"I'll just run home and get my motorcycle and then I'll be back, ok?" Jacob asked me. I touched his cheek and told him to hurry. He smiled at me, kissed me on the cheek, and ran away. Although I was excited for tonight, I still always felt a little sad whenever I watched him leave. Luckily, Alice knew how to cheer me up.

"Do you want to put a little bit of make-up on?" she smiled at me. I beamed at her and raced her to her bathroom upstairs.

"Now, what will it be for tonight?" she said as she surveyed the make-up cupboard she had just for me. I touched her face and showed her an image of me that I wanted.

"Eye-shadow and Lip-gloss?" she asked me questioningly. I asked her why not. "Well," she continued, "isn't that a bit much? It's just a night out with Jacob." I told her I wanted to look good for him. "Nessie, he's going to think you're pretty no matter what." I sighed and compromised. Alice lined my eyes in dark brown eyeliner and spread gloss over my full lips. I looked in the mirror and we both smiled widely at my reflection. It was hard to tell who enjoyed dressing me up more: Alice, Rosalie, or me.

"Well, what else should we do? You're already dressed and accessorized," she indicated to Momma's locket and Jacob's bracelet that I always wore, "do you like the way Rosalie did your hair?" After I told her I liked it, she sighed. "Well, there's nothing left to do but wait I guess." I sighed too; I hated waiting. But then I smiled. I asked her what bag I should bring, and she smiled too. We both skipped back to her closet and looked over her collection of about a million purses. We brooded for a few minutes on the kind of bag this occasion called for, and decided on a simple little one that matched my outfit. By the time I was headed downstairs again, I heard the roar of a motorcycle outside. I ran for the door but Daddy caught up with me and blocked my way.

"Where do you think you're going?" he teased.

"Oh, sorry Daddy," I jumped up and gave him a hug.

"Uh-huh, sure, pay me no mind, I'm just your mother," I heard from behind me. I turned and smiled at her as she walked up to join the group hug. As I hugged my parents, I told them I loved them. They each kissed me on each cheek and let me down. Without sparing a second, I ran out the door only to run into Jacob. I started to fall slightly backward, but he caught me easily.

"Happy to see me, are you?" he smiled, looking only too thrilled to see me.

"Hey, watch where you're standing, ya big lug, you almost hurt my child." Momma teased him.

"Yeah, it was all on purpose too," Jacob teased back. Momma landed him a playful punch. I watched the punch create a bruise on Jacob's arm, and then slowly fade away.

"Ready to go?" Jacob asked. I nodded, waved to everyone in the house, and headed for the motorcycle. I loved riding on the motorcycle with Jacob. I was totally addicted to the speed and the thrill of it. Of course, I would prefer to ride on Jacob's back in his other form, but that wasn't possible very often.

Usually on our nights out, Jacob and I would go to Olympia. I liked the big cities and it wasn't as far as Seattle.

"What are you in the mood for tonight?" Jacob yelled back at me once we were within city limits.

"Anything that involves meat!" I yelled back.

We pulled into a restaurant that was low key enough for our casual attire. Even though Jacob had changed into a button down shirt and dark slacks, we still weren't that dressy.

People usually looked at us curiously when we went out together. Considering Jacob looked like he was in his early twenties and I looked about eleven or twelve (although I would be four in a few short months). I couldn't really blame them. They usually bought it when we said we were step-siblings, but it was mostly best to try not to say anything. Luckily enough the restaurant we went to had a hostess nice enough not to say anything.

"The wait will be about 15 minutes," she told us. Jacob put his name on the wait list and we sat down.

Jacob and I spent a long time devising games to play while waiting for a table. One of my favorite games to play wasn't really a game, it was more like eavesdropping. Since Jacob and I had such keen hearing, we liked to listen to the strange conversations taking place across the large room. We learned funny things about people that way, like how they had the tendency to say things to their dates that were obviously contrary to what their body language was saying. We also liked to listen to the gossip the waitresses swapped; females were so cruel sometimes. Every once in a while, we even caught people talking about Jacob and me.

"Hey, Nessie," Jacob whispered to me, "listen to the people over there." He pointed to a table about 50 feet away. As per rules of the game, I didn't look very long at the people he pointed to. I only allowed myself a short glance before I listened to them.

"… wonder what their relation is?" I heard a woman say.

"I guarantee they're not related," a man answered her.

"Then why would they be out together?" the woman retorted. "A girl who can't even be a teenager and a big guy who has to be in his early twenties going out together? Unless they're related, the two of them being out together is just creepy."

I touched Jacob's face lightly and asked why she thought that would be creepy.

"They don't believe that someone that's as old as I look could be just friends with you. I can't really explain why, they just think it would be weird. Some people just have demented minds like that." He told me. I told him I was confused. He thought hard for a while before he answered.

"I guess I could explain, but it's a really long story and I'm sure I would butcher it," he smiled at me. "Ask your mom, she would make more sense of it than I would."

Momma? Would she know? But then again, she knew just about everything. I accepted his answer well enough. Not long after that a waitress called Jacob's name and led us to a table.

I sat down at the table still thinking about what the lady said. Why couldn't I be friends with Jake? Who wouldn't want to be friends with him? I looked into his deep eyes, pondering this. Those eyes looked warmly back at me, and my heart started throbbing a little.

