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

Chapter 23

Do phoenixes really exist?

"So, he wants you to set the rules for him?" Rose frowned, popping a cookie into her mouth. "Are you sure he isn't a closeted BDSM enthusiast? Because I can totally imagine that Angela bitch with a riding crop and some spurs."

"I'm quite sure," I answered. "Or at least, as sure as I can be, given that it's been quite some time since I've been in the position to assess his sexual preferences."

"I bet you know all about Liam's, though!" Rose teased.

"I'll take that as my cue to leave," Emmett mumbled, pushing the cake he'd been working on as a base for his next masterpiece into the over. "I can handle a little bit relationship talk, and even chime in from time to time, but I draw the line at discussing sex with the two of you!"

"You have no problem discussing that with me," Rose purred. "In fact, if I remember correctly, you were very vocal about what you liked last night…"

"Okay, leaving now," Emmett squeaked, taking his lunch break a little early as he hightailed it out of the bakery for a spot a safe distance away from our girl talk.

"I'm glad everything is going so well for you but, I have to say, I kinda agree with Emmett there," I muttered. I pushed my rolling pin down on the ball of green fondant that, flattened out to a perfect thinness, would serve as the grass for the soccer field cake I was working on. "After catching you in the act, I'd say I've had my fair share of the ins and outs of your relationship!" I giggled.

"Not fair!" Rose pouted, her lips drawing into a puppy-dog smile that made her features look so much more girly than her usual, tough girl expression. "Unless, of course, this means that you'll share more details about your weekend with Liam. I mean…because you did take a ride on his disco stick, right?"

Blushing, all I could do was nod, my eyes trained to the fondant as it started to roll it out into a pristine, green sheet of sugary goodness.

"Come on, Bella! You have to give me a little bit more than that!" Rose teased, swiping a few more cookies from the tray before popping them into her mouth one by one. Like popcorn.

"Okay, so we did it!" I admitted to keep her off my back. "And it was good."

"Interesting choice of words," Rose mused. "It was good…not spectacular? Earth moving? You didn't see stars?"

I growled, taking a few minutes to bring down my anxiety level before I carefully draped the green fondant over the cake. Rose's version of girl talk always freaked me out—it either involved me sharing details I didn't want anyone else to know or her revealing stuff I really didn't want to hear. "He rocked my world. Now, is that enough for you?"

"Nowhere near enough, but I know that's as good as I'm going to get," Rose snickered smugly. "So when are you going to see him again?"

"On Saturday," I told her. "Charlie's staying over at my parents'. There's supposed to be some sort of activity day for kids in the woods, which my dad wanted to take her to. Since Edward said he has to work all weekend—"

"So does the asshole know he's pretty much enabling you to get laid?" The satisfaction in Rose's voice heightened at the prospect of Edward being in any sort of pain. There had never been any love lost between the two of them and after what happened? Well, it was safe to say that he was the undisputed champion on Rose's shit list.

"Not really, I think," I admitted, feeling a slight pang of something in my chest. It was that same feeling of being pulled in two directions that I always got whenever Liam and Edward were mentioned in the same sentence. "I mean…he knows about Liam and stuff, but I don't think he knows…"

"You're boinking the shit out of the guy while he's off playing house with Charlie?" Rose's finished in her usual classy way.

"God, Rose! Do you have to be so crass?" I groaned. "I already feel guilty about dumping my kid to go get my rocks off!"

"Why should you feel guilty?" Rose challenged. "You're not dumping Charlie. It's not a crime to go have some fun with a cute guy while she's off having fun with your dad."

"I know." Hanging my head, I let out a small sight. "But still…"

"This is all new to you," Rose's voice sounded, her clothes rustling as she moved to stand beside me and lay her head on my shoulder. "But I hope in the end you'll see that what you're doing here is saving yourself from a whole lot of misery. You're moving on. It might not be in the direction you'd really want to go, but you're making progress with every step you take. It's okay to be happy, Bella."

"Thanks, Rose." Leaning my head on top of hers, I brushed away the tears that had gathered in the corner of my eyes. "You're a great friend, even though your habit of over-sharing freaks me the fuck out."

