling daughter, Seth, Jacob, Charlie, my mom, and I. None of us could go five seconds without brushing up against each other. Seth kept shooting me accusatory glares, his eyebrows lifting toward his hairline as if to say, "Why the fuck didn't you text me back two nights ago? Why the fuck have you been in town a whole day and night and still not texted me back?" I glared back at him, but my lifted eyebrows said nothing except, "Mind your own damn business."

Jacob seemed to vomit a little in his mouth each time we brushed shoulders, and even the Cullen's seemed to flinch away from me, as if I was a walking disease. Granted, I had never been on good terms with the vampires, but did they have to act like I stabbed them each time we passed?

I wondered why my mother found it necessary to have this little "family gathering." She and Charlie had been dating for several years now, and anyone that hadn't come to terms with it at this point was an idiot. Though I still had my qualms about how fast the relationship had happened after my father had died, I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't any of my business, and I didn't have any room to talk lately about questionable affairs.

Still, it was upsetting watching her mingle between the vamps, trying so hard to seem confident and welcoming. I wanted to tell her that Bella and Edward and Renesmee's faces would always look like they were permanently grimacing. It wasn't her fault that the three of them were as good as half-dead, and that they sometimes forgot how to act around polite company. She was still trying to offer the olive branch, and the need to do so had passed.

Besides, I didn't see Charlie Swan groveling at my feet for acceptance. He seemed perfectly content following my mom around, fawning over his granddaughter.

I felt an itching need to escape. Being in the same place as my prying brother and Jacob Black was wearing on me, making me feel caged. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to deal with... whatever it was between Jacob and me.

Maybe it would be best just to let it go. Maybe he had done us both a favor by shutting me down.

Trying and failing to listen to my mother chatting Bella's leg off, I felt Jacob as he passed by me, headed toward the kitchen. It was annoying how hard it was to ignore him. I glanced his way before I could think better of it, but he didn't notice. He was still looking in any direction but mine.

I hated that he was so sexy when he pouted. Good looks were such a curse. So was a firm ass. I watched his as he walked away, thinking it would be a dumb idea to follow him just as I began to move in that direction.

I'd learned my lesson about being alone with Jacob, but that didn't seem to matter. I gave my mother's chocolate cake a disapproving frown as I passed by it, ducking through the kitchen doorway just after Jacob.

He stopped before he made it to the fridge, where he'd been going to refill his ice.

"What do you want, Leah?"

He was fucking psychic, I decided, when he knew that I was there without turning to see me. Must have been his dick. The Greek gods always had some sort of wicked ass talent, and, considering his cock had to be a direct descendent, I figured there must be some sort of awesome power in that rod. Or maybe it could just sense the desperate S.O.S signal my vag was giving out, desperate to feel the slick embrace of a real man.

I frowned. It was slightly unfair to Abe, but, really, he was lucky that I even remembered his name when I was in the same room as Jake.

My alpha turned around to face me, his empty glass in hand. God, he looked gloriously pissed. My mind danced back to the cake, even though I knew it would be suicidal to damage another one, to be fucked to that brink of insanity again. I was already half-crazed enough.

If things started to make less sense than they already did, I would be in that loony bin I'd thought of, wearing my crazy person jammies and drawing crude replicas of Jake's dick on the walls.

"I've been back in town for two days, and you haven't bothered to talk to me."

It sounded so pathetic I could have thumped myself in mouth, but the accusations I had prepared to fire at him about letting Seth in on our little secret seemed to shrivel up and disappear in the haze of Jacob's lusty man aura. It didn't seem as important as it should have been.

He had broken the cardinal rule in our relationship, but I was more concerned about the fact that I was going crazy without him than I was with the idea that people might actually begin to learn about us.

Jacob switched his glass to the opposite hand, shifting his weight at the same time. I felt like I was being challenged, but I didn't know how to react. Jacob looked like a massive wall of unresponsiveness. He didn't even seem to notice what I was wearing, which was an outfit I had felt a great deal of apprehension about wearing in front of my mother.

I had decided it couldn't be helped when I was so desperately trying to win Jacob back, and now it was all for nothing. Did he realize how hard it was to make whorish clothing look sexy and seductive? If he could have even just touched my shoulder, I might have been somewhat gratified, but he wouldn't touch me at all. He would barely look at me.

