Bella sits across from her dad at The Lodge, the only place they ever ate out at while she lived in Forks, while he orders his usual: steak and cobber.

She wonders if he's managed to figure out cooking yet or if he still just eats out for every meal he can't find premade in a box. She wishes she could come home more often to make him something from scratch. He's getting older and probably should start taking better care of his health.

The waiter comes and goes. She picks at her salad, unable to stomach much of anything because of the conversation she needs to have with him.

Edward's sitting beside her. He talked her into letting him come with, which isn't a difficult feat, she's finding out. He got her to agree to get married, after all.

Always the charmer, he's been avidly discussing sports with Charlie the entire meal.

His presence is only making her task that much more nerve-wracking.

"Bella, you're paler than a ghost. Are you okay?" Charlie asks eventually.

She's not.

"So...Edward and I are back together, as you know. Obviously. He's here. And...well..." She digs the ring out of her pocket and slides it on her finger. She can't figure out if her heart's going to stop or speed up so much it explodes.

Charlie drops his fork. "Bells...is that a..?"

Chewing her bottom lip, she pulls the heavy, crisp, white envelope containing the save the date brochure from her hoodie pocket and hands it to him.

His eyes scan the shiny gold letters for a moment, then he starts laughing so hard his shoulders shake.

"Before you ask, I'm not pregnant. And I've thought about it a lot. I'm fully one-hundred-percent sure," she says.

Charlie flips the brochure over as if it'll somehow make it say something different. Maybe he thinks there's a punchline to it like a joke. "No way. You were crying over the phone a few months ago because he dumped you."

"And now we're getting married. Yay..?" Bella says weakly. She elbows Edward in the ribs so he'll say something.

"I'm sorry, this is all so out of order. I wanted to ask you about it beforehand, but things have been so busy lately. And Bella already said yes, so I suppose it's too late for that," Edward blurts out. "I know I haven't done anything to earn your trust or approval, but I love Bella more than anything, and she gives me more joy than I could ever dream of having. I promise I'll do my best to take care of her and make her happy. I hope we have your blessing."

Oh, man. That's a mouthful. Charlie's looking at him like he just told him he has an extra eye on the back of his head. He looks back to Bella. "If you're not pregnant, then what's the big hurry? You're still in school."

"Edward's not. He's graduating next month. And my apartment lease is ending. I don't want to be roommates with Jessica and Angela again next year, so I'm moving into an apartment with Edward," Bella says, hoping she sounds less stupid than she feels.

"Right. Living together feels like a natural next step, and I'd like to do it properly. After marriage," Edward adds. "I assure you that I wouldn't ask for her hand if I didn't believe in the longevity of our relationship."

Charlie chuckles to himself some more. "Yeah, okay. Go ahead, get married. You have my blessing. But you're gonna have to tell Renée yourself."

Bella sighs. "I will. The invite went out in the mail this morning."

"You gonna fly out to see her before the big day?"

"Yes," Edward answers, much to her surprise. They didn't discuss going to Florida at all. "After I take the Bar exam."

"Aren't we going to be apartment hunting?" Bella asks.

"That won't take more than a day or two. Esme's putting together a shortlist for us."

"Oh. Okay..." She trusts Esme's opinion. Her house is beautiful, and she knows the area better than Bella.

"Have you told Jacob and Billy yet?" Charlie asks.

"No, um. Can you wait to mention it until I get a chance to? I want to tell Jake in person," she replies. She can't imagine him taking it well if he hears through the grapevine.

"He's gonna be in Seattle in a few weeks. You should go see him. He said he'll be over there all summer."

"Yeah, I will."

She nibbles on her salad for a while longer before they head back to the house.

There's still plenty of sunlight, and her bedroom window is open, letting in a nice, warm breeze. Her clock reads 7:05, making it 10:05 in Florida.

She dials her mom and takes a seat on the bed with Edward. He's reviewing some notes on his iPad, expression frowning as he scrolls.

"Hey, Bellaaa! What's up, honey?"

"Hey. Not much. Well, actually, that's not true. I called to tell you something."

"Sure! Oh, is it about summer vacation? Are you coming down? You know, Phil and I found the cutest little ice cream shop the other day. They have this really amazing strawberry shortcake sundae that you'll have to try. It's just a few doors down from the ceramics studio I've been going to. We could take a class together!"

"That, um, sounds great. But that's not what I was calling about...Um...Actually...I wanted to let you know that Edward and I are...engaged..."

