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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

Sorry this is a little later than usual. With all the Easter madness I kept forgetting it's Tuesday today.

Chapter 13

When moving on turns out to be easier when you find out your ex is an asshole.

The look he'd given me—shock, pain, then anger—haunted me for the rest of the night.

I hated myself for it.

But most of all, I kinda hated him.

When Liam and I said our goodbyes by the car and he left me with a chaste kiss and a promise to call me the next day. And even when Rose spent the entire ride back fuming over how her date had somehow managed to convince her online that he was a sparkly, enigmatic entrepreneur when in reality he was a boring fuck who sold second-hand car tires.

Here I was, having a fabulous night with a great guy who actually seemed pretty damn interested in me, and Edward pops up to ruin everything! Just when I was finally beginning to believe I was really ready to move on and explore some of those other flavors Rose had been raving about.

By all accounts I should have been glowing with the success of my first real foray back into the dating world while counting down the hours until he would call me like some fifteen year old.

But there I was, stewing silently over one damn look, given to me by a man who not only wasn't interested in me, but had been flanked by his girlfriend at the time.

And who was he to judge me for going on a date anyway? It wasn't like he was living a celibate lifestyle.

And wait a minute…shouldn't he have been at home with Charlie?

By the time I made it downstairs, after yet another Edward-induced sleepless night, I was quietly fuming over what I'd come to consider a disastrous date-night and as I set to work. My hands might not have been as gentle as usual as they molded the dough and puff pastry into the intricate shapes of various types of Danish.

Thank God the pastry wasn't complaining!

By the time Rose came in, I'd worked through most of my frustration and was actually able to greet her with more than a grunt. Nevertheless, she immediately picked up on my mood.

"Okay, out with it," she snapped, taping her foot against the floor. "What crawled into your panties and died?"

"Nothing," I grumbled, slapping a thick ball of dough onto the workbench in a way no dough should ever be treated.

"Bullshit!" Rose called it. "You were broody last night but I thought that was because you might be tired or some shit. But right now? I know you're stewing on something, baker girl, so spill!"

Knowing that whenever Rose was on the trail she was as fierce as a bloodhound, I relented. "I ran into Edward last night."

"So?" Rose didn't seem to think anything of it.

"He gave me this look—you know the one where they are silently judging you?" I shrugged. "I dunno, it just kinda bugged me…ruined my whole night, to be honest."

"Seriously, Bella! You're so in your head sometimes!" Rose snorted, obviously finding something very funny about my disgruntled state of mind. "If I got upset every time someone gave me the stink eye, I'd never leave the house!"

"But you're the local hussy!" I countered.

"True," Rose granted wryly, "but I'm merely making a point here. You shouldn't let it get to you. So what if Edward's got his panties in a bunch from the fact that you're dating someone else? It's not like he's got any say in your life. Let's face it, for as long as I've known him, the sourpuss always had something to complain about. You have to learn to let that shit go."

"I'll try," I committed halfheartedly. "So did you come over here just to give me a pep-talk?"

"I wish!" From the way her face scrunched up in displeasure, I had a feeling what was coming up even before she opened her mouth. "Lauren called. Apparently her husband got promoted and she's organizing a party to celebrate. She wants you to make forty petits-fours on Saturday."

"Okay." I was immediately suspicious. Knowing Lauren, it can't be this simple, can it? "So what's the catch?"

"She wants none of them to look the same," Rose announced, looking rather apologetic.

And she should be. I mean, that just couldn't be done! "And you told her we'd do it?"

"I know you can do it, Bella," Rose pressed. "Just make five or six different shapes and vary with the colors or the toppings or something. We need her business, what with Mike badgering us from Port Angeles. Last month we got five big orders just from her referrals!"

"And all five of them wanted shit that can't be made with human hands!" I cried, remembering the many hours I'd spent giving in to the wishes of bored trophy wives who had nothing to do but plan the next party that would upstage their rivals.

Rose was quick to counter, though, as I knew she would. "And all five times you delivered."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled, knowing there was no arguing with Rose when her shrewd business mind was spinning at its peak performance. "But, meanwhile, I have to pull another miracle out of my hat somehow, on top of an already busy weekend, and with Charlie running around the shop—remember, Edward has to work this weekend?"

"Get Emmett to help you," she brushed off my worries with a simple shrug of her shoulders. "He's done with his exams today and I'm sure he'd more than like to stay a little late to help out. Hell, you could even get Charlie to help out some…mix up dough and stuff."

I snorted, shaking my head. "Rose…you know my daughter is a lot of things, but a baker is definitely not one of them. If I ask her to help, I'd have flour and eggs hanging from the ceiling and a cake mixture that inedible."

"She gets that form her auntie Rose," Rose snickered, knowing that her patisserie skills left something to be desired.