I could hear the others talking and my mom laughing in the other room. They felt like they were a world away, in some fantasy land that didn't exist.

"I told you that I'm done."

He might as well have slapped me in the face.

"And I told you that I'm not."

Jacob shrugged. "You proved otherwise when you went on that trip, when you decided that you wanted to keep dating him."

I frowned back at him. "Our relationship was never supposed to go this far. I told you that from the beginning."

"But it did, and I wanted something more, and you refused to give it."

"That wasn't how it was supposed to work," I hissed. "Why can't you just enjoy it for what it is?"

Jacob set his empty cup on the counter with an aggressive clatter of glass against granite. I watched the tension work into his broad shoulders and tighten his face. It was so easy to piss him off, even when I wasn't trying to do it.

"Because it's not what I want anymore. We can't agree on this relationship, so it's over," he growled. "That's it. I've moved on."

I recoiled. "What?"

Jacob seemed to have surprised himself. For a second, he didn't answer, but stared at me with a perplexed expression that seemed almost regretful. It might have been because my expression had turned murderous and disbelieving.

"What do you mean, you've moved on?" I demanded. "With who?"

Footsteps sounded behind me. I barely glanced back, seeing the bronze hair, knowing and smelling that it was Renesmee Cullen. She released a small sound of surprise, as if she hadn't expected to find anyone in the kitchen. Jacob glanced in her direction, made a face.

"Her."

The world came to a screeching halt, screaming like a train locking its brakes inside of my skull. I felt the blood rushing to my head, saw the red before it had even gathered.

"What?" I hissed, venomously. "What the hell are you talking about?"

()()()()()()()()()()()()()

JPOV

I hadn't known if Leah had any intention to be back in time for her mom's little family gathering, but I had banked on the idea that she wouldn't be, and that I wouldn't have to deal with seeing her face-to-face confined in a very small area. Unfortunately, my luck was always shit, and Leah was there, wearing something sexy as hell, no less.

The skirt she had poured herself into was dangerously close to inappropriate for the occasion. Her halter would have been if it hadn't been covered with a short-sleeved jean jacket. I could still see her cleavage and the sexy skin of her neck. I could still see her long, fuck-me legs and the firm mound of her ass. I wondered why this combination seemed to fry only my nerve-endings, until I reminded myself that I was the only one in the house who wasn't, in some form or another, related to Leah.

The outfit was obviously for me, and she was a bitch for wielding it.

I did everything possible to keep from looking at her and giving her the satisfaction of ogling, but Leah was never content with being ignored, even if it was the better decision for both of us. I'd known she was following me to the kitchen, but I didn't think it'd be wise to make a scene when we were being watched, particularly by Seth.

Nosy bastard.

Not that it wouldn't have been rewarding to call Leah a soul-sucking leech in front of everyone. My annoyance with her far surpassed the fact that I had told myself to go easy on her considering what I'd read in Sam's head. Even if it'd given her a decent reason to flee La Push for the week, it didn't excuse the fact that she was still trying to use me.

I had entertained the idea of sweeping her into my arms when she got back, convincing her that I was the guy she really wanted and needed, but now I just wanted to get her the hell away from me before I made myself look like any more of a needy loser. I was trying to win Leah over the wrong way, and that was obvious.

It was also why I made a last minute, very impromptu decision by telling her that I was with Renesmee. Even saying it gave me the willies, but she'd walked through the kitchen door, and she had practically given me the excuse. It had been her, after all, that had suggested that I stopped chasing.

It was a bad idea. My gut told me that it was, but what other choice did I have? If I hadn't thrown an obstacle between us fast, I would have done something stupid and reckless and weak. I swallowed the wave of sickness I felt over pretending to date Bella's daughter, and I tried to enjoy the way Leah went from stunned to furious.

Now she knew how it felt each time she brought up Abram, each time I had to acknowledge that he stood between us.

As Leah growled at me, I noticed Renesmee's mouth falling open slightly. The half-breed looked from me to Leah and back again. Her eyes were wide, as if she sensed the danger I had thrown her into by putting her in Leah's path.

"I'm seeing Renesmee now."

Renesmee made a little choking noise, backing up a step as Leah twisted her head to look around at her. For a split second, I felt a flicker of unease. She looked so much like Bella, even with her bronze hair, that it was almost instinct to want to step between her and Leah, to protect her.

