A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts.
Almost done, guys. Hoping to update once more before Christmas. We'll see.
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine as well.
Broken - Chapter 38
12 Hours After Masen's Birth:
"Look who's here, clean-faced, with freshly laundered clothes, hands sanitized, and super anxious to meet his baby cousin."
"Jay!"
"Aunt Bella!"
At the sight of Bella, JJ broke into a sprint, and if I wasn't mistaken, with the intention of jumping onto Bella's lap. She sat with pillows propped between her and the hospital bed's metal headboard, with one of the special, round donut-shaped pillows she'd received at the baby shower around her waist, and with our newborn son attached to her left nipple.
"Hold on, JJ. Hold on." Catching him mid-jump, I hefted him up into my arms, making him shriek and giggle hysterically.
"Uncle Edwahd, put me down! Wanna see Aunt Bella and baby cousin you said came out of huh belly! Look! He's wight theugh!"
"You're going to see them, little man; we just have to rein in your two-and-a-half-year-old energy for a bit."
I chuckled at the impatient pout he spared me as he struggled in my arms, and for a moment, he looked so much like his mother...so much that a long-forgotten memory struck me out of the blue. I was around ten, and Alice was a little girl of a similar age to JJ, and we were laughing and...
And I shook off the memory. Today wasn't a day for those types of thoughts.
Meanwhile, JJ held out his arms and sought rescue from Bella. "Aunt Bella! Aunt Bella!"
Bella chuckled quietly. "Edward, bring him here so that I can give him a kiss, and then Jay promises that if you set him next to me, he'll be extra special careful with me and the baby. Won't you, Jay? Aunt Bella's got a boo-boo, and the baby is teeny tiny." She smiled brightly at Jay. "So we've got to be very gentle."
"Aunt Bella got boo-boo?" JJ's voice was abruptly tinged with a slight note of alarm.
"Just a tiny boo-boo, like when you scraped your elbow at the park the other day. Remember?"
After what I'd witnessed a few hours earlier, I quirked a brow at the comparison, but based on JJ's wide grin, Bella's calmly-delivered reassurance did the trick.
"Okay, Aunt Bella. I be gentle."
I held JJ close to Bella, and she planted a firm kiss on his cheek, all while she continued nursing our newborn. Then, cautiously setting JJ down at the edge of the bed, I backed up slowly, in case I had to swoop back in. But as promised, JJ remained perfectly still, gaping at Bella and our son in almost comical awe.
"What's he doing theugh, Aunt Bella?"
"He's eating, my love. This is how baby's eat."
"Did I eat like that when I was baby?"
Bella paused, as unsure as I was at the answer. "Yes, Jay. You did."
And assured, for the most part, that for the next few minutes, our young nephew would be able to control his eagerness for the aunt he'd adored since the day he'd met her a few weeks earlier, and tamp down on his exuberance for his newborn cousin, I turned to Bella and brushed my lips against her forehead before placing a kiss on our son's fuzzy, ginger head.
"Masen," I breathed, "Daddy had to leave for a few minutes to pick up your cousin, JJ, but I'm back, and I promise, I won't leave for more than a half-hour ever again."
Bella quietly chuckled. "That might turn out to be a hard promise to keep, Edward."
"Watch me." When I looked up and grinned, our eyes met and held. "Are you really okay, my love? Everything alright? Anything else you need?"
"I'm as fine as I was when you left us less than an hour ago, and now that you're back, and that Jay's here, and our son is in my arms...no, Edward, there's nothing and no one else I need that isn't right here in this room."
Kissing her softly, I murmured against her lips. "That's good to know...but unfortunately, my parents will be here soon," - when she groaned, I chuckled and pulled back - "and your dad's been texting me from the air nonstop, and Emmett, Mack, Rose, and Vera keep calling and texting to reassure me they'll all be here soon too, bringing all their germs, and..." I sighed.
Bella sighed too and offered me a smile. "I guess it's not just about us anymore, is it?"