There's a loud whooping on the other end of the line. "Phil! Bella's getting married! Yes, to the cute one!" she shouts. "Sweetie, that's amazing!"

"I thought you'd be a little...skeptical. You and dad married young, and it didn't work out..."

Her mom exhales loudly. "Charlie's Charlie. Edward's Edward. You're not at all as dumb and reckless as I was at your age. From what you've told me, he's perfect. When do I get to meet him?"

"Soon. We're going to come down to Miami in July, I think. Oh, and the wedding's in August."

There's more cheering on the other end of the line.

Well, she lived. Two of the three people she dreaded telling the most now know. All that's left is Jacob.

...

Emmett pours his peanut butter and kale smoothie from the blender into a glass and takes a sip. It needs something.

Out in the living room, Alice and Esme are talking in low voices. The large flatscreen is on HGTV playing a rerun of House Hunters.

He grabs some baby carrots out of the fridge and dunks one in his smoothie, taking a bite. It's good.

"Basically Jasper thinks that Victoria gathered up some students to stalk us to avenge her creepy, psycho boyfriend James. Edward said we have good home security, so we shouldn't worry about her getting into the house again," Alice says to Esme.

Esme sounds stressed. "She was in the house? Uninvited? When?"

"A couple of times. I'll text the group chat if I find anything else out. Anyway, back on the topic of the shower. Don't you want to have Tanya, Kate, and Irina over for a little get-together? And Siobhan, Maggie, and Liam? We haven't seen them in a while. I'll plan out everything. You just have to show up."

"No, you're so busy as it is. I don't want to put more stress on you when you're already helping out Edward and Bella with their wedding planning. That's going to take up a lot of your time."

"I want to, though! And your friends want to celebrate with you!"

"Oh, I don't know..."

"Whatcha guys talking about?" Emmett asks, interrupting them.

"I want to plan a baby shower for Esme," Alice replies. "Esme doesn't want one, though, because she thinks I have too much on my plate."

"We can have a celebration after the baby's here," Esme suggests.

"We can do both," Alice compromises cheerfully. "I was looking around on Pinterest earlier, and it seems like people throw a party every few months once they find out there's a baby involved. Two is nothing!"

Emmett comes around to the front side of the wide, L-shaped sofa and sits on the end opposite them. Alice has been working on another of her projects. There are scraps of fabric and pattern pieces all over the living room.

Esme glances over at him before answering Alice. "I'll have to ask Carlisle. His schedule is pretty booked solid, and I don't want to not have him there."

Alice frowns, tilting her head in consideration.

"I'm feeling tired. I think I'm going to go get ready for bed," Esme says abruptly.

"How about a cute, teeny, tiny tea party? We can sit out in the backyard with everyone and eat macaroons and mini crustless sandwiches," Alice says. "I'll have Emmett, Edward, and Jasper help set up, so it'll be a breeze. I'll even find a date where Carlisle and Rosalie aren't working so you can see them both."

Esme nods without a word, getting up from her seat and heading toward the stairs.

"What was that about?" Emmett asks once she's out of earshot.

Alice's brows pull together. "She's not feeling well. She has the baby blues."

He hates seeing Esme sad. She's one of the nicest people he's ever met, and she makes really good food. With how many bad parents there are in the world that don't care a fraction of the amount she does, it's not fair that she lost her baby.

"Can't she get back on antidepressants like last time?"

"She wants to wait until after the delivery. By then it might sort itself out, though. Who knows. I've been trying to find ways to cheer her up in the meantime, but she doesn't want to do anything fun. We were watching Mamma Mia! earlier, and she started crying."

"Sophie goes her entire life without knowing who her dad is, and then it turns out she has three. That's pretty emotional."

"It's a musical with ABBA songs." Alice rolls her eyes and walks to the front door to open it.

"Emotional ABBA songs!"

Jasper's on the other side of the door. "Hey."

"Jazzy!" Emmett booms. "How've you been, man? The research job going well?"

"Yeah, it's a lot of note-taking and emailing. Did you get an offer yet?"

"Nah, I'm still only working part-time."

"You'll get something."

"Hey, you wanna hit the gym with me and catch up?"

Jasper looks at Alice. "I would, but I promised Alice I'd study with her since finals are next week."

"Oh, right. Yeah, no wo–"

"Go ahead," Alice says, waving them away with her hands. "Your shoes are in the closet. I'm just going to be sewing and reviewing notes."

