*BPOV*

"Where will you go now?" Carlisle asked Ragnar just as he, Maisie, and Tristan were about to board Ragnar's ship and sail off into the sunset.

Tristan lingered ashore, saying his private farewells to Tanya.

"Anywhere we want, I suppose, thanks to your smár hlíf," Ragnar nodded at me in acknowledgment. "But something tells me not far," he smirked knowingly over to where Tristan and Tanya were whispering words of passion to each other.

Edward leaned closer to me and murmured in my ear, "It means 'little shield.'"

Oh, so you speak Old Norse, now? I silently teased, cocking an eyebrow in his direction. Edward just winked at me in reply.

"Thank you, Cullens. My brothers have been avenged and we are now free of our Italian shackles. After a thousand years, the wind is finally at our backs," Ragnar sighed with deep contentment. He then turned his gaze to smile softly up at Maisie who paid him no mind. She was already aboard the schooner busily hoisting the mainsail, her fiery mane blowing gently out behind her in the salty sea breeze.

It gave sudden meaning to the name Brenna painted in red, ancient-looking lettering on the side of the boat. Edward had told me that in Old Norse, it meant "ablaze."

"It's us who should be thanking you," Edward replied warmly, holding out his hand to Ragnar who shook it heartily without hesitation.

"Anyone who takes such pleasure in dismembering Volturi scum is a brother of mine, Edward, son of Carlisle. Even if it did take you a hundred years to find your cock," Ragnar ribbed with a deep, bellowing guffaw, causing Emmett and Jasper to double over with laughter.

"I like this guy," Rosalie snickered to herself.

"Just what I always needed," Edward smiled despite himself. "Another brother."

"Until we meet again, my friends," Ragnar waved and lithely hopped aboard. Then he whistled loudly and recited the old proverb, "Tristan! Time and tide wait for no man. "

"Except you," Tristan muttered, pulling away from Tanya. With one spry leap, he bounded after his the deck of the impressive ship, lazily rocking in the tide.

Ragnar's answering grin was arrogant. "It's true," he conceded, stroking his beard like it was a beloved pet. With a wave of his hand, he summoned a great swell of water that rose up and molded itself to the stern. Another flick of the wrist and the boat lurched forward as if powered by a motor.

Then Carlisle turned to Kate, Garrett, Carmen, Eleazar, Irina, and lastly Tanya who was watching the magnificent vessel sail off into the rainbow sherbet-hued sunset with a dreamy faraway look in her eyes. "Must you leave so soon?" he asked with genuine disappointment.

"If Garrett is going to give up human blood, he's going to need the bears. I don't know how you stand all this deer," Kate laughed lightly, wrinkling her nose with distaste.

"Right?!" Emmett bellowed.

*EPOV*

"Finally!" I exclaimed with impatient excitement when the last of them had gone.

Esme quietly reproached me with a disapproving look for my perceived rudeness.

"That's not what I meant!" I chuckled with exuberance as we walked to the parking lot where we'd left the cars. It had been kind of nice having family and friends around, in a chaotic, dysfunctional sort of way. Like what I imagine a human family Christmas holiday to be like, based on the films I'd seen.

"It's just that now we get to take a little trip of our own," I revealed, excited to finally be able to let Bella in on her birthday surprise.

"Oh, right," Esme laughed amusedly. "I almost forgot."

"Wait, what? Where are we going?" Bella asked with a bewildered look on her face.

"Iowa," I answered simply.

"Iowa? What's in Iowa?" she asked, looking even more confused. "I didn't realize people went out of their way to go there," Bella remarked with her typical biting wit.

"You'll see," I said, my grin threatening to split the sides of my face.

A look of concern creased her brow. "I'm not sure I'm up to being on an airplane, yet, Edward... That's a pretty long flight," she frowned.

"Not to worry, my love. We're not flying. We're driving. Mostly due to the fact that air traffic over Des Moines has been grounded."

Then Alice stuck the top half of her body out of Emmett's Jeep and squealed, "ROAD TRIP!"

