I do not own Twilight/New Moon or any of the characters. I am just playing with Stephenie Meyers creations.

Secret

As if on cue, to break the mood, my stomach growled. I started to giggle, and Jacob soon followed. "Do you suppose there are any hotdogs left?" I asked with a sigh.

"Let's go find out." Our lips brushed together one last time before we stood to rejoin the crowd. "What were you and Leah talking about anyway?" Jacob asked as we walked arm in arm back to the bonfire.

I filled him in on the entire conversation including our promise to apply to Bell State as soon as possible.

When we returned, most of the older crowd had dispersed. Sam and Quil were leaning back against one of the logs and it appeared that Emily had fallen asleep against Sam's chest. He stroked her hair gently as he spoke with the younger werewolf. Leah was pouring a glass of soda. Seth and Paul were talking with a couple of girls from the reservation that I did not know. "Where's Jared?" I asked Jacob.

He handed me a roasting stick and a hot dog, again his held three. "Sam has us taking turns running a circuit around the area to check for a fresh trail," he said. We moved closer to the fire to allow our snacks to heat.

"Do you have to take a turn?" I asked, hoping that he didn't.

"Quil offered to go for me earlier," Jacob said smiling at me. "Would you miss me if I had to leave?"

"I'm sure I could find something to do," I said with a sigh, feeling my cheeks blush. "Maybe Paul would offer to keep me warm," I added to his playful banter.

"Oh, now that's just cruel."

I laughed out loud. "Yes, I've been told that us girls are like that."

"Where the heck were you two?" Embry asked loudly placing a large warm arm around each of our shoulders. "I really don't think it takes two people quite that long to walk one old man back to his house." He looked back and forth between us, waiting for a response.

I blushed darker red. Thankfully the firelight flicker masked it for me. I concentrated on cooking my hotdog, making sure not to turn my gaze from it.

"It did seem like you were gone for an awfully long time," Quil added from his seat near Sam, clearly interested in this conversation now.

"I was just explaining to Bella the Quiluet legend of how intelligence is distributed among the young males of the tribe," Jacob began in his I'm-lying-through-my-teeth voice. "You see what I meant, Bella? It's quite obvious that these two were sent to me, so that I could guild them. Being that I was the only one deemed worthy of possessing more than three brain cells."

I was able to grab the roasting stick out of Jacob's hand before Embry had pulled him back from the fire, and once joined by Quil, the two of them were doing their best to wrestle my Jacob to the ground. Jacob was holding his own. Soon Seth joined in the fray. I wasn't really sure whose side he was trying to join, if either, or if he just wanted in on the action. I watched the match and the franks until they were split and juicy.

"Jake, food's ready," I said as I slid the hotdogs into buns.

Three other sets of hands reached the warm food before Jacob's. "Cook your own," he complained, but the sandwiches were all half eaten before he could even get the words out.

"I'll share mine," I said holding it out to him.

He took a small bite. "You eat it," he said placing three more on the roasting stick and returning to the fire. "I don't want to be responsible for your stomach growling again."

"Do you want something to drink?" I asked.

"Whatever you're having is fine with me."

I poured us a glass of Pepsi and returned to the spot by the fire where we had sat during the stories. Jacob soon joined me with his fresh supply of food. Jared returned and the boys regaled the tale of the fight he had missed, adding lots of embellishments for dramatic effect. Jacob and I sipped from our glass of Pepsi. He shifted so I could sit in front of him, with his legs on either side of me, much the way Sam and Emily were seated. I leaned against him, enjoying the heat of him wrapped around me. Soon everyone was sitting on the ground, around the fire: some in pairs, some alone. Everyone talked and laughed and shared anecdotes about each other. Jacob periodically rubbed one of my arms, or stroked my shoulder, or placed soft kisses in my hair.

Two weeks later, Jacob and I found ourselves in almost the same setting. We were gathered around the same fire pit, with most of the same people. We were not celebrating a new brother to the wolf pack, so the legends were not retold. Most of the elders only came by at the beginning and then quickly retreated to their homes leaving the younger crowd to enjoy their time on the beach. Jake and his pack were keeping a close eye on Seth Clearwater, but so far, he was still just a very large human boy with a higher than normal temperature.