Emmett pumps his fist in the air. "Yesss!"

"You're sure?" Jasper asks.

"I'll be here when you get back."

...

With Jasper out with Emmett and Esme upstairs. Alice is left to continue working on her sewing project.

Except her hands are tired and she would rather watch Tiktoks. She sits down in front of the sofa, grabs her phone, and taps open the app.

She's been signed out of her account. Annoying. She types her login info into the screen and presses sign in.

It fails. She tries typing in her info again but still can't log in.

Irritated, she goes to reset her password. After several minutes of refreshing her inbox, she doesn't get an email with a link to reset it, though.

No. It can't be.

Quickly, she taps over to the internet browser and types her URL into the search bar.

It's not there. Everything's gone. The profile, all of her dance videos and fashion montages, her pictures, her followers, and her friends are all gone.

"Nooo! What the eff!"

Her momentary crisis is put on hold when the screen of her phone flashes with an incoming call from Edward.

"My Tiktok's been deleted!" she says as she answers.

"Good. It's about time."

"I was hacked! Someone else deleted it!"

"It's a stupid app anyway. You don't need it."

"I was making income off of it. I just hit a million followers. Now I have to start over."

Edward doesn't care. "Are you busy? Where's your codependent?"

"I'm always busy. And he's at the gym with the best friend that you sexiled."

"It's the other way around. Sexiling is when you kick someone out to have sex."

She rolls her eyes. "Either way, you're ridiculous. You're not the only one going through things."

"You're lecturing me on lacking compassion? I must be hallucinating."

"I just think you should be nicer to Rosalie and Emmett."

"Rosalie's beyond rude, and Emmett's always doing stuff to bug me. So no."

As much as she loves her friends, Alice honestly can't think of a decent defense against those statements. "Whatever. Hey, I meant to tell you the other night, but I found my sister's Instagram."

"How old is she again?"

"Jazz said she looked twelve, but she's so tall."

"So, like...five feet?" He laughs at his own stupid but accurate joke. "I wonder who she's been living with."

"Yeah, I've been wondering that, too. I don't know what I would do if I didn't see myself coming to Seattle. I want to ask her what happened to us."

"What makes you think she'll remember much more than you do?"

"Hm. You have a point." Alice stands up from the ground to immediately drop down onto the sofa. "I only have a week left before the art gallery showcase, then once that's done I can focus on figuring out what to do about Cynthia...and Bella's wedding dress...and Esme's baby shower...and—"

"Yeah, I get it, you're busy," Edward cuts her off. "If you can't help, then I'm going."

"Wait, help with what? Why did you call again?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Don't be mean," she says, but the phone call's already ended.

She flops back on the plush couch cushions and lets her phone drop onto the floor. Her head hurts. She still has a lot of sewing to finish tonight along with her essay for French. She wants to find some bridal heels that Bella will be able to walk in, too.

In an attempt to stop the stabbing sensation in her head, she lets her eyes fall shut. She takes a deep breath.

Tires screech. Headlights shine directly into her eyes, blinding her. An engine revs and snarls as a car drives full speed toward her.

Alice sits up with a flinch. She's getting sick of all of the violent visions lately.

Victoria or whoever's helping her apparently drives an Audi. And she's guessing they probably have something to do with why her Tiktok is gone.

Oh, no. She didn't check her Instagram today.

She opens the app. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, both her personal and design accounts are gone along with her friend request and message to Cynthia.

She could always make a new account to DM her sister again, but it's so awkward. It's going to look like she's making multiple to bother her with. She's not trying to get a restraining order placed on her.

Whatever Victoria's planning, she sure knows how to hit people where it hurts. The library graffiti was nothing compared to this. Alice will have to go through and update all of her passwords tonight and make sure everything's secure—primarily her financial accounts.

She really hopes her investments are okay. Edward's going to murder her if those are gone, too.

She taps over to the webpage for her favorite eastside yoga studio and cancels her reservation for the 6 am class. She's not going to be able to make it. She'll be lucky if she even sleeps tonight.

...

"Do you usually go to the campus gym?" Emmett asks as he hops out of his Jeep.

"Sometimes. I kinda just run outside," Jasper replies.

"Edward does that, too. He's really fast, though. It's more like an extended sprint. I don't know how he does it." He opens the shiny chrome-and-glass door to the gym and swipes his card at the front desk. "You played baseball in high school, right?"