"Have a marvelous time, dearies! We'll celebrate when you get back," Esme promised as she and Carlisle hugged us goodbye.

"Celebrate what? What's going on? You're not coming?" Bella asked quizzically.

"Why, your birthday, of course! Carlisle is on call. And you know, extreme sports have never really been my thing. But I don't want to give too much away," Esme admitted with a little laugh. "It'll just be nice to enjoy the peace and quiet," she said, linking her arm through Carlisle's. "You kids enjoy yourselves! I can't wait to hear all about it!"

*BPOV*

The clock on the dash said it was just after midnight when the city lights of Reno, Nevada came into view, glowing brightly in the distance against the inky black backdrop of the clear night sky.

But not even the megawatt casino town appearing in the middle of the desert like a mirage could mute the brilliance of the stars that lit up the sky.

"Emmett, take the next exit," Alice instructed from one of the jump seats Rosalie had installed in the rear to better accommodate the six of us in a jeep only built to seat five.

"What? No! Alice–" Edward twisted in his seat to argue with her.

"We have time for this. We won't miss a thing, I promise!" Alice reassured, and then added with a knowing grin, "And I bet Bella would like to experience a casino for the first time, wouldn't you, Bella?" she asked, raising a perfectly-arched eyebrow.

"Well yeah, but I'm not old enough…" I replied with a frown.

"This says you are," Jasper disagreed from behind me where he sat opposite Alice in the other jump seat. He reached over the back of my seat to press a pair of California State driver's licenses into my hand.

"Fake IDs?!" I crowed with wide eyes and handed Edward his.

"Our attorney, Mr. Jenks, assures me they aren't fake. Simply falsified. He knows someone at the Department of Motor Vehicles." Jasper informed me with a smirk, then went on to explain, "You're going to be using false identification of one form or another for the rest of eternity. Getting in on the action one year early seemed like a minor offense comparatively."

Next to me, Edward relented with a sigh as I'm sure Alice knew he would. She had uttered the magic words. She'd offered me a new experience, and if there was one thing Edward could never refuse, it was the voyeuristic pleasure he took in watching me experience something for the first time.

"What time do we need to be back on the road to make sure we make it to Iowa on time?" Edward asked as we drove under the famed Reno arch sign. It spanned across the main drag, illuminating the street with thousands of red and white incandescent light bulbs that spelled out the name of the city and its slogan, "The Biggest Little City in the World."

Emmett then pulled into the massive parking structure belonging to one of the hotels and pulled into a spot at the end of a row.

"Everybody needs to be back at the car by 2:27 a.m. and not a moment later, " Edward repeated what he must've heard in Alice's mind. "Agreed?" he demanded in a stern voice.

"Plenty of time!" Rosalie chirped, sounding uncharacteristically cheerful. But when we piled out of the Jeep and took the elevator to the casino floor, Rose and Emmett stayed on the elevator when the rest of us got off.

"2:27!" Edward hissed as the elevator doors slowly closed with Emmett waving smugly behind them.

"Where the hell are they going?" I demanded, staring at the bewildered expression on my face in my reflection on the shiny gold elevator doors. Jasper snickered behind me.

"They aren't the gambling type," Alice answered coolly. "They are going in search of alternative entertainment." She then paused to look around the bustling casino floor. What she was looking for, I wasn't certain. I took a look around myself and sort of wished I hadn't.

The sensory input was overwhelming, to say the least. We were standing at the entrance of a maze of brightly lit-up slot machines, their incongruous beeps, chimes, and jangly music all competing for my attention, nearly drowning out the rat-a-tat-tat of hearts drumming in every direction. From the immense chandeliers hanging from the ceiling to garishly colored geometric patterns on the carpeted floor, everything was loud, and everything was moving.

The acrid stench of cigarette smoke hung in the air despite the ventilation systems that hummed above our heads circulating the smoky air with an ever-present drone that would've been imperceptible to my human ears.