"Looks like it's not."
One Month After Masen's Birth:
"Oh God, baby, that feels...that feels so good, but you don't have to-"
"Edward, I want to. You think I don't miss it...miss having this inside me?"
Her words and her hand both made me groan loudly.
"Shh. You'll wake the baby."
"Oh, okay," I breathed as low as possible because as much as I adored my son, at that moment, the last thing I wanted was for him to open his eyes.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what he did. What's more, in the delicious quiet of the night, mid-hand-pump, our son's hungry cry pierced my little corner of frustration-relieving Eden. Bella released me instantly and jumped to her feet.
"Oh God, I've got to wash my hands before I pick him up!"
For two seconds, I laid on our bed and stared up at the ceiling, physically and painfully throbbing while our son shrieked and demanded his midnight feeding. With a quick and heavy sigh, I flipped over and picked Masen out of the bassinet.
"Shh, it's all right, little man. Mommy's coming. Shh. It's okay; I know you're hungry, but unfortunately, Daddy's not equipped to handle that."
Bella ran out of the bathroom in her bra and hastily slid into the bed beside me. In a series of expert motions as if she'd been doing this for years rather than for four weeks, she unclipped the panel on her bra, took our son from my arms, and situated him into position. When he latched on instantly, and his shrieks abruptly stopped, we both released a long breath.
Gazing at him in the dim light of the room, I stroked his small, socked feet, then caressed his cheek lightly while it filled and hollowed with his eager swallows.
"You're a hungry, little man, aren't you? Every two-and-a-half-hours on the dot. I should've timed it better," I muttered.
Bella chuckled, and when I looked up, her eyes were on me. Her impish gaze panned down to my groin.
"You're going to have to finish that up on your own."
I smirked. "Oh, that's long gone. My son's shrieks made sure of that."
We both laughed under our breath.
Six Weeks to the day After Masen's Birth:
"Ohh...Edward..."
"You okay, my love? Does it hurt?"
"No...just keep going slowly...yeah...yeah...just like that...with slow...long...ohhh...ohhh...ohhh..."
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to come the second she tightened around me because it'd been almost two months since we'd made love. But I let her finish first, and when I felt her muscles slacken, I readied myself for my turn.
Masen's wails demolished those plans.
Bella pushed me back. "Edward, get off. The baby."
"Just give me ten seconds; please," I begged, "even seven."
With a hard shove to my chest, she sat up and reached for Masen.
After a few minutes, while Masen fed happily, Bella chuckled.
"God, that was good."
I smirked at her. "Was it now?"
"I'll make it up to you in a few minutes."
Chuckling quietly, I stroked our son's growing hair. Then, once he was done feeding, I took him from Bella, burped him, and changed his diaper. Cooing him for a few minutes until he fell asleep, I gently placed him back in his bassinet and eagerly turned toward Bella...
...who was fast asleep.
Snorting, I brushed my lips against her forehead and made sure she was comfortably covered. And with a sigh and blue balls, I laid back down and tried to sleep too.
Three Months After Masen's Birth:
Bella's fingers were flying over the keyboard. She was murmuring to herself, debating synonyms, reading her passages back to herself, biting her thumbnail beds. Across from her, and in between sneaking glances and grinning because there were few sights I loved more than seeing her this way, I was taking care of some of my own work.
All until the monitor at the corner of Bella's desk came to life. Loud cries filled the apartment, and on the screen, minuscule arms and legs flailed wildly.
"Oh, God," she breathed heavily. "I was just in the middle...it was such a good idea." Her voice broke.
"Bella, you pumped your milk, right?"
Bella's eyes met mine warily, unsure. "Yes, Edward, but I don't know..."
I stood and quickly made my way to her, kneeling in front of her while Masen cried and demanded, and Bella's chest heaved.
"Shh. We discussed this, and you cleared it with Vera, and he's old enough and latches on well enough where my feeding him from a bottle won't interfere with your nursing."