"Prude!" She joked, giggling as she popped one last cookie into her mouth before heading back into the store.

It wasn't long after she left that Emmett cautiously stuck his head around the bakery door. "Is the coast clear yet?"

"Yeah, it's safe." I snorted, washing my hands after putting the final touches on the cake. "Are you good to take over while I take my lunch break?"

I didn't even have to wait for his reply, knowing that with Emmett there, my bakery would be in great hands. As carefree and laid-back as he was outside of work, I knew that when it came to baking, he was as dedicated and every bit as much of a perfectionist as I was.

After lunch, I set to work on another big project; the decoration of the wedding cake for James and Victoria's vow renewal. It seemed that, like Rose, one of the town's biggest man-whores had sworn off his wicked ways and had vowed to stay true to his wife.

Like a lot of other women in town, I wanted to see that first, before I could believe it.

At least poor Victoria was beaming again because, apparently, she was still the only person around who believed that underneath layers and layers of jackass, somewhere there lurked a good man.

Or maybe she was just delusional.

Anyway, I was determined to at least let her have a fantastic wedding cake; even if it was only to apologize for the fact that that things were starting to get slightly okay again between me and Edward, they would once again be the prime topic of discussion in the local gossip mill.

Working side by side, Emmett and I both got caught up in our work; he on the day to day baked sweets and savory goods that were usually sold in the shop, me on the special orders that really seemed to have been picking up over the past couple of months. If we kept this up, we might have to think about expanding again…maybe even moving the business into a bigger building and add even more people to our staff just to keep us from going crazy.

It was great to be such a success—and the money definitely didn't hurt either—but part of me lamented the loss of the days when it had just been two best friends, taking the plunge and opening a dinky little patisserie shop in an old building. Sure it may have been an established bakery business by the time we took over, but getting rid of the bread side of the business – the most stable part of the business as people would always have need for bread – and focusing completely on sweet and savory treats was had been a huge risk.

As always, time flew and before I knew it, Charlie and Edward breezed by on their way upstairs, their laughter and stomping feet disappearing as fast as they'd appeared. With Edward working all weekend, he'd been more than happy to take me up on my offer to have dinner with us that Thursday.

"Looks like everything is back to normal," Emmett mused, following my gaze as I kept it trained to the door.

"I hope so." Smiling wryly, I formed up the piping bag before crafting a row of perfect whipped cream rosettes along the top edge of a chocolate cream cake. A woman's order. Of course, only a woman can order a cake I'd happily nosedive into and eat my way all to the bottom.

"At least he seems to be making an effort," Emmett went on. "As far from a member of 'Team Edward' as I am, I do commend him for trying to make things right again."

"I'll see it before I believe it," I hedged, shrugging as I added, "he's doing great now, but what about in a couple of weeks? Will he be able to keep this up? Will the new rules stick?"

"I have every intention of making them stick." Jumping, I almost dropped the piping bag onto the cake, my heart racing a mile a minute as I turned around to see Edward leaning against the doorframe with a bemused, though slightly tense smile on his face. "I know how lucky I am to have been given this chance with my daughter; I'm not going to blow it with her."

I nodded, not trusting myself not to answer in scathing sarcasm. As I said, I needed to see the proof before I believed it.

"What I wanted to ask…" Edward stated, pushing away from the door frame, "is if there's anything I can do to get a head start on dinner while Charlie's engrossed in her three millionth viewing of Madagascar?"

"What?" I snickered. "You're already tired of seeing monkeys share their ass? You don't get to bow out of that one until you've seen it at least fifty times like I have. Besides, dinner's almost done."

"How?" Frowning, I had to laugh at his completely puzzled look. "You've been down here all day, haven't you?"

"Silly man!" I snickered. "That's why they invented the crock pot!"

After a pouting Edward had been sent back upstairs to watch movies with his kid, the rest of my work day went by pretty uneventfully. Well, apart from the moment when Emmett and I had to manhandle Rose into his car before she marched upstairs and ninja-kicked the shit out of Edward for hurting Charlie.

After that, all that was left was for me to schlep my ass upstairs and co-parent the hell out of my evening.