I wrinkled my nose at the odor but was simultaneously glad for it as it distracted from the other delicious scents of the humans that cloistered around the machines. The fleshy pads of their fingers tapped unendingly at icons on the screens, their transfixed brains on a slow drip of adrenaline and dopamine. Even the uptempo music piped in over the loudspeakers was designed to make you lose track of time.

"In English?" I asked plainly as we walked past a bank of slot machines being played by a trio of blue-haired elderly women, each with a lit cigarette hanging from their downturned mouths. Their milky eyes were glazed over as if hypnotized by the animated symbols that danced across the screen.

"They're going to a strip club, love," Edward explained, a hint of exasperation in his velvety voice.

My eyebrows raised skyward. That was the very last thing I expected Edward to say. My lips formed a small 'o' in surprise as I thought that over.

"I wouldn't have thought Rosalie would allow that sort of thing…' I finally blurted as Edward pulled me by the hand through an excited throng of people that were watching the action around a nearby craps table.

"It's not for Emmett that they go," Jasper chortled just ahead of me as we followed Alice through a labyrinth of bars, slot machines, and gaming tables. Then his attention flickered toward the swelling group of frenzied spectators around the craps table.

His eyes narrowed momentarily in concentration and then with a subtle upward movement of Jasper's hand, the crowd of excited onlookers erupted with such visceral enthusiasm that they were practically foaming at the mouth.

The humans' blood pressure surged until their hearts thundered in their chests. It sounded like a stampede. And the smell…I swallowed hard at the venom that pooled in my mouth, but it did nothing to soothe the flash burn in the back of my throat.

I immediately stopped breathing, choking off the assault of their mouthwatering aromas. With my keenest sense disabled, it was easier to think a little straighter that way.

"Not helping, Jazz," Edward hissed in admonishment as I felt his grip on my hand noticeably tighten.

"Humans are friends not food," I muttered through my teeth with the breath I had left, so my family would know I was still in my right mind. Edward smiled warmly at me and his grip loosened by a degree. His liquid topaz eyes shone with pride, presumably at how far I'd come with my control. School was definitely helping with my endurance.

I hadn't been the only one momentarily overwhelmed by the horde of spectators. Their uproarious response had been so startling in its forcefulness that the man rolling the dice was, well, startled. That much was apparent by the jerky, stilted way in which he threw the dice as if he'd been pushed from behind, though no one had touched him.

The crowd went dead silent as the small white cubes bounced and tumbled three times on the green felt and then finally turned up snake eyes.

"Better luck next time," the dealer offered impassively and used what looked like a little rake to collect a small fortune worth of brightly colored poker chips that were neatly stacked in front of the wide-eyed, slack-jawed player whose pale face had been leached of all its color.

I gave Jasper an incredulous look as he grimaced guiltily and mouthed the word "oops," and quickly fled the scene.

Edward just shook his head and rolled his eyes, but was otherwise undeterred from the topic at hand, eager to defend his favorite brother. "You've seen the way that Emmett looks at Rosalie.

"No human woman–or immortal, for that matter–could ever hold a candle to Rosalie in Emmett's eyes," he explained, swerving evasively around a scantily-clad cocktail waitress who walked directly into his path.

The slender olive-complected woman walked purposefully across the carpeted casino floor holding a full tray of cocktails balanced on one hand just above her shoulder. She had dark, teased-up hair, smokey eyeshadow, and was dressed only in a black leotard, fishnet stockings, and pumps.

The ensemble (and particularly the meticulously straight black seams running down the length of her toned calves) made her shapely legs appear miles-long.

Alice followed my gaze to where the leggy waitress had disappeared behind another row of slot machines. "She does have great legs, doesn't she?" she giggled. Edward and Jasper turned to gape at me incredulously.

"What?" I snapped. "She did! Tell me I'm not the only one who noticed," I blustered, embarrassed.

Edward smiled crookedly at me with amusement. "I was watching you," he purred with wide, guileless eyes. "Did you see anything, Jazz?"