But she wasn't Bella. She was Bella's half-breed daughter. This was a bad idea.

"You're seeing—When did this happen?"

While Leah was preoccupied with glaring at her, I gave Renesmee a pointed look, gesturing with a crook of my finger for her to hurry up and get next to me before Leah decided to attack. Shooting Leah a wary glance, Renesmee ducked her head and hurried to my side. Trying not to make a face, I reluctantly took Renesmee's hand in mine.

Leah looked down at our joined hands, and I practically saw flames shooting from her mouth.

I took a breath. "I don't know, Leah. Maybe while you were enjoying a dip in the hot tub with Abram."

"You—You..." Leah sputtered.

The kitchen door opened, and the rest of the party-goers filed into the kitchen. While they entered laughing and conversing together, the crowd collectively went silent the second they caught sight of Leah and I squared off, Renesmee tucked near my side, looking slightly alarmed.

I saw Seth at the rear of the group, stopping just inside the door. His face was red. He looked pissed, but I was more concerned with the look on Bella's face as she stared at me holding her daughter's hand.

Shit.

"What's...this?" Edward spoke first.

It was easy to see that he was more than wary about his daughter near my side. The two of us had once fought over Bella, and now it looked a lot like I'd taken my chance at the second place trophy: Bella's daughter. His daughter.

"I--"

"Jake here was just introducing me to his new girlfriend," Leah hissed.

I could have strangled her.

"What?" Bella squeaked.

I felt Renesmee squeeze my hand. She was obviously panicking. I cleared my throat.

"Yeah, I was just telling Leah that we should go on a date with her and her boyfriend sometime. I'm very interested in meeting the mystery man."

Seth's face turned purple. "What? What do you mean? Leah doesn't... I thought she was..."

Seth looked at me, but I ignored the question in his stare. Leah's face was almost the same hue as her brother's.

"His name is Abram. I didn't want to introduce you guys to him until I was sure that it was a serious sort of thing, but," Leah paused for a second to give me a wicked smirk, "I think it's finally to that point."

It was a pointed blow to the gut. Renesmee was practically breaking my fingers off in her vice grip, but all I cared about were the words that had just came out of Leah's malicious mouth.

Son of a bitch. She was actually going to go there.

()()()()()()()

JPOV

"It would have been easier if you hadn't been thinking inappropriately about that cake."

I frowned. "You were reading my thoughts?"

Renesmee shrugged. "You were the one holding my hand."

"Point taken."

"If it makes you feel any better, she couldn't stop staring at you and the cake either."

It didn't really make me feel any better.

I stared straight ahead at the road as I drove Renesmee home. I'd volunteered for the job in order to talk to her privately. We'd been watched carefully by everyone at the party after the confrontation in the kitchen, and I hadn't had a chance to thank her for playing along with the lie.

The party had been hard to tolerate after that lie had slipped out of my mouth. The younger Clearwater's took turns glaring at me while the Cullen's stared at me apprehensively, as if they weren't quite comfortable with what had happened. I couldn't blame them. Renesmee and I had barely had more than one full conversation together. If Bella and Edward had observed us interacting at all, they had to be wondering when we'd gotten a chance to find something interesting about each other.

It was a task to make sure that Edward wouldn't read what I didn't want him to see in my mind, and I was exhausted by the effort by the time that we left. I'd declined a piece of Sue Clearwater's chocolate cake, and I'd left Charlie's house trying to think about anything but cake.

"Sorry I dragged you into this."

Nessie shrugged one shoulder. "It was certainly interesting. I'm not worried about it."

"What about your mom and dad?"

Nessie glanced at me, giving me a once-over, and then turned back to her own window. She said nothing for a minute as she watched the scenery whiz by. We were almost to her place.

"Are we going to be pretending to be lovers for awhile?"

Lovers? I swallowed uneasily. I hadn't considered the relationship I'd invented to be considered as "lovers." It was a lot more like, "Really close friends." Lovers encompassed a lot more intimacy than I could stomach to think about with Nessie. It was just too weird when I still had at least a dull recollection of my feelings for Bella.

"I—Yeah, I might need to keep pretending we're in a relationship for awhile."

"All right, well, I will just tell them what you said: we're dating now."

"How are we going to explain that? We never talked before this."

Renesmee smirked for some reason. "I'll think of something."