Tears filled the corners of her dark eyes. They moved to the monitor, where our son's cries grew more insistent.
"Feed him from a bottle," she spat as if it were blasphemy, "all so I can write, Edward?"
"No, baby. All so that you can continue being the wonderful, well-rounded individual that you are: mother, writer, friend, lover, etc. And so that I can be a well-rounded father to our son. I'll bring him out here, okay? And we'll be fine; you'll see."
Ten minutes later, Masen and I sat on the sofa, while he happily drank Bella's milk from a bottle. At first, Bella's fingers moved haltingly, casting constant looks our way.
"Hold his head a bit higher, Edward."
"Make sure he's not too warm, Edward."
"Make sure he's not too cold, Edward."
Slowly, little by little, the space of time between her glances and her instructions increased. By the time Masen was done, and I burped him, Bella was lost in a world beyond our loft. I changed our son's diaper, then I propped him safely against me on the sectional and carried on a conversation while I finished up some work on my laptop.
"So now this email is going out to the branch heads of the Department of Infectious Diseases, which Daddy and Uncle Emmett head up. It's flu season, little man, and while we're not having a year like last year's, thank God," I snorted, "we've still got to keep up with those vaccines. You're not old enough for your flu inoculation yet, but when you are, get ready cuz you'll be receiving it every year, little man. What's that? Does it hurt, you ask? I won't lie to you, Masen; it hurts a bit, but it's an imperative vaccination. Just ask your cousin JJ when he visits tomorrow. He'll tell you it's not so bad. He just got his last week. What? Of course, Mommy and Daddy and JJ will be there with you when you receive it. And I'm sure Aunt Vera will be very gentle. Don't worry about it too much..."
Abruptly realizing I wasn't hearing Bella's fingers galloping over the keyboard anymore, I looked up.
She was watching us, her smile both soft and amused.
"Love you both. And thank you."
"We love you too."
Four Months After Masen's Birth:
"Look who's here!"
"Jay!"
"Aunt Bella!"
Bella broke away from our guests, and she and JJ ran toward one another. Swooping him into her arms, Bella kissed him soundly.
"Merry Christmas, my little sweetheart!"
"Mewy Chwistmas, Aunt Bella!"
"Uncle Edward and I have your present right under the-"
"Wheah's Masen? I wanna play with Masen."
Bella stopped and smiled. "He's right there, playing with Beck, and waiting for you."
JJ squirmed until Bella set him down, and he ran straight toward Beck and Masen.
"Hi, Beck! Hi, Mase!"
Our four-month-old son gazed between ten-month-old Beck, who was just starting to cruise, and JJ, the latter who was waving his hand wildly in greeting and grinning a broad, toothy grin.
While the three little ones carried out their form of conversation, Bella turned to me and whispered.
"Did she give you a hard time?"
I shrugged. "Not as much as she did over Thanksgiving."
"Thank goodness. She was fighting with Jasper over Thanksgiving, wasn't she?"
"And that always puts her in a shitty mood. I suppose he's been behaving himself," I scowled.
Bella shook her head. "I wish she'd realize, for Jay's sake, that Jasper has always been and will always be a-"
When Masen broke out into hearty giggles, we pushed my sister and her asshole boyfriend out of our minds, and instead focused on their son - our nephew - who was currently making funny faces at his baby cousin.
"Oh my God, he's laughing. Edward, Jay made Masen laugh out loud!"
Six Months After Masen's Birth:
"Then, when Ed saw all the blood and gore that popped out of Bella along with little Mase, he almost shit his pants and passed out right on top of her. 'Is Bella okay?'" Emmett whined in an imitation of what was supposed to be my voice. "'That can't be normal. Is she okay? But Doctor, that much blood loss can't be normal.'"
Emmett McCarty, microbiologist, armchair psychologist, and occasional bullshit artist was, once again, having fun at my expense.