"Who had legs?" Jasper asked thickly, being deliberately obtuse. Alice smiled approvingly at him in the same way that one smiled at a well-trained golden retriever who'd just brought in the newspaper.

"Anyway," Alice said pointedly as she looped her arm through mine and strode directly to the high roller section of the casino, which, mercifully, had far fewer people milling around.

"It all started back in '95. Rosalie found a Penthouse magazine hidden in Emmett's things. As you can imagine, Rose was mortified and more than a little hurt. It made her terribly insecure…"

It was sort of funny, I mused. I'd never been someone who was offended by the existence of pornography. I figured it was kind of a guy thing. Especially a teen guy thing. Though I never looked at it myself.

Before Edward came along, when the ubiquitous urges of adolescence took hold, I preferred to lose myself in the flowery love scenes of my favorite love stories rather than risk getting caught doing anything untoward on the family computer.

But now, after being spoiled by the absolute devotion Edward had shown me since the day of our fated reunion in Volterra, I could only imagine the depth of the dejection I'd feel if I ever discovered that my husband secretly looked at obscene photos of other women.

The more I thought about it, the more horrified I was for poor Rosalie, so I couldn't understand the amused tone in Edward's voice as he took over telling the story.

"So instead of talking to him about it, Rosalie plotted to take Emmett to a strip club as a sort of test of his fidelity. To see if he'd pay more attention to the dancing girls.

"Long story short, Emmett passed the test with flying colors and Rosalie found out how much exotic dancers enjoy female patrons," Edward chuckled. "She even got up on stage and wowed them with her pole-dancing skills. Rosalie loved the attention and Emmett loved the show. And now it's sort of their thing," he explained with a shrug of indifference.

"You're leaving out the best part!" Jasper excitedly cut in. "When Rosalie finally admitted that she found his nudie magazine, he tried to tell her he kept it for the 'articles,'" Jasper laughed, using air quotes.

Accurately reading the look of skepticism on my face, Jasper went on to say with a shake of his head and one side of his mouth turned up into an amused smirk. "Yeah, Rose didn't buy it either. So Emmett flipped the magazine open to the 'Letters to the Editor' column and proved it."

My brow furrowed and after a beat, I finally admitted, "I don't get it. How does that excuse him from having the magazine?"

"Bella, Penthouse letters are notorious for men writing in to brag about their sexual conquests, both real and imagined. And Emmett, writing under the pseudonym, 'Goddess Whisperer,' had submitted one such letter. About Rosalie," Edward explained in a voice that suggested he'd be blushing if he could.

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open in sudden understanding. "Was she mad?" I asked curiously.

"No," Edward snorted with equal parts amusement and derision. "She was relieved! He had the magazine because he was bragging about her, that was all that mattered to Rosalie in the end,

"Obviously, Emmett thought she'd be put out with him bragging about her in such a lewd publication, and that's why he hid it from her in the first place. Communication has never been their strong suit," Edward chuckled.

"So…Rosalie moonlights as a pole dancer," I laughed a little awkwardly in summation. "Jeez, you think you know someone!"

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it!" Alice chided good-naturedly.

Edward's nostrils flared and he opened his mouth to object, but Alice cut him off. "Relax brother, I'm only kidding. It's not like Bella would ever do something like that anyway, much less enjoy it," Alice's voice trilled with laughter. The confidence in her assertion made me ache to deny it. I guess that's how reverse psychology worked.

But she was right. Not even reverse psychology could coerce me into going onstage with a gorgeous bunch of naked, pole-twirling, lap-dance-giving strippers. Not for fun or any other reason.

Alice sighed wistfully. "Probably for the best. Edward going full caveman isn't a pretty sight," she giggled wryly and pulled up a chair at an empty blackback table. Then I noticed the little sign near the dealer that denoted the $1,000 minimum bet and I dropped my wallet right back into my bag.

Alice reached into her oversized bag and withdrew several bundled stacks of hundred dollar bills and placed them on the table in front of the dealer who quickly exchanged the bills for poker chips.

