*Disclaimer - Sadly, I own nothing of Twilight with the exception of merchandise, bought and paid for. I do, however, own my love for borrowing the characters and playing with them however I choose to. I thank Stephenie Meyer for creating the TwiWorld and for allowing us to have our fun with it. She owns Twilight, the insanity it created in my mind is my own.

Once again, thanks to Shug for busting her butt to get several chapters beta'ed for me in a crunch. And to Neil Young for 'Ambulance Blues' and inspirational lyrics. It's the song Bella rec'd to Edward while he was away working. He's still thinking of it. He does think, really... sometimes. ;)

Whatever Works

No Mistaking

Edward roared with laughter after I told him I'd rather have spent the day with his Mini-Me. It was partially true – I loved Evan, and he never made me hurt. His father was another story.

"I can't say I blame you. The boy's a charmer."

Smirking, and a little less irritated about him not calling for almost a week, I began toying with the train Evan had dropped when he went to bake with Esme. "He probably gets that from his father, not only Benjamin. I just hope he doesn't get the arse part too."

He rolled his eyes. "That's why we have Ben – the good role model." He took the train from me and set it aside, turning to face me on the floor. "Honestly, would you rather I left you alone? If not just for today… altogether? The last thing I want to do is cause you to hurt more."

I dropped my eyes from his and poked at his shin. "You came all this way…" I looked up shyly and saw his big grin return.

"Right. So your next beef was… oh yeah, not introducing Maggie. Well, in all fairness, you didn't give me a chance to. That tray hurt, by the way. I took the edge to a nipple. It went beyond irritation – it was swollen and bruised for days. But I forgive you." He poked at my shin in return. "I didn't know she was coming. It was a shock to me as well. We've been trying to work out our arrangement… how to deal with custody and all that. I'd been back and forth, working with her, and she decided to come to me to show that she didn't expect me to do it all, you know? It was a sweet gesture, but very ill-timed. Not only because we had just gotten so close –"

"We had sex," I stated bluntly.

"Not only because we had sex two days prior," he repeated and rolled his eyes. "I went and added that picture of Evan as a reminder to Mum – the whole purpose for me spending so much time away from her – so she wouldn't be too cranky with you. Then I saw the searches and got a little freaked out. I didn't only want to get my life in order for Evan – I had hoped to clear things away to make it better for us too, because it was perfect. Better than perfect."

His eyes closed, and he looked truly tormented. "I was conflicted about your intent with the searches. I struggled with it all day. We left the wrap party super early, and I ended up hashing it all out with Emmett. I decided I should probably tell you a bit more background before it went further. Then Maggie was there, and you were there, and you thought I was with her, didn't you?"

I nodded sullenly. "What was I supposed to think?"

"I hoped you would have known how much that night meant to me – that I wouldn't have been that way with you and immediately picked up another girl."

"You told me you did that all the time," I reminded him.

"Did… in the past. And it was different, even then. I didn't… the sex was just sex in those days. There was no emotion involved. They didn't ever stay in my bed, and I wouldn't think of leaving anyone in my room when I wasn't there."

"Oh." Even though I felt like an idiot, it did tickle me that our night was special to him as well.

"It wasn't just sex that night. I put effort into that shit, Bella," he quipped, cheeks blushing as he grinned shyly. "I can't believe you couldn't tell!"

I hooked his pinky in mine and tugged on it. "I thought you were like that with every girl," I explained softly. To think, he'd been hurt by my reactions too, yet he still did all of this… he still wanted me. Amazing. "Sorry I didn't let you explain. And I'm sorry about the tray. And your nipple."

"It made a full recovery. It's fine now. But these eyes… were crying…" He broke into song, emoting just as much as Emmett had in his imitation of him, and I was in stitches even while I sniffled from the tears I'd just shed. "By the way, was that song you recommended a third 'fuck you too'? You think I'm pissing in the wind? You think I tell a lot of lies – a different story for every set of eyes?"

"No!" My hand flew to my mouth in embarrassment as he rhymed off lyrics from the song. "Oh god, no! I didn't mean that part was like you. I meant the part about the critics –" And then I was laughing uproariously once more. "Though it really could have been written about you!"

He laughed along with me, thankfully. "I never thought I'd get so turned on by a girl telling me to fuck off, but you do it to me every time. It only makes me want you more. Sick, right?"

"Does that mean you're going to keep doing things that make me upset with you – just to keep it up?"

His cocky smirk turned into a gentle smile, and he took both of my hands in his. "I hope to God that you never feel the need to again. I think we can find other ways for me to keep it up."