"He kept moaning and groaning, asking questions and distracting the doctor and the nurses. In the end, poor Bella had to reassure him instead of the other way around just so that the nurses could focus on taking care of Mase, cleaning him and performing all that Apgar screening business and whatnot - which by the way, he passed with flying colors because, you know, he's my godson."
"We know," the crowd gathered around us confirmed in impatient tones.
Em grinned. "Good. Just putting that out there. Anyway, by the time Edward finally picked himself up from where he'd dropped on the bed like a pancake, the nurses had cleaned all the gook off of Mase and placed him on Bella's stomach. And Mase...well, he was this tiny, ginger-haired angel..."
A round of reverent "Awwws" rang out from the crowd, which was made up of various friends and family members who'd come together to help my parents celebrate forty years of...well, if not of marital bliss, then of a marriage that had somehow survived ups and downs and beat some strange odds. Whether or not I understood their marriage was irrelevant, as Bella had helped me understand. Their marriage was for them to puzzle. I could only deal with how it affected my life, with what I'd learned from it, for good or for bad. And I had learned a thing or two.
The soft grin that curved around half of Em's big mouth as he compared my son to an angel was almost enough to get me to forgive the bullshit - and somewhat drunken - tale he was currently telling.
"...an angel created by magic sperm."
Yep. Almost enough to get me to forgive it.
Rowdy snickers sounded around the crowd. By then, he had the attention of almost everyone in the grand room of my parents' upper east side apartment. Even my parents and some of their friends and colleagues who stood at the other end of the room were listening.
"Oh, Emmett." Esme clamped a hand over her mouth to hide her amusement.
In my periphery, however, there was a woman in a black dress, who I'd kept an eye on all evening. She stood off to the side of the crowd, with a cousin of ours whom I'd never been particularly friendly with, both of them with their backs to us and ignoring the tale. And there was one other person at the party I was keeping a watchful eye on - a man who until that night I hadn't been in the same room with for years.
For weeks, I'd debated attending this party, not so much anymore because I feared what their presence would do to Bella's mental well-being. By then, Bella had too much going on in her life to concern herself with them. She was a world-famous author, a mom, and whatever damage they'd tried to inflict on her wasn't forgiven or forgotten by her, but it was in her past. No; I'd debated attending because, as I'd told Alice a few months earlier, while Bella may not have been the type to keep score, I couldn't say I wasn't.
Nonetheless, so far, the motherfucker had been smart enough to keep himself far away from me, and most especially, from Bella and our son. At that moment, for example, he was off somewhere out of sight.
"So then, Ed cut the cord and got to hold his son for the very first time - all awkward and almost dropping him because Panita here," Emmett chuckled and clapped my shoulder, "never held a newborn in his life."
With a casual, unperturbed stance, one hand dug inside my pants pocket and the other wrapped around a champagne glass, I allowed the tale to continue.
"Meanwhile, Bella's already yelling at him, 'Jesus, Edward, watch his head!'" Emmett snorted. "But man, you should've seen this guy's face light up. I'm sure most of y'all saw how...let's call it overprotective - cuz I don't want to say downright loco," he added in a stage-whispered aside, "Ed was with Bella while she was pregnant. But man, the fierce devotion on this guy's face when he first held his son...that was a thing of beauty. It was almost enough to make up for the pitiful job he did in that delivery room." Emmett clapped me on the back and clicked his champagne goblet to mine. "So, overall, Ed, I'd say good job on my godson. Cheers!"
"Cheers!" Everyone around us erupted in applause and cheers.
Emmett grinned and wrapped his free arm around his girlfriend, Mack's waist.
"Emmett, that was just plain wrong," Mack chuckled. "Entertaining, but wrong."
He offered Mack a smug wink. "That's me all around, ain't it?"
When he pulled her in for a loud kiss, I waited for them to come up for air.
"You've told some fairy-tales in your lifetime, but this one..."
"What?" he chuckled. "So I embellished a little. It's what we creative-types do. Ask Bella and Mack."
I quirked a brow. "You weren't even in the delivery room when my son was born."
"I've pieced it together from what I've heard you and Bella tell."