"Yeah, up until senior year."

"Didn't make the cut?"

Jasper shakes his head. "My weekends got too busy," he says. "This is a really nice gym."

"Right? They have a full sauna and spa in here, too. It's insane. I can get you a membership if you want. Employee perks."

"Sure, thanks."

Emmett starts heading for the indoor track. "Short run, stretch, then weights?"

"Fine by me."

"Cool. Okay."

Jasper keeps pace with the jog just fine, and by the time they're in the weights room, they're vibing pretty well. He's not as chatty as Edward, but he's a solid gym buddy.

"It's my leg day, but do what you want," Emmett says, grabbing a set of dumbells and getting started on some squats. "I kinda need advice. Have you ever discussed marriage and family stuff with a girlfriend?"

"No, not really."

"Hypothetical question then: what would you do if you had a girlfriend who's super awesome, but really wants to get married, have babies, and buy a house...but you have no money and also have never given any of those a serious, substantial thought before?"

"As in she's had a wedding scrapbook since the age of five along with a dozen different Pinterest boards for ceremony venues, honeymoons, baby nurseries, and house decor?" he says with a laugh. "You can just say Rosalie."

"I don't know what to do. You seriously haven't talked about marriage with Alice? She's all about jumping lightyears ahead."

"She said she wants to buy a house and go to Paris, which I agreed to."

It's Emmett's turn to laugh. He's had to listen to Alice's prophetic recaps about Jasper before they even knew Jasper was a real person. He knows for a fact that she's in way deeper than she's apparently letting on. "You might have already proposed in her head."

"Maybe. It's still early," he says, but he has a stupid grin on his face.

Emmett's starting to wonder if he's the only person left with any hesitancy or stress over how to move into that particular life stage.

"Okay, new hypothetical: you're dating someone who never wants to get married. You do. What do you do?" he asks.

Jasper's smile drops into a more awkward expression. "Uh, continue seeing her for six years while she dates someone else. And drink and get high a lot."

"Oh, shit. Did that actually happen?"

"Kinda. We weren't officially together or anything, and I knew, so...Yeah."

"That's rough. Sorry, man."

Emmett's phone starts to ring. He pauses the lunge he's doing and sets his weights down. It's Edward. "Everyone's always calling when I'm working out..." he grumbles before answering. "Hello?"

"Can you come to Forks?"

"Uh, no. It's like a four-hour drive."

"Bella's dad laughed when we said we're getting engaged, and I found out she hasn't even told Jacob."

"Dude, are you crying? Who's Jacob?"

"No! And he's her guy best friend! They grew up together, and her dad loves him. I haven't met him yet, but Alice said he likes her. She said there are 'weird, not-so-platonic vibes.'"

"Do we think Alice is spot on or full of it today?" Emmett asks. He sees Jasper looking at him with curiosity over the conversation, so he explains. "Bella's dad thinks Edward's a freak, and now her guy bestie—who her dad's like all for—is trying to steal her away. It's like are we surprised? No."

"I'm not a freak!" Edward protests. Emmett didn't think he would be able to hear that.

"If I come, is the ban is lifted?"

"No. Did you just put me on speaker? You're such an asshole."

He did. Jasper deserves to hear how funny this call is, too. "I'm your asshole. Wait, that sounds wrong. I take that back. Forget I said that. You really need to work on not pushing your friends away, though. We're just trying to love you."

"I'm not," Jasper says, trying to keep his laughter down.

"I hate both of you."

"Okay, man, kick me out like all the other families I had before. No biggie. I'm sure I'll find another," Emmett says. "And here I was gonna have some Team Edward shirts printed just in case we needed to host an intervention for your girlfriend."

"Fine, you're unbanned. Can you at least find out where Jacob stays when he's in Seattle? It's a townhouse that's being rented out by his friends. He's tagged on Bella's last Instagram post."

"Why can't you?"

"Because this house is tiny, and she'll see what I'm doing. I'm hiding in the bathroom," he hisses. "I'm going to give it a week before sending an invite to him. If he really does like her, it's better that he finds out sooner rather than later. Waiting isn't going to help anyone."

"That's chaotic, but okay. I'll see you tomorrow. I need to finish my workout."

"Yeah, night."

"Sweet dreams!"

Emmett looks at Jasper and shakes his head. "He's insane if he thinks that's going to work."

"He really has a thing for invading people's privacy."

"Yeah. He needs to chill big time. It's like a problem."