"Let's just hope she got everything else from her mom!" a booming voice sounded behind me and turning around, I was just in time to stop Jake from snatching a few glazed cinnamon rolls from the tray of freshly baked Danish that were waiting for Rose to pick them up. "So, girls, how're things going around this neck of the woods?"

"Okay," Rose snapped. "Now take your cakes and go."

"Ooh! Temper, temper!" Jake taunted. "What happened, Blondie? Did your latest conquest end up a bust in the sack, or didn't ya even get that far?"

Not exactly trained in schooling her poker face, Rose's eyes narrowed into venomous slits as she changed her stance; legs poised to deliver a swift kick to the balls and hand on hip as she stared her adversary down. "What I do in my free time is none of your business, you fucking dog!"

"Who was it anyway?" he mused, not the slightest bit daunted by Rose's behavior. "I thought you'd just about had every available man in town. Oh, wait…Harvey Staunton just got back on the market, I hear!"

Even though I, unlike Jake, had worked up an almighty respect for Rose's temper, I had to battle hard to keep from snorting out loud at the mention of the name. After all, Harvey Staunton was a fifty year old alcoholic with about six teeth left in his mouth and a perpetually grease stained wife beater failing to cover his beer belly.

"It wasn't Harvey Staunton," Rose hissed. "Now scram!"

Chuckling, Jake picked up the neat stack of boxes I'd piled up near the door, his smug grin letting us know he'd done just what he'd set out to do: rattle Rose's cage. "Well, ladies, I'll be off then. Always a pleasure!"

"Yeah, to see you walking away!" Rose muttered under hear breath, picking up her own tray before she retreated back into the shop, leaving me standing right in the middle of their empty battle ground. I wondered, as I'd done so often before, if their animosity stemmed from Rose's frustration over being rebuked by a man who counted among the hot guys in town, or if Jake kept riling her up out of spite.

In the past, I'd always been a firm believer in the first scenario, but lately…

I'd started thinking about them a couple of weeks back; how Rose simply refused to speak about him or even acknowledge the guy existed as long as he wasn't standing right in front of her. How Jake never let go of a chance to fire cheap shots at her about her dating history with a kind of spite that seemed to stem almost from jealousy.

How Rose had pursued him all the way through high school before she suddenly stopped a few months after Charlie was born, when all my life I'd known her to have the tenacity of a pit-bull.

"Oh, my God!" I gasped as suddenly I realized how stupid I'd been for ignoring a truth that had been staring me in the face for a decade. "ROSE!" I yelled.

Running back into the bakery with a startled look on her face, "What is it, Bella? Did you cut yourself again?"

"You slept with Jake!" Watching the look on her face morph from confusion to realization and then, finally into girlish embarrassment would have been comical if it wasn't so shocking. I mean, Rose didn't do embarrassed when it came to sex. Sure, she embarrassed others by talking about it—openly and in full detail—but I'd never once seen her actually break out in a blush as she avoided eye contact.

In the end, she settled on simply masking her awkwardness with annoyance as she growled. "Okay, so, what if I did? He was there. I was horny. The end." She huffed. "Now please excuse me while I go off to do my job." And with that, she stalked back into the shop for the second time in five minutes, this time leaving me shaking uncontrollably with laughter.

oOo

With Rose keeping herself carefully restricted to the shop all afternoon, I actually managed to do a lot more than I'd thought I would accomplish with Emmett still stuck in Port Angeles for his finals and my energy severely restrained by my sleepless night.

Before I knew it, it was five o'clock and I heard Charlie's rushed footsteps coming up the gravel of the back patio as I sat, roughly sketching out ten different base models for the tiny cakes Lauren had requested.

"Mommy!" She didn't bother to look around her before she flung herself at me; her unique scent settled those nerves that were always upset whenever she wasn't safely ensconced within our apartment.

"Did you have a good time, baby?" I chuckled, hugging her lithe frame close to me.

I smiled as I felt her nod vigorously against my chest. "Daddy took me to see where he works at the hospital, which was so cool! Then he took me to the stables for my riding lesson and we had burgers and chili fries at the diner but grandma was angry because Dad gave me unhealthy food when se wanted to cook for me."

"Breathe, honey," I chuckled, watching my daughter turn almost purple in her rush to tell me about her day. "So you went to Grandma's?" Apparently that was where he left her while he went off to Port Angeles to stalk me.

She nodded. "Alice and I had a movie night and she wanted to paint my nails but she only had girly colors and I wanted black so I said no and let her braid my hair instead.

And then, of course, the look—that look—was back in his eyes as he stared me down, but where it had been unsettling the previous night, right then, after my talk with Rose, it just pissed me off.

Big time.

Ducking down to Charlie, I tried to get her out of the way as gently as possible. "Why don't you go put your bag in your room while I talk to Daddy real quick?" I suggested, knowing the distraction of her books would keep her occupied while I hashed things out with Edward. "I'll be up in a minute."