Jacob and my routines had not changed drastically. We still rode our bikes. We still took walks on First Beach. I worked my shifts at Newton's, and Jacob took his turn running rounds as a wolf. We still studied together, but we sprawled a little closer on the floor of my living room. The main difference in our practices was that we peppered all of our activities with kisses: long kisses, short kisses, deep kisses, quick smooch kisses.

Charlie had walked into the kitchen and witnessed a short kiss when Jacob had come to dinner earlier in the week. Being Charlie, he didn't say anything at the time. But before I went up to bed that night, he asked, "Is there something you want to tell me about you and Jake, Bells?"

By his tone of voice, I knew a simple "No" would not suffice. I settled with "We are more than friends now."

Charlie had just nodded his head. I noticed he was trying to suppress a smile without success. "Goodnight Bells," he had said. I had gone up to get ready for bed. By the time I was done brushing my teeth, I heard him on the phone with Billy.

I handed Jacob three hotdog buns. I had stopped at Forks' one convenience store after my shift at Newton's and bought a bottle of ketchup; I squirted some on my sandwich and took a bite. Leah did the same.

"Have you heard from Bell State?" Leah asked.

"No," I replied. "You?"

"Not yet, but I've heard that they are still admitting students." She tried to make her tone of voice sound nonchalant, but I could tell by the way her forehead wrinkled when she said it that the news came as a great relief to her.

"That's good," I said. "Do you think we should apply to any other schools? I mean, I know your Uncle's free apartment is only available there, but we could look into some other places," I suggested. I had thought a lot about our plans in the past two weeks. And the more I thought about them, the more excited I got. It was like I had put my life on hold to mourn the loss of Edward, now that I was over that, I was ready to make up for lost time. I didn't want to let the admissions practices of a single school determine the course of my future.

Leah stared out over the moon brightened waves, pondering my question. I had learned that it was not her style to answer a question without thinking it through completely. Sometimes, for whatever reasons she came up with in that mind of hers, she would just stare at you and deliberately not answer. But then she would come back an hour later and offer another viewpoint. About a week ago, I had asked her if she planned to get a job in Seattle or if she was just going to try and work at the hardware store over breaks and on weekends. She had called me at home three days later and blurted out "I figured out that if I spend my money wisely, which I always do, I should be able to live off of my savings for at least two years. I'm going to see how much time my classes really take before I look for a job." Then she hung up the phone. That particular incident made me chuckle still each time I thought about it.

"Let's give it one more week," she finally said. We nodded in agreement.

I took a second bite of my sandwich and went to stand by Jacob who had already eaten all of his food. A huge hand at the small of my back caught me by surprise. He pulled me close to him and proceeded to lick the corner of my mouth and across my lips filling me with familiar tingles. "You missed a little ketchup," he said with a smirk.

I blushed several shades of red as cat calls came at us from every direction. "Thank you, Jacob!" I squeezed as much sarcasm as humanly possible into his name.

"Anytime!" He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

I decided that two could play at this game. I threw my arms around his neck and crushed my lips to his. I let my hotdog fall to the sand, and I tangled my hands in his windblown black hair. Jacob wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up off the ground. We allowed the kiss to take on a mind of its own briefly before we broke apart. I could tell my cheeks were still bright crimson. Jacob's face had a look of pure satisfaction. I finally let my gaze wander; the looks on the faces of those around us were priceless.

"Well, well, well!" Sam said at last. "What have the two of you been up to?"

I stepped back to the picnic table to get another hotdog and let Jacob deal with the questions from his pack. I smiled a contented smile knowing that our secret was out; although, it had been fun sneaking around.

Leah soon made her way over. She stood next to me silently while I held the roasting stick over the fire. "I knew it," she finally said just above a whisper. I chanced a glance in her direction to try and gauge what she meant. She flashed me a smile and playfully punched my arm. I took that as a sign of approval.