"We've never told it that way."
"Bella has," Mack grinned.
I narrowed my eyes at Mack in feigned indignation. "While I'll be the first to say that Bella was a damn trooper, and I honestly don't know if I could've done it-"
"Trust me, Ed, you couldn't have," Mack said.
"I didn't pass out."
"But you did ask the doctor and nurses, more than once, if that amount of blood was normal," Emmett snickered.
"I was worried! And I didn't almost drop Mase."
"But Bella did yell at you about being careful with his head," Mack confirmed.
"Maybe once. Or twice. And I've never been overprotective."
"Ed, now I've got to call you out on that one." My cousin, Jamie approached us. "Little Masen is upstairs napping now, but before you and Bella took him up, whoever wanted to hold him had to sanitize their hands thoroughly and submit to a background search on their recent health."
"That's not completely true," I countered, grinning. "I let Jay hold him and play with him before they both went up for a nap, didn't I?"
"That's because you and Bella take care of that little boy like he's yours." Emmett frowned darkly when he looked around, and his eyes located JJ's useless father. "And you're always cleaning his hands."
At that point, I turned to where Bella had been all along in my periphery, her striking, red gown holding my attention the entire time.
"Bella, babe! I wasn't completely useless in the delivery room, was I?"
She'd been talking with Rosalie and Vera, the three of them mostly ignoring Emmett's tale, which we'd all heard a half-dozen times at least. She turned toward me somewhat distractedly.
"What? Oh. No. No, Edward, of course not. Not completely useless. You passed me ice chips."
With a wink and a blown kiss across the room, she resumed her conversation with Rose and Vera.
Emmett, Mack, and Jamie, laughed and laughed.
And I grinned.
OOOOO
A few minutes later, Jamie and I found ourselves alone.
"Well, Ed, I may not be into women," he grinned, "but as far as they go, Bella's looking pretty great tonight."
I chuckled. "Thanks, but as Emmett will remind you if he ever hears you describe a woman that way, "there's a lot more to her than her outer beauty."
"I know that," he smirked. "But..." When the grin fell from Jamie's face, he leaned in closer and jerked his jaw, and I followed the trajectory, my own grin evaporating, "I don't know if you've noticed, but her ex has been staring at her all night too."
I'd been pretty relaxed, much more relaxed than I'd expected to be at this party, but now, every muscle in my body tensed. "Has he now? I was trying not to look at the fucker."
"Yeah. I know you've been staying away from him so as to minimize the temptation to beat the shit out of him, but I've been watching him. He's kept his distance, yeah...but..."
Right then, Jasper was standing alone off to the side, drinking a beer and scrolling through his phone. When, as I watched him, his eyes did indeed move away from the screen and follow Bella, a slow scowl started at one corner of my mouth and crept to the other side.
"When you and Bella arrived tonight, the fucker was standing with me, trying to engage me in conversation. It's like he doesn't get when people don't like him."
"He's a dense fucker. Thank God JJ doesn't seem to have inherited his stupidity."
Jamie chuckled. "Anyway, when he saw Bella, his eyes popped out of their sockets, and he must've forgotten himself because he breathed, "My God, she looks perfect.'"
My scalp prickled. "Oh yeah?"
"The thing is, the guy's so fucking dense he didn't realize that Alice was standing at my other side."
Hands now clenched into fists at my sides, I met Jamie's gaze. "What'd she do?"
"Nothing. She walked away, and then I walked away from him and left him standing alone. But Ed...there's something else I've been wanting to tell you."
By then, as Emmett and Mack approached, I was seething.
"What's going on, guys?" Emmett asked.
Jamie continued. "Well, the day Masen was born, I was here at the house, waiting for Aunt Esme because we were working on some new designs. Alice and that bastard happened to be here too, and your dumb sister wanted me to make a suit for him."
"What?" Mack asked in disbelief. "What woman is that dumb?"
"I said no-" Jamie said.
Emmett chuckled.