I was blushing and smiling when he leaned in for a kiss. "Daddy, Maymay needs another bowl!" Evan came dashing in, halting his dad's move on me.

"She needs another bowl, huh?"

"Yeah. A BIG one!"

"I can get a big bowl, buddy. No problem." He pulled his son in for a hug and kissed his head. "Bella was telling me you make her smile and feel happy. It makes me happy that you're a good boy that way, Ev. You make me soooo happy!" He tickled the little boy, eliciting giggles and squeals, and then he hugged him again. "Keep Bella company, okay? I'll help Maymay for a little while if that's all right." His eyes were focused on me for that part.

I smiled and reached for my little friend. "That's great. Go see your mum. Evan and I have stuff to do!" I widened my eyes and whispered to him. "Wait 'til you see the set-up I did for you. Upstairs!" He took off running, and Edward helped me off the floor before pulling me against him and stroking my cheek. "We've got a date with trains, Edward – me and Evan. You're just too late, sorry." I kissed the irresistible little nubby on his chin and smirked as I followed his son up the stairs.

~ 0 ~

It was easy to become wrapped up in Evan and forget any troubles. He was precocious, and very affectionate, and impossible not to adore. The problem was that I now saw Edward in everything he did and that made it tough to be myself with him. I was terrified to allow myself to care for this little boy any more than I already did. Having two Cullen men break my heart would be unbearable. I knew this could never work. There were too many opportunities for me to make the wrong call – something I'd come to realize I was an expert at. And Edward, well, he was an expert at hiding. And flirting. And making me fall for him. God, I was in so much trouble.

Edward wandered up to see what we had gotten up to sometime later. The moment he sat on the floor with us, Evan climbed onto his lap and began a stream of chatter about his trains, and the new track lay-out I'd worked out for him, and how we were going to paint the empty tissue boxes along the tracks to look like train stations. Maggie was right, he could natter on endlessly when he was excited about something. Edward listened to every word and gave Evan the reactions he wanted.

I watched the scene play out trying to determine how much of an act it was. Edward seemed awkward at times, unsure of questions to ask or maybe he was taking time to determine how to phrase them, as Edward did. The one thing that he couldn't act was the sparkle in his eye, showing absolute joy and adoration every time his son looked up at him.

Evan climbed off to push his wooden trains around the track to show his dad how it worked, and Edward slid closer to me. "Will you stay?" he whispered.

I nodded, eyes on Evan.

"Are we okay? I mean, will you hear me out? Let me try to fix things?"

He had a lot more explaining to do before I could even think about the possibility of an 'us,' but that couldn't be done with Evan in the same room. "Another time," I mumbled and then blushed when I saw Edward's smirk. "I'm going to see how Esme's doing. You boys can play."

Esme had a tray lined with balls of cookie dough resting on top of her walker as she made her way over to the oven. She smiled coyly at me when I approached.

"Your grandson is beautiful. And sweet. He's a very special little boy."

"Oh, Bella!" She quickly moved the tray onto the counter and shoved her walker aside to get at me. I was in her arms in a flash. "I'm terribly sorry about the ruse. I hated not letting you know! Edward is adamant about keeping Evan out of the spotlight. He doesn't want people chasing after him for pictures. He wants his son to have a normal life – the kind of life he had as a boy. You now know everyone in Edward's life who knows about Evan. I'm not exaggerating."

I believed her. "I can see Edward being very protective of their privacy. It's understandable."

"He wanted to tell you. He needed time, honey. This is all so new. We're still working on the logistics—"

The timer sounded off on the oven, and I traded out the trays. "Esme, he's almost three! How much time does he need to work out arrangements?" Maggie and Ben were married; obviously Edward hadn't been involved with them as a family, as I'd originally thought.

Esme assumed that tight-lipped look that I'd become to know as 'not my place.' "Honey, let Edward tell you. He will now, if you'll let him."

"Esme, I just want to ask you one thing." I looked at her pleadingly for help. I couldn't trust my own instincts with my heart so muddled. "Did he want me to figure it out myself and save himself the whole mess? Is that why he let me get involved with Evan before I knew who he was?"

Blood flooded into Esme's cheeks as she smiled at me. "That wasn't Edward's decision. He didn't know I was seeing Evan on a regular basis. I couldn't be so near and not see him. I've already missed out on so much of his life."

I saw the love she had for him and understood. Of course Esme would want to spend time with her grandson.

"And my son has frequently made bad moves," she continued. "A little nudge wouldn't hurt."

I quirked an eyebrow at her. "Esme, you said you don't interfere in his life anymore."

