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Chapter 24

"Good night morning!" Joe, my little nephew shouted at me through the screen.

"Good morning, how's it going?" I blinked at him. Even though his time zone was three hours behind, he still managed to be awake before me.

"Wake up sleepyhead! Why are you still in bed? It's almost ten o'clock there!"

"I just got off work honey. It's my bed time." It was hopefully my last morning-bedtime for a long time, and I was trying to flip back my sleep schedule today.

"Oh… Aunt Rachel, why's there a man in your bed?"

"Okkaaay, go wake up your father!" Rebecca shoved her son off the chair, sitting herself down. She squinted at me with an eager expression. "WHO IS THAT!" she whispered.

"Oh just Paul," I tried not to wince. We hadn't had a chance to talk in a while.

"Paul Lahote?" she laughed."Can I call it or what?"

"Becca..."

"I hope he's naked," she mumbled as I moved the laptop away from him.

"No stop it. He's just crashing here – he works nights too."

"How come you haven't told me you've got a boyfriend?" she pouted.

"Because it's new and I don't want to jinx it – remember I told you every little thing with Doug?"

"Fine, are you at least getting it regularly now?"

"God Becca, have you been talking to a woman named Carol?"

"Who?"

"Never mind," I sighed at her.

"How long have you been dating?"

"I don't know. A short while," I lied. It had been 29 days since our very first date at the beach.

"Is it going well?"

"Yeah, it's been good." Another lie – it had been more than good - great – amazing – wonderful.

"Well then, I've also got some news. I was going to wait until it's confirmed, but I think I'm pregnant!" she smiled, glowingly.

"Oh Becca, that's so great!"

"What's great?" a deep voice asked through the speaker.

"Nothing," Rebecca wiped the emotion off her face. "We've decided that for our birthday, I'm going to handcuff you and Joe together to the refrigerator while I go to the beach."

"Oh sounds good to me," he replied with a laugh. "Hey Rachel!"

"Anyway, we've gotta get breakfast ready – email me when you've decided to tell me something juicy," she smiled with a wave.

"Okay, see ya later," I closed my laptop, setting it on the nightstand.

I took a deep breath sighing out my pathetic frustration. Everyone but me was having babies – okay not everyone, but I started to feel my biological clock ticking faster. It was stupid of me to start thinking about kids – Paul and I hadn't said I love you yet and it'd been over a month since we started seeing each other. And that was a good timeline for a couple – a normal couple.

We weren't normal – not by a long shot.

"It's only been good?" a croaky voice sounded from under the pillow next to me. It took me a moment to register what he was talking about.

"It's been fantastic – how long have you been awake?"

"Since your nephew's screeching."

"Oh I'm sorry – he's always been a morning person," I told him lifting the pillow off his head.

"Hmmm," he turned over wrapping an arm around me.

"Are you still going to be working late nights now that I'm going to be working days?"

"Hope not."

I nodded, curling into his side. He'd been doing a lot of random favors for Seth and some of the other pack members for the last month – making me wonder if he'd lost some sort of bet.

"Stop thinking – sleep," he nudged me.

"Okay I'm sleeping," I yawned.

"Good night, love you."

"Love you too," I whispered surprised as he started to snore.

…

I groaned when the alarm started to blare. I tried to reach behind me to hit the sleep button, but Paul was a giant wall.

"Paul!" I groaned. "Wake up."

"Hmmm," he stirred turning to switch the alarm off.

"Power nap's over," I sat up as he grumbled into his pillow. "I thought you were a morning person."

"But night is morning, and two hours is not enough," he slurred stumbling into the bathroom.

I moved my laptop to a safer location and thought about my sister.

"Hey Paul, what do I tell my sister?"

"About what?"

"About us – you?"

"The truth - except the whole wolf pack thing..."

"So real estate - do I tell her you won the lottery?"

"You can, but I don't have that money anymore – I've handed it all over to the council."