"-so she said she'd wait for Aunt Esme to come home-"
"Unfucking-"
"-so when Aunt Esme came in and announced Masen's birth, you should've seen the fucker's face. He went pale. Looked like he might pass out. Went and locked himself in the bathroom for like a half-hour. When he came out, he tried grilling Aunt Esme for all sorts of information - weight, size, name, how Bella was doing, etcetera. But like I said, the dumb fuck doesn't seem to get that no one in this family can stand his ass. Aunt Esme told him he was being completely inappropriate and asking questions that weren't his business. Even Uncle Carlisle told him none of it was his concern. And then Alice-"
"Wait, Alice witnessed all this?" I asked.
"Dude, she was right there. The guy does not give a fuck how he hurts her. Anyway, instead of kicking him to the curb like she should've done eons ago, she got up, told him, 'Let's go,' and since the dumb fuck at least knows who pays his way, he got the fuck up and followed her out."
"Where was JJ throughout all this?"
"He was right there, Ed, playing. "
My nostrils flared, vision tunneling as I opened and closed my fists, stretched my fingers, cracked my knuckles in prep.
"Edward?"
For a few, long moments, while I watched Jasper through a scarlet haze, everyone else in the room disappeared. All sound turned into indistinguishable murmurs.
"Ed...?"
I saw myself walking up to Jasper, could already feel the crunch of his jawbone under my hand.
Finally.
The way he deserved.
It was a great scene. It was a scene that made a slow grin lift up the corners of my mouth...
But then...the grin faded. The scene - while beyond enticing - was exactly the type of scene that had led Bella and me down dark, rabbit holes. No matter how hot my fury burned - and it was scorching - I couldn't...wouldn't lead Bella down one of those holes again.
"Ed?" Jamie said. I could tell by his tone he'd called my name before. "You okay? Should I have kept this to myself? I've debated-"
"No. No, it's fine." With a deep breath, I grinned and clapped first Jamie, then Emmett, and then even Mack on the shoulder. "I'm fine. Really. Come on, guys. Let's go find Bella and the rest, and enjoy the party."
OOOOO
Bella and I danced. We spent time with friends and some family. It was our first real party since Masen's birth, and though we kept an eye on him with the video monitor we'd set up at the buffet table, for a while, we had an admittedly fun, childless time. Masen was safe and napping. Jay was safe and sleeping.
As for the other ones...
While Bella and I talked to our friends, on the other side of the room, Alice swayed and laughed too loudly. One empty glass of champagne after another left her hands and landed on the server's trays with a pronounced thwack. All the while, Jasper ignored her. He hung out with a group of fellow losers he'd met. I saw my dad quietly approach him. Whatever he said to the bastard made Jasper approach Alice. They hissed at one another in a corner. When he tried to take Alice aside, she shook him off and stormed away toward the kitchen. With his nostrils flaring, I watched Jasper follow.
Bella's eyes met mine. When Masen's lusty cries filled the monitor, Bella chuckled at our group.
"Right on time. The boobs are aching. Our son calls."
"Want me to come up with you?"
"It's all right, babe. There's not much you can do right now anyway." Smiling impishly, she offered me a wink as she leaned into my ear. "Go find your sister. JJ's sleeping upstairs."
"I know. I'll be up in a few," I whispered back.
Eyes on me, she pulled away and made her way up to my old bedroom, where our son awaited his feeding.
After a couple of minutes, I excused myself from the group and made my way to the kitchen. Other than for the caterers, Alice was alone, serving herself more champagne and sloppily spilling half the bottle's contents. When she lifted the glass to her mouth, sloshing the liquid over the rim, I guided her hand down.
Alice sighed. "What do you want, Edward?"
"Where's your boyfriend?"
She offered me a lopsided grin. "I told him to the get the fuck out of our parents' party. Aren't you proud of me? I shouldn't have brought him in the first place."
"I can't disagree with that."
"Guess what, Edward? I don't need or want your approval. Haven't for years."
