Jacob POV

When Edward called and asked me to come over, I knew something was up. He wouldn't give any details over the phone, so I knew I was either about to find out that Bella was pregnant or get sucked into another crazy plan. Maybe he'd found a way for me to carry the baby. I wouldn't put it past him to try anything at this point.

When I knocked, Bella opened the door. "Jake!" She grinned and gave me a hug. I took it as as good sign.

"I'm sorry, I told her not to do this," she muttered. "Come on in. You'll see soon enough."

I followed her into the kitchen where an enormous four-tiered cake sat on the counter surrounded by all of the Cullens. It was mostly white but covered in tiny rattles and baby bottles.

"So it's official? You're pregnant?" Bella nodded.

"That's great news! Congratulations!" I squeezed her into a hug again.

"Thank you so much," she said as she wrapped her arms around me.

I stepped back and took in my surroundings again, fully aware for the first time that everyone was watching me. It finally hit me how weird it was to be at some kind of surprise pregnancy party where everyone knew this was my doing. Leave it to the Cullens to take something weird and find a way to make it even weirder.

Edward smirked, and I knew he was listening. Maybe he agreed.

"Alice insisted that good news goes well with cake," Bella explained.

"The cake was a compromise for the party she wouldn't let me throw," Alice told me. "Besides, gender reveals are such a big thing now, so why not a pregnancy party?"

I suddenly imagined an over the top baby shower and lavish birthday parties for years to come. This kid would probably have designer gift bags.

I saw Edward nod and smile out of the corner of my eye, and I couldn't help but grin. So he thought his sister was over the top, too.

We were here to celebrate and everyone seemed to be in a good mood, so I kept my mouth shut instead of asking the burning question in my mind, which is why in the world they'd bought a giant cake that none of them could eat. Though I figured in the grand scheme of things, a cake in a house full of vampires was low down on the weird scale. We'd already set that bar pretty high.

"Sit, have some cake," Esme offered. Before I could answer, she was already dismantling the top tier and handing me a giant slice. What had looked like a basic plain white cake at first was actually a brightly marbled hot pink and blue on the inside. I didn't often judge or turn down food, but this one was suddenly giving me second thoughts. It looked like a fairy threw up in it.

"Oh wow, Alice, how neat!" Bella said. I was careful to avoid meeting her eyes in case she thought the thing looked as hideous as I did. Best not to look at Edward, either.

I settled for "thanks" and managed to accept the plate that was handed to me with a straight face. Maybe it would taste better than it looked.

"You guys catch up," Alice said. "We'll be around if you need anything."

One by one, the Cullens filed out of the kitchen leaving Bella and I alone at the counter with giant tie dye cake pieces and the illusion of privacy.

"So, a cake only you can eat. It's going to take you years to finish this thing," I joked.

"Oh you're taking most of it home with you," Bella informed me.

"Nice try, but I don't think I can explain to my dad where I got a hot pink and blue cake covered in baby rattles." I ignored my instincts and took a hesitant bite. "This is actually really good," I admitted.

"Don't underestimate Alice's event planning skills. She wanted to do a full-on party, but I managed to talk her down to just a cake. So naturally, she focused all of her energy on finding the perfect one. I may have had to agree to let her throw a 'real' baby shower later, though."

"Good luck with that," I told her. "So how are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Happy. Excited. Scared. A little bit of everything, I guess," she admitted. I could imagine how complicated this must be for her and the sad memories it must have brought back.

She continued. "It's too early for parties, Jake. Of course I'm happy, but we don't know for sure how things will go. There's a reason people usually wait a few months before telling anyone. I don't want to break out the party supplies too soon."

I really hoped that wouldn't be an issue for her. She'd been through too much already to think about something going wrong with this pregnancy too.

"Everything's going to be fine, Bells. You're going to be great." She put her fork down and let her head fall against my shoulder and rested her hand on my upper arm like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

"Thanks, Jake. For everything. What about you? Have you heard from the pack?" she asked.

"Yeah," I told her. "Sam sent Seth to talk to me and tell me to stay away," I admitted.

"I'm so sorry." She squeezed my arm in sympathy.

"Don't worry about it. It could be worse."

"So what will you do now?" She asked. The million dollar question.

"I don't know, Bells. I thought about maybe traveling?" I'd almost swear I could feel the warmth from her hand through my sleeve, which was just silly since my body temperature was significantly higher than hers. She looked sad, but her words didn't match her face.

"You should take advantage of your chance to see the world if that's what you want," she agreed. The funny thing is, when she said it, I was less sure. Like maybe the right thing to do was stick around for a while longer.

"Maybe," I said. We finished our cake quietly after that.

Bella was the first to break the silence. "You know, Alice did make me agree to one more thing for this non-party. But you don't have to stay if you don't want to."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"A baby movie marathon. And I'm pretty sure they're just waiting in the living room for us to join them."

"What do you mean by 'baby movie,' exactly?" I didn't think I could sit through Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer or anything like that. Just thinking about it reminded me of a few months back when Quil had related something Embry was talking about to a Little Einsteins plot without thinking. He never made the mistake of mentioning it again, but the damage was done and we'd all been giving him hell about it ever since. For weeks, Paul's new favorite catchphrase was 'What would Little Einsteins do?' any time someone needed help solving a problem. It was weird to think that I wouldn't be around for that stuff anymore.

"It's some movie Alice used to like, there's three parts. I think it's called Look Who's Talking and it's from the 80s or something. I've never seen it. Why are you smiling, Jake? Have you seen it before?"