"Wait, you actually won the lottery? "

"Sort of yeah," he shrugged. "Back when the economy was bad, we were all having tough times and the Cullens offered a gift because they basically had an unlimited supply. No one wanted to take it, but I knew what we could do with all that money so I accepted it. They gave me the numbers for the next mega million lottery and yeah..".

"Huh…"

"Or you could just go with carpenter slash home repair-er. I'm kinda going through a career change."

"Why?"

"Because it's just less stressful."

"I didn't know you were stressed out ," I frowned. That was something I should have noticed.

"You wouldn't because your presence is like a stress free bubble – hey make sure you tell your sister that I make amazing pancakes. It's very impressive."

...

"Hello there," Emily smiled as she opened the door.

"Hi," Paul and I stumbled past her.

"Paw-Paw!" Little Jo came running up to greet him.

"Hey Jo, how's it going?" he smiled picking her up.

"We're lookin at pitchers!"

"Pitchers?" he blinked, confused.

"Yeah pitchers of me and you and Mommy."

"Oh can I see these pitchers?"

"Do you know the password?"

"Password?" he frowned, looking to me and Emily. "I've never needed a password before."

"Alright, I'll tell you, but just this once," she told him before whispering into his ear. "Now you whisper it to me!"

"Taylor's going through this password phase with his friends," Emily whispered as she led me to the living room.

"Can Rachel look with us?" I heard Paul ask Jo, but from the silence that followed I knew that was a no.

"I've been trying to organize our old photo boxes," Emily waved at the scattered mess on the coffee table and around the floor. "It's a mess, but it's time consuming if you want to help."

"Sure sure, no problem," I glanced at Paul. He was listening intently to Jo as she was going a small stack of photos on the floor. "How're you doing this? By family? Person? Date?"

"Oh I'm so glad you're here," Emily sighed with a hopeful look.

...

"Thank you so much for doing this. You're a lifesaver," Emily thanked me again for the hundredth time.

"S'no problem," I yawned.

We'd gone through most of the photos and were down to the last pile. I loved the ones of the pack. There were so many of Jacob and Quil and Embry. They looked exactly the same as they did ten years ago - except for a few members. Jared and Sam had stopped phasing to raise families and Paul - Paul rarely smiled in the few pictures Emily had. There was one where someone must have told a joke because he was laughing with Jared and Embry. And my favorite was one of him holding a baby Jo as he smiled down at her.

"I'm sorry about Jo. She's very jealous when it comes to him," Emily gave me a sad smile, looking over to them.

"I understand," I nodded following her gaze. Paul had fallen asleep in the recliner, cradling Jo to his chest. It was too adorable.

"He was such a godsend when I was pregnant - always mothering me. He's going to be a great dad one day," she smiled.

"You think he wants kids?" I looked down at my hands nervously.

"Ooph, I'm just on a roll aren't I?" she looked guilty.

"We haven't had too many serious discussions - were taking it easy," I shrugged.

"Oh, he still hasn't said it, has he?"

"Oh he says it," I laughed. "He just doesn't realize it. He's always half asleep - practically snoring. But we're in no rush," I lied.

My biological clock's alarm was going off and it was shouting babies at me.

"At least you know he really loves you then," she stretched, getting up. "You're staying for dinner right?"

"Um I think well head out soon – I'm ready to crash. Paul's gonna be up all night though."

As if on cue, Paul shifted and opened his eyes, blinking down at Jo.

"Sorry, have I been out long?"

"Just a few minutes," I grinned. "And a couple of hours."

"Great," he groaned, rubbing Jo's back. "Sorry Em," he looked down at the small girl.

"Don't worry, she's been worked up all day. She's always excited to see you."

I followed Emily into the kitchen as he tried to wake up Jo from her nap. I could hear her grumbling and moaning.

"She's mad at me for falling asleep," Paul shook his head entering the kitchen.

"She'll get over it," Emily said pulling things out of the refrigerator.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked, but pulled me away by the arm.

"What is it?" I looked at his worried expression, but he kept pulling me down the hall. "Paul?"