"When have you ever sought my approval for anything?"
She stared at me for a few seconds, her eyes glazed. When they crossed, she swayed, and I reached out to steady her.
"Alice, Jasper's gone, your drunk, and Mom and Dad are in the middle of a party. Who's going to take care of JJ when he wakes up?"
Again, she stared at me for a few seconds. "That's all you care about, right?"
"What?"
She made no reply. Instead, she lifted her glass again, and once again, I pushed her hand down.
"Stop it!"
Out of patience with her, I sighed heavily and raked a hand through my hair. "Look, if you're not going to stop for yourself, at least think of JJ."
"How about me, Edward?" she grinned. "Who the fuck thinks of me!"
The caterers turned to look before quickly diverting their gazes.
"Alice," I hissed, "if you want to think of yourself, then let Bella and me take JJ home with us for the night. You can go home and...sleep this off."
This time, when she stared at me, her eyes watered.
"Damn it, Alice. Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you let him-"
She cut me off. "Fine, Edward. Fine. Whatever. But I want JJ back tomorrow."
Jaw squared, I nodded tightly and pulled out some money. "Make sure you take a damn cab home," I said as I walked away.
OOOOO
Quietly shutting the door to my old bedroom, I locked it behind me. When I turned, the scene that met me served to erase all the tension of the past few fucked up minutes. But that's exactly how it was with my son and Bella...with my family. They were the two stars by which I navigated my life.
Bella was nursing Masen. Carefully easing my old desk chair beside Bella and our son, I stroked his copper hair while he sucked slowly, something he did when he was almost sated.
"Everything okay?" I whispered.
"You tell me."
When I exhaled heavily and offered her a tired smile, Bella reached out and quickly squeezed my hand.
"JJ's coming home with us."
"Then, I'm glad that despite that scene downstairs, we came."
"Me too," I murmured. "What do you call it? Chaos Theory? There's a reason for everything?"
"Exactly," she grinned.
When Masen stopped sucking, Bella pulled him away and handed him to me. "You get Runner's Highs from running. I get Nurser's Highs from nursing."
"I didn't know that was a thing."
"And you never will."
I chuckled quietly, gazing at our son. He was getting bigger, recognizing us, smiling and grinning and offering unintelligible gibberish. We carried a conversation while I burped him, changed him, and hugged him carefully to me for a few, precious seconds.
"Let Mommy keep bragging about that bond," I said playfully as I settled him on my lap, "you and I have our own bonding moments, don't we, Mase?"
He gurgled and burped, and Bella and I laughed.
"Everything else okay, Edward?"
"Yeah." I looked up at her and grinned. "Yeah, everything's fine."
We carried on a light conversation while spending time with our son. When he reached out and played with my nose, Bella chuckled. After a while, Masen grew sleepy, and I set him in his bassinett. Then I turned around and offered Bella murmured apologies as I laid her on my old bed and lifted her hem around her hips. And when she unfastened my pants and pulled them below my hips, I pushed myself inside her.
Bella wrapped her legs tightly around me and dug her heels into my ass, her nails into my back.
"I love you, Edward. Ohhh, I love you."
I thrust hard and fast, our hipbones meeting in the most wonderfully frantic type of friction.
She bit my neck, and I pulled her hands over her head, wrapped them around the metal bed frame.
"Hold on, baby."
The headboard hit the wall over and over, and Bella cried out against my neck, muffling the noise. When I came, I groaned into her mouth.
Afterward, she stroked my hair as I rested my head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat.
"You're my everything. You and our son."
"I know. I do know that. "
When our heartbeats regulated, we stood and adjusted our clothing.
"Want me to wait for you?"
"No," Bella smiled. "You may be able to zip up and go, but I've got to clean up."
I chuckled apologetically as I walked to the bassinet, where our son still slept soundly and unaware of the activity in which his parents had just participated.
"All right, then. Sorry about your dress. Now, everyone'll know what we were doing."
"You're not sorry."
"You know me too well," I grinned.
