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I nearly pass the turn off, driving Sophie to school on her last day.

Muttering mild curses I ease the car into the car line at Fork's Elementary, kissing my baby before she jumps out of the car and toward the building, backpack flapping empty on her back.

I touch my lips and think of him. The songs I play all sound like him. The empty place inside my chest and the wet one between my thighs both belong to him.

Jaime spends time with his grandma Esme while his father is at work. I suggest, when Edward asks, that he make sure it's okay with Tanya before I babysit. I still don't know if she knows and if she does, what she thinks. I'm prepared for her distrust and dislike because I think maybe I'd feel that way too.

My father still sees Garrett sometimes when he goes to Port Angeles, usually when he has to visit the courthouse for something work related. I asked Charlie once how Garrett was doing and he just said "fine" and changed the subject. I wonder how he feels about it, and if my mother told him about Edward.

Sometimes I feel like my life is not my own, always subject to display. Small towns are great when they're good but when they're bad they're awful and soon enough everyone will know Edward and Bella are back together after all this time, and isn't it the strangest thing?

But they're not with me at night when I'm tempted to wake my daughter up just so I don't have to feel so alone. And maybe they cried with me at Jake's funeral. And they wave to me in the store and stop to let me out into traffic and smile at me the Sundays I manage to make it to church but they can't be there all the time, not like I need them to be.

Not like Edward can.

And so it doesn't matter.

Two days pass and I don't see him but he texts me all the time. Going into surgery and just coming out, eating and waiting and driving home.

I am reading my email, giddy about the acceptance of my manuscript by a small publishing house in Seattle when a knock sounds at the door downstairs.

Having a feeling it's him I hurry downstairs. I feel the way I did back when things were new and in a way, they are.

"Hi," I say, smiling when I open the door.

"Hey." He comes in and surrounds me in a hug, no longer tentative. "I missed you."

His words are like warm water.

"I missed you, too."

We walk through the kitchen and down the hall, connected by our hands.

"So, the story I was working on for the past three years just got picked up by a publisher."

"You're kidding! This just happened?"

"Yeah." I can't stop smiling. "I got a letter in the mail, and then an email… I have a meeting next week."

"Congratulations," he says, tickling his thumb over my palm.

"Thanks," I sigh, nodding.

We stop at the base of the stairs and he looks around, toward the living room. "Where's Sophie?"

"With Leah and Nat.. did you just get off work?"

"I got off this morning and went home to sleep for awhile. I wanted to see what you were doing later."

"You could've just called." I bite back a smile, rusty at playing coy.

Suddenly he looks sly, coming toward me. I start backing up the steps, and he hooks a finger through my belt loop. "My mom wanted to know if you and Sophie wanted to come for dinner. She's making chili."

"What did you tell her?"

"The truth." He gazes up at me. "She understands."

"That's good… I think my parents are little weirded out."

"It's a weird situation," he laughs a little, shrugging.

"I guess…"

"So will you come then? With Sophie?" He ascends a step and I turn, jogging the rest of the way upstairs, listening for the footfalls when he follows me.

"Okay," I call back, returning to my bedroom so I can shut down the computer. "I have to go and get Sophie now anyway."

When I straighten up from my desk he is standing just a few feet away, watching me. The muscles in my stomach flutter deep.

I want him.

But I can't just yet.

Not so soon. Not in that bed.

Sophie cajoles us into including Natalie.

Three can be a sticky number when it comes to kids, so I'm hoping that the fact Jaime is a boy creates some sort of leverage. I don't want any one feeling left out…it might be a fact of life but I don't have to like it.

Luckily, they're fine. Carlisle and Edward take them into the pool while I sit in the kitchen with Esme. Back when Edward and I were together the first time around, I'd sit in this very room with her, chatting.

She hasn't changed much. She is still gracious and so pretty and nice to me. We can never broach the topic, the proverbial elephant in the room, but I trust Edward and he trusts his parents. If they wanted my daughter and I to come over for dinner perhaps that is their way of letting me know they're okay with things.

After dinner, Edward asks me to go for a walk down by the creek behind his parent's house. I feel a little bad leaving his parents with two feisty little girls in addition to Jaime, even for just a while, but Esme simply plies them with more ice cream and tells me to shush.

Edward takes my hand and I tangle our fingers, my heart still beating a little funny at his nearness. There was a light rain earlier and my flip flops sink a little in the damp dirt as we make our way further into the barely lit green, following the hushed gurgle of the creek.

There is a tall tree, its trunk wide and rough and he leans me against it, kissing me right away, smelling of chlorine and vanilla ice cream and probably summer. He holds my cheeks between his hands like he's afraid I might move and I slide my hands around his waist and under his shirt, pulling him closer so our bodies meet up part for part.

He leaves my lips for my neck… it's been too long since I felt that feeling. I'm hot and liquid inside, almost woozy with wanting. Being alone with Edward is like brand new virginity, an exercise in restraint.

He makes it hard to go slow.

"I want you," I hear myself say. "But…soon."

"Every time I see you I'm going to want to kiss you," he says, kissing me again, and then his tongue is playing inside my mouth.

It's actually hard to remember what it was like making out with him a long time ago. I'm sure we're better kissers now. He knows what he's doing and he does it well. But more than that, it's the way he makes me feel. It's intense and a little scary because I feel so much so fast.

But it's also comforting and good because it's him, it's Edward and I know him. I always have. He makes me feel like it's okay to let myself get lost in this, because he'll be in it with me.

Love.