Yay!

The first part of it, at least, went by without a hitch. Edward seemed to like the Irish Stew I'd made, given the fact that he polished off two plates of it, and he and Charlie took care of the dishes while I reviewed some paperwork for the shop.

My heart hurt, though, when we brought our little girl to bed together. Not because of the fact that he was there with me, but for the knowledge of what might have been if both of us hadn't fucked this up.

"That was nice," Edward spoke, his voice soft and full of wistfulness as we closed her bedroom door behind us.

I nodded, leading the way into the living room, grabbing both of us a cold beer from the kitchen on our way. "So you wanted to talk? Set some new rules?"

"Yeah." Twisting the cap off his beer bottle, he leaned forward slightly, decreasing the gap between him and me on the sofa. "I don't want there to come anything or anyone between us this time. I know I'm down to my last shot and…as I said, I don't want to blow it."

"Okay, then what do you suggest?" Folding my legs underneath my frame I looked at him, waiting for him to open the game.

"I want to see how we can adapt the agreement we made years ago to our new circumstances. I mean…most of what we thought was important back then still stands, right?" He waited for me to nod before he went on. "I think one of our problems is that we need to add to that now, because Charlie's older and I'm back in Forks…"

"Yeah, but the problem never really was any of those things," I interrupted him. "She was a huge part of our problem, but it was also the fact that you were making unilateral decisions when you should have discussed it with me before you promised her riding classes and stuff."

He nodded. "I was too caught up with getting her to like and accept me as a permanent figure in her everyday life, instead of the guy who called her every day and dropped by for a visit whenever he could. I didn't stop to think about how all of that was messing up your life and your relationship with Charlie."

"I don't appreciate having to be the bad guy every time," I agreed. "So I supposed rule number one we need to add to the rulebook is: no promises until you've discussed it with the other parent."

"Added." Edward confirmed with a smile before turning serious again. "Then, I think we need to discuss how to cause as little upset to Charlie's schedule as possible, especially with my irregular work hours."

"How about we start with agreeing that whenever she's with you, you don't dump her with your parents to go off, gallivanting across town with whatever girl is on your arm that week first?" I snidely countered, remembering that time when I'd found him in Port Angeles with Angela when he should have been at home with his daughter.

"Okay." Edward sighed, but by the way his shoulders were set, I could see he was getting frustrated. "I can see how I earned that one…now how about we get back to my question?"

"Fine!" I huffed. "I don't think it's a problem for her to spend a night at your apartment. I mean, she loves it there and she's got her own room and stuff. Besides, it's just across town so if there's a book or something else she forgot, we could just solve that problem without too much of a hassle. I think we do need to make sure we all know what we're dealing with in advance, though, so that she knows what she can expect as well."

"So…weekly talks about the schedule?" Edward suggested.

"I suppose," nodding my head, I added, "and maybe you could come over to spend some time with her here when you're on call."

"Are you really sure that's okay?" I had to chuckle at his total look of shock, even though I was quite shocked to have heard the words come out of my mouth as well.

"I'm quite sure," I assured him. "Charlie loves spending time with you, and if this allows her to do so without the risk of you having to run back to the hospital and leaving her on her own, then I'd be stupid not to."

"Okay," he nodded, looking at me like a puppy who'd just been given a juicy bone. "Anything else?"

"We need to keep talking…be honest with each other even when we think the other's not going to like what we say," I spoke. "Oh, and we need to listen too, even if we feel like killing the other."

"Easier said than done!" Edward chuckled. "But yeah, I can see why that's important."

We went on like that all through the night; discussing plans and rules, adding some, dismissing others all while drinking beers and joking good-naturedly. It was great, even in spite of some tense moments and jabs being passed between the two of us.

In hindsight, maybe it was exactly those things that had made our evening so great.

The fun was back and so was the honesty, and as I stood in the cold, wrapping my arms around myself to keep from shivering while I saw Edward out somewhere around one in the morning, the faint shimmer of hope I'd been feeling the Sunday before started to spark into something I'd never dared to dream of only days ago.

Maybe this could turn out all right after all.

Maybe we could make it work again.

Thoughts?