I'm back again! Sorry for making you wait so long... Enjoy :)

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Bella POV

"Mom!" Sarah's voice drifted in from the living room, where I had left the kids watching TV while I cooked dinner.

"What, honey?" I called back as I chopped up some carrots and threw them into the saucepan beside me.

"Tell Will to stop it!"

"Why, what's he doing?"

"Annoying me!"

"Will, stop annoying your sister."

"It wasn't me Mom, it was CJ!"

"CJ, stop annoying your sister!"

"It wasn't me Mom, it was-"

"Both of you, stop annoying your sister."

I paused for a second and listened, breathing a sigh of relief when I couldn't hear any further arguing. Sharing the house with my 8 year old daughter and my 5 year old twin sons wasn't exactly peaceful, so it was always a relief when arguments could be settled easily. As I checked on the lamb joint in the oven and gave the veg a quick stir however, the peace was disturbed once more.

"Mom!"

"What, honey?"

"Come look what CJ did!"

Rolling my eyes in exasperation, I set down the wooden spoon I had been wielding and walked out of the kitchen, hoping that nothing important had been broken. It turned out that nothing had been broken this time, but I wasn't prepared for the sight before me as I stepped into the room.

"Charlie Jacob Black! What on earth possessed you…" I trailed off shaking my head; a lot of what the twins did made no sense whatsoever to me. "Don't move Will, just stay right where you are."

The boys were both sat on the floor in front of the TV as they had been when I had left them minutes before, but now Will was covered from head to toe in blue paint. I had to hand it to CJ; he sure worked fast. As I walked over to them, making sure to take the paint from CJ before he caused any more damage, the front door opened and Jake came into the room. It only took him a few seconds to process the sight in front of him, before he chuckled and walked over to us.

"Hey, Bells." He said with a smile, leaning over to kiss me in greeting. "Been having fun, kids?" he asked with a laugh as he pulled Will up into the air, holding him at arm's length so as not to get any paint on himself.

"Yeah dad, CJ wanted to make me look like a smurf!" Will told him enthusiastically.

"I can see that, little man! How about we go make you look like Will Black again in time for dinner?"

"Sure, sure." Will responded, and Jake rolled his eyes at me before setting off in the direction of the bathroom. I looked down at CJ who was now standing right before me, giving me his best puppy dog eyes that made him look uncannily like Jacob.

"Am I in trouble, mommy?" he asked a little too innocently, making me laugh.

"No, honey. But next time you want to make your brother look like a smurf, maybe do it in the garden okay?"

"Okay." He agreed, returning to his seat in front of the TV.

"If I had done something like that, I would've been in loads of trouble!" Sarah whined at me as I made my way back to the kitchen.

"Yeah well I think you're old enough to know better, don't you?" I responded with a smirk, and she rolled her eyes at me before fixing them back on the TV screen. Although she was only 8, Sarah already had a major attitude and the rest of the pack regularly joked that she had hit puberty early.

Twenty minutes later we were all sat around the table for dinner, with Will now restored to his natural russet skin colour thanks to Jake and a bar of soap.

"How was work?" I asked as we dug into our meal, and he sighed.

"Fine." He finally answered, but I recognised the look he gave me.

"Jake?"

"It's nothing, Bells."

I gave him a look, and he sighed again before continuing.

"It's Quil, he's just kinda been on one recently."

"What about?" I asked, feeling a little worried. I hadn't seen much of Quil recently, which was strange as he usually made regular appearances at the diner for his usual order of pancakes.

"Claire."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine. But… she's got a boyfriend."

"Well, she is 16 now. It is kind of normal behaviour."

"Yeah but you know what Quil's like. He doesn't think the kid's good enough for her. He told Claire what he thought about him, and now she won't speak to him."

I laughed; Quil was always unbearably over protective of his imprint.

"I don't think anyone will ever be good enough in Quil's eyes."

"Maybe not, but he kind of has a point with this kid. He's constantly in trouble with the tribal elders; dad says they caught him at the beach with a load of wolf liqueur the other day."

I raised my eyebrows at this; I knew for a fact that Jake and the boys had been doing exactly the same thing at that age. Jake understood my humorous expression and began to smirk too, placing a finger over his lips in warning. 'Not in front of the kids.' He mouthed to me, making me laugh.

"What's so funny?" Sarah asked; inquisitive as always as she looked from me to Jake, who was now also laughing.

"Nothing honey, we'll tell you when you're older." Jake laughed, rubbing her hair lovingly. "So how was your day, Bells?" he asked, not so subtly changing the subject.

"It was fine, nothing out of the ordinary. Dad came round for some lunch and almost found out about the party."

"What party?" Sarah interrupted, sounding excited.

"Granddad Charlie's party. It's his 50th birthday tomorrow, so we're throwing a surprise party at the diner."

"Will Sammy and Lily be there?" she asked, sounding even more excited. Lily was Sarah's best friend, and she was also really close to Sammy.

"Sure, and all the rest of the gang."

"Can I help you cook?" she asked, looking as eager as ever. She might have had an attitude, but my little girl was always quick to help me out when it came to cooking for the tribal parties. She had inherited my flair for baking, which certainly came in handy as we tried to satisfy the appetites of the pack.

"If you eat all of your vegetables and go to bed on time without complaining." I told her with a grin. She considered this for a second, before wolfing down her greens and looking at me triumphantly.

"Good girl. We'll make Granddad's cake in the morning."