"Yeah, Rachel and Rebecca used to watch those when we were little." I hadn't been old enough to remember much, but I remembered thinking they were funny at the time.

"So does that mean you'll stay?" she asked.

"Maybe I'll try to make it through the first one," I compromised.

And I did. When we got back into the living room, the Cullens had transformed it and brought in an extra couch and armchairs to accommodate everyone. Alice lived up to her party hostess duties and brought out an enormous bowl of popcorn and handed it to me.

"What? Bella's eating for two now and you're always eating for like six, so I figured more is less in this situation."

I predictably ended up on one end of a couch with Bella in the middle and Edward on the other end. She sat with her legs propped comfortably in his lap and her back resting against my shoulder. At some point during the movie she got cold and wound up burrowed under my arm instead of against it. While we were sitting there, I had one of those weird introspective moments where you can't help but look at your life and wonder how in the world you wound up exactly where you are. I was sharing a couch with my best friend who I'd recently impregnated and her husband, who also happened to be a vampire. A year or two ago, I would have set the whole house on fire before willingly sitting on that couch. And it was still every level of strange imaginable to be here with these people and under these circumstances. Something wasn't quite right, but I had to admit that it felt like something wasn't quite wrong anymore, either.

I went home from Alice's "pregnancy shower" with the strong, ridiculous feeling that I needed to stay put for now and put off traveling. I tried to sleep on it and give myself time to snap out of whatever irrational thoughts I might have picked up at the Cullen house, but days passed and I still couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to stick around for a little while longer. The biggest problem with that plan was my dad. Maybe I could pull off running away and hiding the truth from him that way, but if I was going to stick around, I'd have to give him some sort of explanation for why I wasn't seeing the pack anymore.

For a moment, I thought about just coming clean to him. It's not like he could do much more to punish me; I'd done a pretty thorough job of that all on my own. But I hated the thought of disappointing him, or worse, being pitied by him. He was already giving me sad knowing looks just thinking I was moping around about Bella becoming a vampire. I couldn't tell him the true extent of what I'd sacrificed for her. I decided my best course of action was to give him the same vague truth I gave Seth and pray he wasn't too suspicious. If I was lucky, he'd write me off as a moody teenager. Hell, I was a moody teenager. It wasn't too much of a stretch.

I sucked it up and tried to bring it up a few days later over breakfast. He probably knew something was up by the mountain of uneaten pancakes on my plate.

"What's the matter, son, not enjoying my cooking?" He teased me. We both knew full and well that they were microwave pancakes.

"No. Dad…there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about."

He eyed me with curiosity, and maybe a hint of suspicion. "Go on."

"It's about the pack. I'm sort of…taking a break."

He nodded knowingly. "I've been wondering when you were going to tell me," he admitted.

I dropped my fork. He knew? "How did you…?"

He shoveled a microwave sausage into his mouth. "Sam came by a few weeks ago."

Damn it. DAMN IT. I felt anger begin to bubble up under the calm surface I'd worked so hard to maintain while preparing to tell him. If he'd spoken with Sam, the he probably knew a lot more than I ever planned to tell him. Fucking Sam.

"Care to fill me in on your side of things?" he pressed.

No, no I really did not. I'd need to tread lightly. "Look, I didn't exactly plan it or anything, it just sort of…happened."

He put down his fork and eyed me skeptically. "So you just 'accidentally' broke a bond so strong that no one else in the pack could've possibly done it? Is that right?"

He obviously wasn't going to make this easy for me.

I tried again with the line I'd fed Seth. "I just couldn't handle taking orders from him anymore, okay?"

"And why is that, all of a sudden?"

I shrugged weakly.

"Son, I may be old and I may be crippled, but I'm not blind or stupid. Don't insult me by acting like it."

My shoulders sagged with guilt and I stared at the floor wishing I could be absolutely anywhere else. Apparently I could go up against an Alpha werewolf, no problem, but I was no match for my Dad.

He wheeled himself closer to my side of the table and laid a hand on my shoulder. His voice was softer when he spoke again. "Jake, she already made her choice. Do you really want to keep doing this to yourself? Sam was only looking out for you."

I realized that while Sam may have snitched, he didn't exactly have the most up-to-date information to share. As far as he knew, Bella hadn't considered my offer and was instead on her way to becoming a vampire. In fact, they probably thought she'd already been turned.

"I know, Dad. Trust me, it's hard enough without being given commands about how I can act and feel about it. I'm just done with it. I'm sorry, but I did what I had to do."

There it was. The pity look I'd been hoping to avoid.

"I can't say I think it was the right choice, but I suppose there's not much that can be done about it now." He sighed. "So what's next?"

Again, the million dollar question.

"I've been, uh, thinking maybe I'd travel after a while. You know, now that I'm kind of free."

His face softened at my answer. "I think that could be good for you. Of course, you'll need some funds."

"Yeah. I've been thinking I should stick around for a bit, maybe get a job and save up some first." Not that the GED I'd earned would get me a top-notch career, but I didn't need anything fancy.

Dad nodded. "You've been spending a lot of time in the garage lately." He mused. "Maybe it's about time you made a profit off of it."

I stared at him and wondered why I hadn't thought of it myself. I had already considered getting a job as a mechanic somewhere in town, but all of the business owners around here were in with the pack in some form or another. I'd burned more than just a few bridges by going rogue.

"That's actually a great idea," I agreed. "Thanks, Dad." I gave him a genuine smile and felt like the worst son in the world for continuing to keep the truth from him. And I dreaded the moment it would all inevitably catch up with me.