AN: Thanks to ShearEnvy for betaing, BEQ for WCing, and you for reading.

Chapter 19: Trouble

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds. ~Will Durant

The warm bed was comfortable as I lay tangled in the fluffy, purple comforter and soft, white sheets. A faint glow of light filtered through my eyelids, hinting that morning had already arrived, and I smiled to myself as I reached beside me in the bed. My hands found him instantly, fully clothed but still laying there.

"Good morning, Edward," I mumbled sleepily.

"Morning, whore."

The sound of the familiar yet unexpected voice was like a jolt of electricity striking me. I pulled my hands away quickly, startled, and sat up so fast I nearly fell to the floor. Blinking rapidly, I gaped at the person in bed with me. "Jake?"

His face was as hard as stone as he stared at me, statuesque. His serious expression made my heart pound furiously. What was going on? Why did he look so damn upset?

It seemed like forever before he cracked, a smile tugging at his lips as he sat up. Before I could react, he snatched a pillow from the bed and smacked me as hard as he could with it. I gasped and slid off the side of the bed in surprise, dragging the blanket with me and hitting the floor with a thump. I groaned as pain shot up my spine. "Damnit, Jake! What was that for?"

"You dirty slut!" he said, practically squealing with excitement. "You fucked him, didn't you?"

I cringed at his blunt question. "Whatever happened to tact?"

"Honey, tact went out the window when you let an engaged man pollinate your flower."

"How do you know I...? I mean, that we...?"

"How do I know you got a meat injection last night?" he asked. I cringed again, but nodded. He was on fire with his choice of words. "Well, for one, you look thoroughly fucked this morning..."

"I think I'm still drunk," I grumbled. I was so confused it certainly felt like it.

"...and secondly, I found your bra hanging on the banister downstairs. Someone freed those puppies in a hurry, that's for sure." I stared at him as he pulled out my plain, white bra and spun it over his head like a makeshift helicopter. He flung it at me, smacking me in the face, as he continued. "So unless Papa Swan brought home a fairly flat-chested prude that wears those horrid, lacy grandma bras and banged the daylights out of her last night, you were a bad, bad girl."

I was mortified as I looked between Jake and my bra. I hadn't even given Charlie any thought last night, having become so used to him being gone. What if he had come home? What if he had seen? What would he think?

"But how do you know it was Edward?" I asked, not knowing what else to say. "I mean, I could've slept with someone else."

"Well, for one, you called me his name. And secondly, Bella, you didn't sleep with anyone. I was here before the sun came up and that man was already long gone. He dipped and skipped, bolted before the nut was dry."

I cringed again, those words stinging. He'd left that soon? The pain must've registered on my face, because Jake's smile fell, his demeanor once again shifting to seriousness. "I'm sure he had things to take care of," he continued. "You know... a wedding to cancel, a little gold digging bitch to get rid of."

I forced a smile. "One can hope."

"Yes, one can," he replied. "One can also give one's friend a play-by-play on one's smoosh session."

"Smoosh session?" I laughed. "Have you been watching Jersey Shore again?"

He shrugged, grinning. "Spill it, bitch. I want every detail, from the first kiss to the last cock twitch."

I glanced down at myself, huddled up in the purple comforter and still naked underneath. God, Jake had probably seen all of my goods. "At least let me put on some clothes first."

"You do that," he said, heading for the door. "You get dressed and I'll get the popcorn. I have a feeling this is gonna be good."

Rolling my eyes, I slammed the door behind him. Once I was alone, I grabbed some clothes and threw them on before strolling downstairs to make sure I hadn't left anything else incriminating lying around. The last thing I needed was for Charlie to find my panties swinging from a ceiling fan.

I made it to the living room and was about to call for Jake when I heard the back door open. The soft, familiar voice hit me instantly, sending a warmth through me that made my stomach flutter.

It was the voice I'd expected to wake up to this morning.

"I, uh... I was looking for Swan. Is she, uh..."

"Is she awake?" Jake asked, finishing Edward's sentence before he could awkwardly fumble his way through it. "She was a few minutes ago."