"Dear, sometimes a mother meddles. That's just how it is, and I won't apologize for it this time. Maybe this can help repair some previous damage. Who knows."

We prepared a lunch together and called the boys down to eat before Edward and I went for a walk to continue our talk. Esme had planned on babysitting Evan so we could go out on a date for my birthday – I nixed that. It was important that Edward have time with his son. This would be his first time sleeping over, and he'd need his daddy.

"It was a nice sentiment," I commented to Edward once we were alone.

He smirked. "My mother wants this to happen, if you hadn't noticed. She's nudging it along. Of course, she doesn't need her arm twisted to have Evan all to herself either, while I have you. We both win. I like your plan too though. I should be home to put him to bed, and Mum can't manage the stairs quite yet. I'm sure you'll resolve that, but not too soon, I hope." He nudged me with his elbow and I looked up at him as we strolled through the park along the creek. "I don't want you to leave."

"I was being impulsive, earlier," I explained. "I'll be here for her. I intend to see our contr—"

"Bella, don't." His hand gripped my arm. "Please don't bring the contract into this. I'm telling you straight out that I want you to stay, and it has nothing to do with a signed agreement or business arrangement. If that's inappropriate, please tell me and I'll apologize, do my best to fill in what you're curious about, and try to figure out a way to make myself get over you. I'm done keeping secrets from you. I'm tired of trying to stay away from the people I want most in my life, and mostly, I'm sick of making those very people hurt in any way. So, can we please put aside the contract? This is me, a boy trying to grow into a man, talking to a woman he'd very much like to have a relationship with."

I focused on putting one foot in front of the other to move along – they wanted to follow in the footsteps of my heart, currently doing little flips. "Contract aside, if none of the misunderstandings had happened – if we went to the point where you said we needed to talk and I let you – what would you have said?"

A smile grew on his face as he gazed sideways at me. "I'd say, Bella, there's something I'd like to tell you about. It's important for you to know that I trust you, and you're important enough that you need to know this." Then he snickered and stared off in the distance. "The year my parents came to LA to try to get me back on track, Alice came to visit over Easter break. My parents thought it would be a nice way to thank the Mallory family for having Alice stay with them while school was in, if their girls came with her for the holiday. Lauren was Alice's best friend, and Maggie is her sister."

I hated to interrupt – not only did I want to finally know the full story, but I also wanted to let him get it out the way he wanted it told. But I had to know one thing. "Can I just ask you one thing?"

"You can ask me anything, Bella," he replied sincerely.

"How old is Maggie?"

He frowned as he gave it some thought. "Um… twenty-one? No… twenty… No! Alice will be twenty next spring, and Maggie's older… twenty-one. Something like that. I'm horrible – I don't even know off the top of my head."

She is young… "Okay. Just wanted to know. Go on."

"You're thinking I'm no better than Jasper, right? I gave him such a hard time over my sister, but I did the same thing myself?"

"No, it's entirely different. Maggie was someone else's sister," I quipped.

"Point taken," he said as he rolled his eyes. "I'm going on now…" He eyed me to see if I had another comment before he actually did go on. "As I told you before, when the girls were visiting, I toned down the partying. At least, we tried to – but to be honest, I was drinking and smoking at sixteen myself, so how could I preach to them about it? In the end, toning it down meant doing that stuff at our hotel rather than in a club. And when we weren't getting smashed in one of our rooms, I would hang out at home where the girls were staying with my parents. Alice and Lauren drove me nuts. They were giggling all the time… Maggie was more mature. A little shy then. Quiet. I tended to spend more time with her than the other two."

Time equals impregnating… "Uh-huh."

He caught my disapproving look and sighed. "I told you I was an arse. I'm not excusing myself. I'm simply relating the details. You know the outcome – Evan. If you don't want details, I don't have to tell you."

I didn't want to think of him with his dick in her, ever. But it happened, and I did want to know. "I'm listening."

"Maggie was having boy troubles back home. She ended up confiding in me. It was a rebound of sorts, I guess. They hadn't really broken up, but there was a glitch – he was away at university and they were bickering a lot. He didn't want her spending the month away while he was home, but she wanted some distance of her own for a bit. I had split from Jane and wasn't looking for anything even close to that sort of relationship. We did little more than kiss a couple of times, initially.