The next day the five of us made our way to the diner to help set up for the party. The kids all went out on the beach to play, and Jake and the boys decided to go out for a game of football, leaving us girls to sort out the food and decorations. A short while later when everything was ready, we heard Charlie's cruiser pull up in the parking lot and all hid in the kitchen, ready to surprise him. As far as Dad knew, he and Sue were coming to the diner for a meal to celebrate his birthday, but I could tell that he wasn't too shocked to see us all when we jumped out to 'surprise' him. Maybe I didn't give Charlie enough credit for his Chief of Police skills.

Once all the food had been demolished and the dancing and silliness had begun, I noticed Quil sitting by himself in a booth with a glum expression. Remembering what Jake had told me last night about Claire, I made my way over to have a chat with him.

"Hey Quil, you mind if I sit?" I asked as I approached, and he looked up with a half-hearted smile.

"Sure Bells." He said, shuffling along the bench to make room for me. I sat down beside him and neither of us spoke for a moment, before I broke the silence.

"So, what's going on?" I asked, turning to face him. "You've not been for pancakes in a while, I think I'm going to have to close the diner due to lack of business." I joked, and he laughed a little.

"Sorry Bella, I've just been…" he paused for a moment, clearly thinking of the best word to finish his sentence, "…busy."

"Yeah, I've heard about Claire. You want to talk about it? I imagine I'm a better listener than Jake and Embry."

He hesitated for a second so that I thought he was going to tell me there was nothing to talk about, but he sighed and turned himself to face me.

"I just really don't know what to do Bella, I don't want to see Claire get hurt. You know what the imprint thing is like, I feel every emotion she feels but a thousand times stronger. I wouldn't mind if she was with a nice kid, but her boyfriend is a little dick! Did Jake tell you he got found on the beach the other night with-"

"With wolf liqueur, yeah I know." I finished for him, adding an eye roll for good measure. "Have you forgotten what you were like when I first met you? You loved to get drunk and having a good time! And from the stories I've heard over the years, you were just as bad at 16!"

"I know Bella, but I didn't have a girlfriend to mess about at that age! This kid could really hurt her!"

"Yeah you're right, he could. But he could turn out to be a great guy, just like you lot! That's life Quil, you can't expect Claire not to take any risks. How else do you expect her to learn?"

He considered this for a minute, not looking convinced. "So what do you think I should do?"

"For starters you need to stop this hate campaign against the boy, it's only going to drive a wedge between you and Claire. You still want her to be your friend, don't you?"

"Of course I do, I hate it when she won't speak to me. She should be here today but she's avoiding me."

"So go see her and apologise then! All you can do is be a good friend to her, then if this kid does end up hurting her she will still have you to rely on to cheer her up again."

"I guess." We sat in silence again for a minute, before I prompted him to go.

"So?"

"So what?" he asked, looking clueless.

"Go on then, go make it up to her!"

He grinned as I stood up and let him get out of the booth. "Ok, tell Charlie I said bye."

"Sure, sure. See you later Quil."

"Yeah see you Bella, and thanks."

"No problem." I smiled as he kissed me on the top of the head and ran for the door.

Before I could even take in what was happening around the rest of the room there was a commotion at the buffet table, and I knew instantly that at least one of my children would be involved. Sure enough as I made my way over to the crowd that had quickly gathered, Jake was pulling a giggling CJ away from the scene of the crime.

"What's he done now?" I asked as I approached them, but I quickly saw exactly what he had done. Will's face was completely covered in what I guessed was chocolate and blue icing, and there was a distinct face shaped dent in the cake Sarah and I had made that morning.

Jake was trying his best to look cross, but I could see in his eyes that he was amused at his son's antics. Just like the rest of the wolves, who were stifling giggles as I evil eyed them on my way to the now cake-covered Will.

"Come on you, let's go get you cleaned up." I said, grabbing his hand and leading him to the bathroom. As we passed Paul, he leaned over and swiped his finger down Will's cheek, before licking off the chocolate. The boys all snorted at once.

"Oh, grow up!" I snapped, making them howl with laughter. Luckily for them Will seemed just as amused by it all, and began to copy Paul by licking the icing from his face as we made our way to the bathroom.

Jacob POV

CJ was too busy giggling at the mess he had created to take any notice of me, so I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder to take him outside. I didn't like to discipline my kids; Bells was much better at it so I usually let her play bad cop. Once we were out in the car park I set him down, and knelt beside him.

"Why did you do that to your brother?" I asked him, trying my best to keep a straight face. In truth, I found it hilarious when the twins were up to no good, but I knew it would be me getting a telling off tonight from Bells if I didn't chastise my son.

"I saw it on TV" he told me matter-of-factly, shrugging his shoulders in a way that almost made me laugh out loud.

"And do you think that was a nice thing to do?"

He thought about this for a while before he shook his head, somewhat reluctantly.

"OK, so do you think you should go and say sorry to Will?"

"Sure, sure dad."

"I think you should probably say sorry to your sister too, she spent a long time making that cake."

With that we walked side by side back into the diner, and luckily the pack had composed themselves. Will was now clean once again and looked as happy as ever, but Sarah looked livid.

"Sorry Will." CJ said as soon as he was close enough to his siblings. "Sorry Sarah." He added, not quite looking her in the eye. He knew as well as I did that Sarah could be a hot head. She looked as though she was going to shout at him, but one stern glance from Bella and she changed her mind.

"It's OK, CJ." She said, and all three of my kids beamed at each other.

"OK, let's have a Black group hug then we can get back to the party!" I announced, pulling my incredible family into my arms.