Nodding, she disappeared back into the hallway and up the stairs, the thundering of her footsteps gave me the opportunity to poise myself as Edward pushed his body away from the door and started walking into the room with that look still on his face. "Have fun yesterday?"

I shook my head, all the anger I'd felt that morning coming back again. "You don't get to ask those kinds of things, Edward." My hands balled into fists by my side as I added. "You don't get to judge me."

"No?" He countered, the self-righteous anger on his face only stirring the fire inside me. "Not even when you're setting a bad example for our daughter?"

"A bad example?" I cried. "What the hell are you talking about? I was on a date, Edward. A bona fide date; and a double one at that! It's not like you caught me in the middle of a fucking orgy with a dick in every single orifice!"

"Classy, Bella," he snarled.

"Well, you should know how I get when someone pisses me off," I fumed. "Besides, I don't really think you're the one to talk. I mean, it's probably not like Angela just popped up on your couch one day, did she? And while I'm at it…why were you even in Port Angeles in the first place? Shouldn't you have been watching our daughter. You know, the little girl I left in your care?"

From the look on his face I could see I'd hit my mark, my confidence rising as I watched him scramble for an explanation. "She was with my mother. She loves it there and—"

"Yeah, but I didn´t know that!" I pressed on. "What if something had happened and I had to reach her immediately? Did you stop to think about that? You don't get to fucking lecture me on good parenting when for the past ten years I've given up everything I'd ever wanted to be a good mom. Whereas you have been dropping the ball left, right and center ever since you arrived back in town!"

"That's a low blow, Bella!" He fumed, but I could see the defeat in his eyes; the force of his guilt sending a slight pang through my chest. "I'm doing everything I can to make up for the time I've lost with her but…but it's so hard sometimes to…to make everyone happy."

Watching him, the hopeless little boy I'd loved so much now peeking out from underneath his artificial confident exterior, the urge to fight vanished like snow before the sun.

"That's what parenting is about, Edward. It's not like it came easy to me at first. You have to mess up a million times before you finally think you have it covered, but you're not doing yourself any favors if you keep fighting me at every turn. Not when I'm trying to help you…help Charlie. "

"I know." Sighing, his body sagged against the workbench, his arms barely managing to keep it upright. "And I know I messed up last night. I knew it as soon as I saw you. It's just…Angela finally got word that the school wants to keep her on permanently and she wanted to do something to celebrate…"

I barely managed to keep myself from growling. Her again. Why is it that when me and Edward are arguing, she's always at the center of it?

"If you'd have been upfront with me about that, first," I finally managed to tell him, speaking from my heart since I guessed it was the only way forward. "You should have called me to let me know. I'm trying to be your friend here, Edward, so I would have understood." Hated it, but at least tried to understand. "You said you wanted me to be your friend, and I'm trying really hard to be that, but friendship…it only works if it's a two-way street."

"I know." He sighed deeply, his shoulders hunching over. "And I don't know why I went off the deep end like that. It's just…all of this is so much harder than I thought it would be. I mean…I work these crazy shifts at the hospital—and I love my job, I really do, but, at the same time, it takes me away from the people I really want to spend my time with. They deserve my attention just as much as my patients do. I…I'm just so fucking tired all the time!"

Taking a deep breath, I moved over to where he was standing, the urge to comfort too big to think about the consequences for my heart as I hugged him. "It'll be okay," I assured him, even if I couldn't know that. "When I first took over the shop, I kinda felt the same way." His arms wrapped around me. "I had to put in these crazy hours and worked my ass off, while being a good mom to our daughter. It almost killed me, until one day it started getting easier and I realized I'd found the balance." Stepping away, I could already feel the loss of his body next to mine, the pining as I put some space between us. "Sure, it's still hard sometimes to always get pulled in opposite directions but you'll get used to it."

"I fucking hope so," he muttered, composing himself as he pulled his body up straight again. He cleared his throat. "So…you had a…date last night?"

I nodded reluctantly. "Yeah?"

"How did it go?" He asked with no ulterior motives but genuine interest in his voice, though it was weirdly strained somehow. "Do I know the guy?"

"Nah, I don't think so," I shrugged, really not wanting to go into this. "He's from Port Angeles, and works in foresting."

"Cool." Awkwardness settled around us. "So, are you going to see him again?"

"Probably."

I was saved by Charlie, running down the stairs to come see what was keeping me. Edward quickly said his goodbyes as he left to join Angela for dinner.

Liam called later that night, just after I'd put away the dishes; his warm voice and easy going nature soon pushed away the lingering bitterness I'd felt after my conversation with Edward. At the end of our call I had no trouble accepting his invitation to a second date. Solo, this time, and in a nice, intimate restaurant halfway between Port Angeles and Forks.

He was a great guy and, even though I suspected part of me would always want Edward, I knew Liam was just the kind of man who could make me happy again.

It was time to stop dreaming and rejoin the real world.

Thoughts?