Alice slid a stack of chips each to Edward and Jasper who sat down in the two empty seats on her right. She glanced at me to make sure I didn't want to play. But for that kind of money, I shook my head 'no' and instead cozied up to Edward as he pulled me to his side.

"You can be my good luck charm," Edward smiled broadly. Wrapping an arm around my waist, he drew me closer to him and tipped his head back for a kiss which I enthusiastically supplied.

"Luck! Ha!" Alice snorted, sounding almost insulted.

Ignoring her, in a low, husky tone Edward purred, "And for the record, I have no objections to a private dance if you're ever so inclined." With his tawny eyes blazing, the hand that rested on the swell of my hip dipped down a few inches to give my ass cheek a gentle squeeze,

I stood up a little straighter and feigned a scandalized look at the familiar touch, simultaneously making plans to give him a little striptease when I got him alone. Plans I knew he would hear secondhand from Alice as soon as she "saw" them. I snickered victoriously as he groaned low in his throat and squirmed a little in his seat.

The dealer routinely collected all of their identification cards, passing them over to a pit boss who took one look at Edward's and Alice's youthful appearances and seemed to triple verify that the IDs were valid before sliding them back to their owners and nodding to the dealer to proceed.

The crew-cutted, barrel-chested dealer wore his golden uniform vest over a maroon button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. On his copper-skinned forearm was a tattoo of a bear claw that appeared to be slicing through the skin of his arm. According to the name tag pinned to his vest, his name was Bryan and he was from Chico, California.

I half-smiled, thinking If Emmett had been there, he'd snarkily ask if there were many bears in Chico. And with his massive hands, he'd demonstrate the actual size of a bear's claw, all the while wishing he still had the scars of his mauling to show off to this poser.

"Hi, Bryan!" Alice greeted cordially. "Thank you for dealing for us today. I have a good feeling about you," she winked and smiled disarmingly at the man.

"Thank you, Miss," he stammered with a shy, almost embarrassed smile, thoroughly dazzled. And then after a long beat, as if he forgot what he was supposed to be doing, he finally asked, "Would you like to cut the cards?"

Alice took the proffered cut card from the dealer and sliced it juuuust so, right into the middle of the long column of cards with surgical precision. The dealer completed the cut, and after discarding the first card out of the chute, Bryan quickly dispensed the first round of cards with practiced hands.

Sitting in the rightmost seat, it was Edward's turn to go first. With a horizontal wave of his hand over his cards, Edward stayed on a pair of queens.

Next up, Jasper split his pair of eights. He was dealt another eight, so he split again. He received two face cards and an ace giving him two 18s and a soft 19. He stayed on all three hands.

Alice, in the third seat, had a hard 17. The dealer was showing a king.

"Hit me," Alice confidently instructed, tapping the table with two dainty fingers for another card.

Now, I didn't know much about the rules of blackjack, but I knew you were never supposed to hit on 17.

"Ma'am?" The dealer asked with a look of extreme skepticism as if he thought Alice might've done the math wrong.

"I said hit me," Alice repeated in a sharper tone.

"As you wish," Bryan acquiesced and plucked another card from the hopper and flipped it over next to her other two cards. The card was a four giving her the winning hand of 21.

The dealer flipped over his other card, revealing a six, giving the house a 16. According to the rules, the dealer had to hit on 16. He flipped over a third card, the jack of hearts, and busted out. Edward, Jasper, and Alice all reached forward to collect their winnings and added the chips to their existing bets, letting the money ride.

*EPOV*

"Bella, have you ever played roulette?" Alice asked pleasantly as she beat the dealer against the odds yet again.

"That's the one with the wheel and the ball, right?" Bella asked unsurely.

"Yup, that's the one. See that roulette table over there?" she asked with a nod of her head toward the table just a few feet away. "After the next spin, go put this on double zero," Alice instructed, folding Bella's fingers around a $25,000 chip in the palm of her hand.