"You're so pretty, Nessie," he said tenderly. I looked him over when he said that. Even in a nice button down shirt one could see how incredibly muscular he was. Looking at his muscles like that made me feel strange; kind of embarrassed.

"And you look very handsome, Jake." I replied with a blush. It looked almost as if he blushed too. A moment later, he looked up.

"Those people are still talking about us," he told me with a chuckle. I hadn't realized they were still within earshot. I listened for them now.

"… did you see the way he looked at that poor girl?" the woman said. "Ugh, so creepy."

I looked at Jacob, horrified.

"Why would she say you're creepy?" I asked him.

"Apparently, being nice is out of societal norm," by the way he said that, I could tell he was annoyed. Luckily, the waitress came then.

"Anything to start you off?" she smiled. I noticed she gave an especially welcoming smile to Jacob, which made me feel funny. Almost… mad. Weird.

"Ya, two waters and a tray of buffalo wings."

I smiles widely. I was glad we had the same taste.

"Wanna bet how many I can eat tonight?" Jacob grinned at me. We loved making competition of everything.

"Let's see," I thought, "125 last time in addition to a three course meal, right? It's gotta be at least 150 this time."

"I bet I can stuff 160!" he grinned hugely.

"It's a good thing I'm rich. You're such a pig."

"Hey!" he laughed back, "I always pay my share." This was true. He got his share of the Cullen fortune just like the rest of us did. "You've been eating a lot more lately," he added.

"I'm a growing girl," I responded.

"Yeah," he agreed, "how much did you grow in the last year? About a foot?"

"I believe it was about 8 inches."

"You're right. Better eat like a pig so you can grow big and strong like me."

"But you're huge."

"Ok, like your mom then."

"That's better."

"But you didn't used to like food that much. What happened?"

I smiled "I just imagine that everything I eat is a great big animal I just took out. And that it's way bigger than yours."

"Let it go, Nessie, mine are always bigger."

"Whatever, Jake."

"Hey, remember when we tracked down that mountain lion?" he smiled at me.

The memory brought a huge grin to my face. Jacob wasn't over-careful with me when it came to hunting like everyone else was. He knew I could hunt fiercer animals just like anyone.

"I'm glad you don't think about that around Daddy. If he found out he'd kill you."

"I know," he beamed.

"Do you take pleasure in rebelling behind my parents' backs?"

"Maybe a little. Don't you?"

I smiled slyly. "A little."

We recalled the story of that hunting trip together. It was just the two of us in the forest near Canada. I smelled something much more appealing than the usual deer and elk we hunted at home. I told Jacob I wanted to hunt it. Since he was in his other form at the time, he couldn't directly respond to me. Instead, he took me to where I could actually see the lion. He looked bac k at me to see the excitement in my eyes as I looked at it. He grinned at me slyly as he took me forward towards our prey.

"Oh," Jacob said, bringing me back to the present, "it looks like out first round of wings are here." And sure enough, there was the waitress with a big tray of buffalo wings.

"Are you ready to order?" she asked, smiling particularly at Jacob. That same weird feeling that I was almost mad at a perfect stranger came back again. I tried my best to ignore it. After we ordered our usual steak dinners, Jacob watched the waitress as she walked away, apparently deep in thought.

"What?" I asked him. Watching him look after her like that made me feel weird too.

"Listen," he answered simply. So I listened closely. I could hear our waitress talking to another waitress not far away.

"… total fox!" I heard her say. Then I heard the other waitress walking hastily up our aisle. Sure enough, a moment later, she passed where we were sitting and took a not-so-sneaky look at Jacob out of the corner of her eye. A short while later, I heard her talking to our waitress again.

"Holy crap you were right. Possibly the most amazing bod I've ever seen!" What brats. I scowled in their general direction. Jacob smiled at me.

"I'm glad you're not that shallow."

I smiled back. "Thanks, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is to see how many buffalo wings you can eat." He rubbed his hands together and set to work. I was glad of one thing at least; when it came to food eating contests, we were both easily distracted.

We left the restaurant about an hour later, completely stuffed. Jacob was only able to stuff around 140 buffalo wings before he went a slight shade of green. The funny thing was, about five minutes later, he was perfectly fine.

As we got close to the door, I saw the people who were talking about us earlier exiting as well. The woman saw us coming and tried unsuccessfully not to stare. Wanting to teach that rude lady a lesson, I walked within earshot of her and turned to Jacob. Then I put my arms around his huge middle and hugged him tightly.

"I love you, Jacob," I said so she could hear. He bent over and kissed the top of my head.

"I love you too, Nessie," he said. Curiosity seemed to get the best of that lady, because she actually walked up to us and asked what out relation was. I spoke before Jacob could use the step-sibling story.

"He's my best friend," I snapped before I pulled him by the hand out the door.

"Nessie," Jacob said in a soothing tone when we were outside, "don't listen to what people like her say."

"But she was so rude!" I fumed. "She was judging you and she doesn't even know you!"

"What other people say doesn't matter. All that matters is what you think."

I sighed and got onto the motorcycle. He was right, I shouldn't overreact. Jacob was the best friend in the entire world. He cared about me and I cared about him. He was my Jacob, that's all that mattered.