He opened a door and we squeezed inside a small bathroom. Before I could say anything he leaned down and kissed me hard.

"I love you," he spoke against my lips before pulling back to look at me. "I love you so much my chest aches. Ishould have told you a long time ago."

"I thought you were asleep," I tried to keep my voice even.

"I was half awake," he smiled. "I love you. I love you."

"How many times are you going to say it?" I choked a teary laugh.

"With every sentence - I love you."

"I'll say it back if you stop..."

"Okay, but I do love you."

"I love you too," I grinned before he leaned down to kiss me again.

But the door opened, smacking my nose into Paul's chin.

"Sorry I need to use the potty!" Jo called out in an urgent voice.

"Oh sorry Jo," I blushed as we slipped out of the bathroom.

"Thank you," she glared at me.

"Can we go home?" I looked up at Paul.

"Yeah, we can," he stared down at me with a strange look.

"Do I have something on my face?" I wiped my cheek.

"No just-"

He was interrupted with a loud sobbing noise. We found Emily consoling a young girl in the kitchen.

"And then I – then he – me easy!" she choked out as Emily held her.

"Oh Claire, everything will be okay," Emily gave us a tired look.

"Can uh… we do anything to help?" Paul offered weakly.

"You can go throw Quil off a cliff," the girl cried turning around. I was surprised to see the familiar face – it was the girl from the bathroom at JK's when I had slapped Quil.

"No, he'd enjoy that," Paul tried to be funny.

And then it hit me. Claire was the name of the woman Quil had a thing for, but this Claire wasn't a woman. She was still a child – maybe seventeen. Quil was thirty years old! This couldn't be his Claire. Or maybe he wasn't our Quil…

"Men are jerks," Emily agreed to something she'd said.

"We are," Paul nodded taking a step back out of the kitchen. I followed suit and waved to Emily.

"See you later," she sighed before comforting Claire again.

"Where you going?" Jo looked up at Paul with a pitiful face.

"We have to go home. Rachel's got an early bedtime," he explained. I wanted to smack him for using me as an excuse. There was no way this girl would ever like me.

"Oh, well you can just drop her off and come back," she smiled.

"I'm sorry sweetie I can't, but I'll see you soon okay?"

"Alright," she pouted, giving me another glare as we left.

I slapped his arm when we got into the truck.

"What was that for?" he had the audacity to act like it hurt.

"For making me the bad guy. Jo will never like me!"

"She will - she just hasn't warmed up to you yet. At least you're not in Quil's shoes."

"She was talking about Quil? Quil Ateara?" I frowned.

"Yeah, Claire's his imprint."

"What?" Was I the only one who thought this was... weird? "But she's a child!"

"Yeah it's a little unorthodox, but you know Jake imprinted on Nessie the day she was born."

"What? So he was in love with a baby?"

"No that's not how it works. An imprint doesn't necessarily have to be your..." he trailed off, parking the truck in front of the house. "Like you said it can be like love at first sight, but it doesn't have to be that way. When we imprint, everything shifts. It's not about us anymore - we devote everything to our imprint. We'll be anything for them - a friend, a protector, a best friend, or a lover. So when Quil imprinted on Claire, he became a big brother to her and now their feelings are changing and progressing into... romance."

"So you're being forced to deal with this person for the rest of your life? You have no free will?"

"It's not forced when its fate. Plus I tried to avoid you and see how that worked out..."

"I'm sorry you're stuck with me," I pouted.

"You're not seeing this the right way. We're so lucky to be able to imprint and find our soul mate - the person well be happiest with for the rest of our lives."

I sat still for a moment processing all the confusion.

"Finding your imprint is impossible. It rarely happens - well supposedly. We've had four of us imprint already."

"You're just made of four leaf clovers and rabbit foots aren't you? ... foots or feet? Rabbit feet?"

"Come on, let's get you into bed. You're exhausted."

"If you want, I know a way that you can get even luckier," I mumbled as he barked a laugh.

"Not tonight, but soon," he kissed me before letting ourselves into the house.

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