Bella's eyes widened as she noted the dollar amount on the purple chip. "Um, ok," she hesitantly agreed and stepped away from my side. The roulette table was empty save for a single player who, based on his betting style, was unfamiliar with the gambler's fallacy.

After having her identification verified by the pit boss, Bella obediently placed the chip on the green double zero space at the head of the table. The odds were against her by 35 to 1. And sure enough, after the dealer gave a robust spin of the wheel, the ball bounced several times and landed squarely in the green space beneath the 00.

"Better quit while I'm ahead," Bella's tittered nervously as she collected her winnings. The payout for that bet was 17-to-1, which meant Bella walked away with nearly half a million dollars from just that one wager.

We didn't do this often. Once a decade or so, otherwise, it would draw too much unwanted attention. Plus, it felt a lot more like robbery than using Alice's gift to play the stock market, which is how we were able to amass most of our wealth over the years.

But even if I could sleep, I wouldn't lose any over bilking a few casinos out of millions of dollars that we then used to fund shelters for victims of domestic violence, restore national parks, and a number of other altruistic causes.

Playing blackjack with Alice was so easy it almost took the fun out of it. Almost. Using her gift, she was able to foresee every card that came out of the chute before it was even played. And since I could see her visions in real-time as if they were my own, I had the same advantage.

Alice and Jasper had their own little system. Whenever she wanted him to take a card she would say a sentence beginning with the letter "H" for hit, "S" when he should stay, or "D" when he should double down.

"Don't you just love this song?" Alice asked rhetorically, bopping along to Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."

Jasper nodded and obediently placed a tidy stack of chips next to the existing bet, an unspoken request to double his bet. Sure enough, the dealer gave him an ace and his hand of 20 beat the dealer's 17.

"Last hand, Alice," I warned as the pit boss started to become suspicious over the growing stacks of chips in front of us, especially considering Alice's erratic playing style that flew in the face of accepted blackjack strategy.

"Oh, alright," huffed Alice. "One last hand."

Alice was dealt a blackjack right out of the gate. The dealer was about to pay her out when she said, "I'd like to double down, please."

"On a blackjack?!" the dealer cried, appalled.

Gesturing to her cards, an ace and jack of hearts, Alice asked innocently. "It's a soft 11, isn't it?"

"Can I even do that?" The dealer asked over his shoulder to the pit boss who answered, "Technically, yes. Though nobody's ever been stupid enough to try," the portly man grumbled with a disbelieving shake of his head.

"You're pushing it, Alice," I said under my breath as the dealer reached for another card. He flipped over a 10, giving Alice a hard 21. Alice beamed beatifically as the dealer matched the two tall stacks of chips with two more stacks.

"Cash out, please," Alice instructed, pushing all of her chips toward the dealer. In less than thirty minutes, we'd collectively won over eight million dollars of the casino's money. Every penny of which would be anonymously donated to charity.

"Like taking candy from a baby," Jasper chuckled as Alice tucked a freshly printed check into her pocketbook. It had taken the casino cashier longer than was usual to issue payment. They cited "a slow computer system," but the truth was that they were stalling while the casino officials reviewed the gameplay surveillance tapes to make sure we hadn't cheated in some way.

They finally cut the checks after a forty-five-minute wait after they couldn't prove anything. Alice thanked the casino manager and politely declined to have our photos taken for the Wall of Winners. I snickered to myself when he conveniently "forgot" to offer us the hotel voucher the casino usually extended to big winners to try to recoup their money.

"I hope that wasn't too boring for you," I murmured to Bella who had mostly watched.

"What part of a vampire casino heist did you think I would find boring?" she teased with an amused smile.

*BPOV*

"What now?" Jasper asked as we walked outside into the blazing heat. Even in the middle of the night, the temperature was nearly in the triple digits. As we exited the aggressively air-conditioned casino, the desert heat blasted me in the face as we stepped outside.