"She had a birthday when they were there – her eighteenth. The girls wanted to take her out rather than just a cute little celebration with my parents at home, so I took them all to dinner, and then they wanted to go hang out with me and my friends at the hotel – without the parents. Not absolving myself – I let them partake in some drinks, and we had a small party in one of the rooms. Sam and Emily joined us. She was really fond of Maggie. They had become close friends. Then Mike showed up with a few of his friends, and at some point Maggie and I went off on our own. That was our first time." His voice dropped lower for his last words. "Still with me?"

I nodded. At least I knew why Emily had been hostile about me caring about Edward. I owed her a phone call. "At least you waited 'til she was legal."

"Were you eighteen when you had sex? All three times?"

"I was, in fact! Just eighteen… though none of my friends were," I admitted with a roll of my eyes. "Okay. I'm not so old that I don't remember what it was like as a teenager. Sex happens."

"It was fun. I wasn't her first, and she certainly wasn't mine. She was going back home and probably going to get back with Ben – we fooled around while she was there. Fun. I looked forward to maybe a return visit in the summer, but that was it. Summer never happened. Lauren came with Alice and another friend for a few weeks, but not Maggie. I heard she was back with Ben, so I left it."

"It was more than fun for her, I take it. It usually is for girls, Edward."

"Apparently. And because I'm not a girl, I didn't know. I'm just a guy who's an asshole because it was fun. What I didn't know is that she'd had a crush on me for years. I only met her a few times before I left London. She was just a kid. I never paid any attention, really. When she went home, she broke it off with Ben, assuming that we were a couple. I suppose I made vague promises to call and visit. Nothing concrete, but I'm sure I did. I never came out and said, 'Let's have a relationship – you're my girlfriend,' but I can see why she left with that impression. Of course, by summer, she realized I was an arse, and she also knew she was pregnant but kept that bit to herself.

"Alice didn't go back to the Mallorys – she went to New York with Jasper instead. My parents were pissed. Alice blamed it on me, because I had made things weird for her there. And to me, it was over. I'm sure I'd pissed off several girls, probably even hurt some the same way, but what was done was done, and I had no idea that she was pregnant. I left it. Alice wasn't speaking with me regardless."

"Did she know?" I asked in a whisper. "About Evan?" I couldn't imagine any amount of tension between the two would make Alice keep that from him. When all was said and done, they loved each other, and that would just be cruel.

"Initially, no. Maggie didn't tell the family until she was well into the pregnancy. She was good at hiding it, and I guess they weren't very observant. Siobhan thought she was too young to be a proper mother and insisted she stay at home and let her take care of the baby. Everyone assumed he was Ben's, and he never said otherwise. They started dating again before Evan was born. He learned how to be a father, even knowing the baby wasn't his, as she learned how to be a mother. And they fell in love all over again. I have to think that for him to do that, he was always in love with her."

"Evan, too. No one could take care of that boy and not love him to bits."

He wore a proud grin as he nodded. "Alice went to visit—" He cleared his throat as he choked up. "Um… last year. Over the summer. She went with Lauren to see Maggie and Ben's apartment, and their baby. He was a year and a half by then. She knew. Instantly. They didn't try to deny it, but they didn't want to involve me."

"Before she flew home, Alice called me. We still weren't on good terms. I figured she was reminding me that I had started it all by messing around with one of her friends. Anyway, she told me that Maggie had a son called Evan. I thought, hmm, interesting that she'd call her kid after my character, she's still hung up on me – 'cause yeah, I'm a vain asshole."

"Your character…?"

"Mmm. Yeah. From my book. His name – the character modeled after me – was Evan. It came up in conversation with my mother. She informed me I was, in fact, a vain asshole and told me to get over myself. Meanwhile, I had an epiphany about my own life and how I was spinning in circles and needed to get it straight. I had a slew of scripts waiting to be read, and Mike was on my ass to sign some movie deals, so Mum went through them with me and booked me up for the year. It wasn't until Alice came to LA instead of New York that I knew something was amiss. She presented a picture – of Evan."

I grinned at him. "When you know what you're looking for, there is no mistaking he's your son."

"No mistaking. He's my son. Funny how my own mother hadn't seen that resemblance during any of her visits." His voice was dripping with sarcasm, and it sent a shock wave right through me.

A/N ~ Still with me? I'll update again later in the week so you get more of Edward's story. Thanks for reading!

In other news, I'm so thrilled to have been asked to participate in a worthy cause: Fandom4LLS - Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Please check it out - fandom4lls (dot) blogspot (dot) com. The link is on my profile page. And please consider donating either funds or time by writing a piece of your own. My contribution will be a Daat chapter. I know my Days Like This family are loved, and Dr Daddyward is honoured to make an appearance to help out. Thanks for your support! XX ~ SR