With a soft kiss to my son's forehead and a gauzy stroke with the back of my fingers to his warm cheek, I pulled myself away from the bassinet and made my way to the door. Turning the knob, I looked over my shoulder for one last look at Bella, who was inspecting her reflection in the mirror and smoothing away creases.
"You still look amazing," I murmured.
She met my gaze through the mirror and offered me a wry grin. "So do you."
"I'll meet you downstairs when you're ready. Love you."
"I love you too."
Carefully pulling the door shut behind me, I smoothed down my dress shirt, refastened the buttons on my jacket, and straightened my tie one more time as I made my way to the staircase. However, at the top of the landing, I came to a sudden halt, and the smile I wore withered.
Instinctively, the bones in my jaw clenched then protruded. My top lip twisted around a snarl that morphed into a furious sneer as I watched Jasper climb the stairs and simultaneously examine his surroundings. His eyes panned furtively from side to side, returned front and center as he took the steps confidently, two at a time, a satisfied smile on his face; that is, until he looked up.
Now, his smile withered. Yet, in one smooth motion, the shiny-shoed foot he held poised in midair swiveled fluidly and took the next step down as if it had been his intended direction all along.
"Where were you going?" I hissed behind him.
He feigned deafness.
"Jasper!"
He stopped, but for a handful of seconds, he remained with his back to me, his shoulders rising and falling...rising and falling. Finally, he turned.
"Oh. Hey, what's up, Ed?"
"I asked you what you were heading up the stairs for?"
He tilted his head in a manner meant to convey confusion.
What could I have possibly done wrong while I minded my own business?
His blond waves were a couple of shades darker than JJ's and brushed his shoulder. His blue eyes narrowed in supposedly innocent bewilderment.
I noticed something then - in the back of my mind, considering everything else running rampant in my head at that moment, but that was me; that's how I operated. I considered everything in the room and then extrapolated what was necessary. I noticed that Jasper and my sister both had blue eyes. But whenever Alice was incontrovertibly caught in the middle of one of her fuck-ups, her eyes would flash darkly with overt, shameless, 'fuck you, yes, I did it' fire. Yeah, she was sneaky, but when the woman got busted, she was openly combative from start to finish.
This fucker, on the other hand, was a soft-spoken, deceivingly doe-eyed, misleadingly-fresh-faced, skulking and slivering snake well-practiced in the art of subtle duplicity. How long he'd been that way, I had no clue, but I'd first recognized it That Day in the lobby. While Bella and Alice fought that epic battle, he'd simply stood there, the instigator of the catastrophe yet he allowed others to deal with the mess while he impassively went along with whoever came out the supposed 'winner.' Before that, throughout their marriage, he'd kept Bella deceived with his underhanded tricks.
And for the past few years, while Alice yelled and screamed and threw him out over and over again, Jasper came through it all unscathed. One sweet look and she took him back; one smooth word, and he was returned to her bed and her good graces until the next, impending explosion. For all the fire in my headstrong sister, how long would it take her to finally see what I saw clearly before me now? When would she realize the damage his easy lies were causing not only her...but my nephew?
This bastard was the epitome of a faithless, smooth-talking, boy-man; even calling me 'Ed' was part of his bag-of-tricks. Yet all of it...
All of it paled in comparison to the million-dollar question before us now. Because on top of everything, he was an indecisive boy-man, who'd just pushed me past my breaking point by deciding to take these steps, which he knew, as this party went on, led to JJ, to my son, and to Bella. Had his intention truly been an innocuous, up-and-up plan to see his son, he would've answered automatically.
Instead, the fucker simply gaped.
"I'm going to ask you one more time, Jasper. Where. the fuck-"
When he spun around and bounded down the steps two, three at a time, I took a moment to grin because, despite his turning tail, Jasper Hale and I would finally...finally be settling things between us, once and for all.
Then, I lunged.
A/N: Thoughts?
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"See" you soon.
Enjoy all the various holidays, my loves!