After walking a few blocks, it occurred to me that I wasn't bothered by it like I would have been in my human form. The cool stone of my body couldn't sweat, chafe, or overheat (unless by actual fire.) I was just as comfortable in the oppressive desert heat as I was walking barefoot knee-deep in the snow in Alaska.

The heat was nice actually. It reminded me of the sunshine we usually hid from during the day. Or of my beloved Phoenix, which I still remembered fondly in spite of how disastrous my last trip there had been. In a misguided effort to save my mother (who had never really been in danger), I was tortured and narrowly avoided being turned by the vengeful vampire, James, when Edward and the rest of my family burst in and saved me.

"We still have a few minutes before we have to meet Emmett and Rose back at the car. We could go find them and make it rain for Rosalie," Alice offered, repeatedly sliding four fingers of one hand across the open palm of the other in a pantomimed gesture.

"Hard pass," Edward and Jasper simultaneously vetoed.

"It's not like she takes her clothes off. Or as if she's your real sister," Alice rolled her eyes.

"If she's not my real sibling, she sure takes the 'annoying little sister' role very seriously," Edward quipped with a snort, earning a laugh from Jasper.

"Edward, you can stop pretending that the reason you don't want to go has anything to do with Rosalie and everything to do with the fact that you don't want to bring Bella to an establishment as untoward as a strip club," Alice accused, arching her brow and pursing her lips. "Prude much?" she teased, playfully sticking out her tongue at him.

"Annoying much?" he retorted with a roll of his eyes.

"Oh, you guys are real siblings, alright," I laughed and shook my head as we strolled down the wide paved sidewalk past a restaurant that promised 'All You Can Eat Lobster! Friday through Sunday.'

Then Edward turned to me and took my face in his hands and gently explained in a silky voice, "While I don't need to explain myself to her," he thrust his chiseled jaw in Alice's direction, "I want you to understand that that's not the reason."

He went on to clarify, "Bella I'm not your keeper or your guardian, I'm your husband. And as your husband, I don't have the slightest desire to see unclothed women through my eyes or anybody else's.

"Apart from that…the men that frequent those places have vulgar, unpleasant minds," he added with a frown.

"But if you want to go," Edward softly murmured, "don't let me stop you, love," he told me earnestly.

I chewed on my lip as I deliberated. Then my eyes flickered over to where Alice was whirling around the pole of a streetlamp in a very unsubtle suggestion and Jasper was watching her with rapt attention.

Hmmm…tempting. Though, you seem very committed to getting us to Iowa by a specific time. And if we went to a strip club with those two…I thought as I eyed Jasper. Well, a sex frenzy would probably make us late, right?

Edward's eyes widened in understanding. I doubt he even considered that. He hoarsely answered "Right," with a nod of his head.

Another time, then. And after a beat I mused, I guess being immortal means not needing to have a bucket list, huh? Because I'll never kick the bucket.

Sweeping a lock of my hair behind my ear, Edward smiled crookedly at me, "That's exactly what that means."

"Ugh. C'mon Jazzy. We'll meet you two prudes back at the Jeep then," Alice scoffed and rolled her eyes, disgruntled about the decision we'd made.

"Why don't we go to a strip club in Iowa, after the thing Edward wants us to do tomorrow?" I offered in compromise.

With a chagrined face, Alice snorted. "Pink Taco Tuesday at The Spearmint Rhino. Lovely."

A/N I am so very sorry that I fell off the face of the planet. *Deep breath*

-My 5yo was home sick with pneumonia for the first two weeks of April and recovered just in time for Spring Break to keep him home for another week.

-Contractors were at the house for 2 days replacing all of our windows.

-Then we left town for my husband's birthday.

-Easter celebrations.

- Then we had relatives visit for a week from out of state.

-Then capped off the month with a birthday party for my oldest.

I don't even know how we fit it all into one month, but whew! Needless to say, there was not a lot (or any) time left over for writing. But things have finally calmed down, so I'm back now. And GDI, I'm going to finish this beast if it kills me! Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with this fic. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I can't wait to hear what you think! Til next time, lovelies!