Aside from the initial looks of shock on the faces of the group, no one seemed overly surprised by our public display of affection. I knew that Jacob's feelings for me had been evident since before he became a werewolf. Since the pack could read his mind, all of his brothers would have already known of his intentions. To the best of my knowledge, no one, not even the one mind-reader I had met in my life, could read my mind. And until recently, I don't know that it would have done any good if someone did. I myself just realized exactly how I felt about him, or just admitted it, at least.

Jacob soon sat next to me on the bench of the picnic table. "I'm impressed, Bells!" he said throwing his arm around me.

"With what?"

"I didn't think you had it in you," he said playfully squeezing my shoulder. "You have the makings of a smartass after all."

"You couldn't settle for just telling everyone about us?" I asked, knowing full well that that wasn't my Jacob's style.

"Where would be the fun in that?" He stood and pulled me to my feet. "Come on, there's someone I want you to meet."

I allowed myself to be pulled around the outer perimeter of the fire pit. The crowd looked a little larger than the one two weeks ago. Seth Clearwater was talking with a young red-head who looked like she was maybe fourteen or fifteen. "How old is Seth?" I whispered to Jake. He looked like a full grown man, but then again, so did Jacob. I had to remind myself from time-to-time that he was only sixteen.

"He just turned fifteen. Why?"

"Just curious," I said. That would explain why the object of his affections looked to be so young. He was that young. "Not all of you like older women, I guess." I nodded toward the youngsters near the fire.

He glanced toward Seth. "Seth has liked her since he was about 8," Jake said shaking his head. "And I thought we determined that I was older after you spotted me the ten years for fixing the bikes."

"I think licking ketchup off of my face takes you back a couple years," I said, blushing again, or still; I wasn't sure if it had fully faded yet.

"You didn't seem to mind," he reminded me with a leer. "But since you're so stuck on chronological age, I want you to meet Kim. She's almost a year older than Jared."

"Who?"

Jacob stopped in front of Jared and a rather plain looking Indian girl. "Bella, this is Kim."

I extended my hand in greeting to the girl who looked to be around twenty. "Nice to meet you," I said politely.

"Jared tells me that you are a good friend of Jacob's," she said warmly.

"We are very close," I said quietly. I wished there were some way to keep my cheeks from blushing.

"I gathered that by the lip action display you put on a minute ago," she said with a smirk, gesturing toward where Jake and I had been standing.

I clamped my mouth shut. I figured anything I said at this point would just add fuel to the fire. I noticed Jacob didn't seem to mind the extra attention we were receiving. He was practically preening.

We stood and talked with the couple for quite some time. After a while, I became aware of the fact that Jared and Kim were always touching in some way. He wasn't groping her or doing anything that was in any way inappropriate; it was like they just couldn't stand NOT to have physical contact. If one of them shifted, they would make sure to readjust themselves so it was possible for his hand to rest on her back, or her hand to clutch his arm.

Kim was telling us about a project she was working on for her favorite instructor at the community college where she studied in Port Angeles. By all rights, it should have been painfully boring to listen to; it was computer graphics. But to hear her tell it, it was absolutely fascinating. Her enthusiasm for her work was infectious. I found myself asking questions and allowing my mind's eye to see the project as a living force. The look on Jared's face for this woman that he obviously loved as he too was engrossed in her story, was a mixture of pride, admiration, adoration, and a little lust from time to time. I quickly realized that to Jared, this was not a plain looking, average girl. This was the center of his universe.

I leaned a little closer to Jacob, enjoying the warmth that his closeness provided, and appreciating the fact that I could be like Jared. I was probably never going to be like Kim. I took pride in my work and enjoyed a job well done, but I didn't ever picture myself bringing it to life like she could. But, my Jacob could do that. He could entertain a crowd for hours talking about car parts. And I was certain, that no matter how interesting it may be to others listening, I would always be his biggest fan. I ran my fingers up his forearm and let them settle in the crook of his elbow.

Check out my profile for the link to read the completed Phases of the Moon fanfiction.