I stepped into the kitchen doorway and hesitated when I saw him. He had obviously showered and was freshly shaved, dressed in a pair of khaki's and a white button-up shirt. He looked handsome, but the moment I saw him looking like that - the moment I saw the godforsaken boat shoes on his feet - I knew nothing had changed.

He'd woken up this morning and gone back to her.

The warmth inside of me turned to intense heat and the fluttering in my stomach was now a sickening churn. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw up.

I wanted to demand he take off those damn clothes.

"Hey, Swan," he said tentatively, like he could sense I was teetering on the brink of a meltdown.

"Hello," I said.

Edward glanced at Jake nervously and I instinctively did the same, curious as to what he was looking at. Jake was leaning against the counter across the room, steadily munching from a freshly popped bag of popcorn and watching us like we were an episode of Days of our Lives.

"I thought we could talk, but I see you're busy, so I'll just go," Edward said, turning and bolting out the back door before I could even register what he was saying. The second I realized he was gone, I ran out after him.

"Edward, wait!" I yelled. He stopped in his tracks, already halfway between our houses, and turned to me. I opened my mouth to speak again, unsure if I was going to beg him to love me or tell him to go to Hell, but I didn't get a chance to do either. Before I could utter a word, Tanya's grating voice echoed from the Cullen's house.

"Where are you, Edward?" she called.

His shoulders slumped as he addressed me. "We'll talk later, okay? Now is obviously a bad time for us both."

I nodded hesitantly, and he walked away without another word. I slowly made my way back to the house, finding Jake standing in the same spot as before.

"You haven't told him yet?" he asked casually.

"Haven't told him what?"

"That you're single."

My brow furrowed briefly until it struck me... Edward must've thought I was doing exactly what he'd done. We shared last night together, and the next morning he found me right back with Jake.

"It hadn't even crossed my mind," I admitted. "Honestly, with everything else going on, I sort of forgot I'm fake dating you."

"Oh, ouch, I'm hurt," Jake said sarcastically. "How could you forget about me?"

I laughed. "With a lot of determination, that's how."

Rolling his eyes, Jake threw a piece of popcorn at my head. "I still can't believe you two actually scrogged."

"Scrogged?"

"Yeah. Scroggin'. Skeetin'. Gettin' jiggy with it." He did some sort of dance reminiscent of a Will Smith music video a decade ago. "You tickled that man's dill pickle."

I stared at him. "I tickled his dill pickle?"

"Knocked the boots? Flogged his Molly? Rocked the casbah? Rumpled his stiltskin? Assassinated the kitty cat?"

Groaning loudly, I cut him off before he could continue. For a successful professional, he certainly still had the mind of a twelve-year-old boy. "There's seriously something wrong with you, Jake."

"Says the rodeo queen," he replied. "Seriously, Bella, if you don't start spilling details, I'm going to beat them out of you."

I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a seat at the table, relieved that Charlie's morning paper was nowhere to be found. At least I now knew he hadn't come home last night. Jake sat down across from me, continuing to munch on his bag of popcorn as he raised his brow at me. "Go, hoe."

I wasn't sure where to start. "Well, I was dragged to the salon yesterday morning by..."

"I know that part," Jake said impatiently. "You called me, remember? Get straight to Edward."

"Okay, well, Emmett showed up and dragged me to the strip club..."

"Strip club?" he asked. "Men or women?"

"Women."

He grimaced. "Gross."

I snorted with laughter. "Needless to say, I got plenty wasted to survive that trip. When I got there, Edward was at the bar drinking tequila. He was already feeling it. I could tell as soon as..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jake said, waving me on. "Get to the good parts."

"Okay, we took a cab home and were out back by the tree, and I kissed him. Next thing I know, we were upstairs. One thing led to another, we got naked, and boom, boom, bang, bang. The end."

Jake blinked a few times, expressionless. "Boom, boom, bang, bang? That's it?"

"Uh, yeah."

He sighed dramatically and grabbed a handful of popcorn, flinging it across the table at me. "You suck at telling a story, Bella."

I shrugged. "What else do you want me to say?"

"I want details. I wanna know about every thrust, every grunt, every lick, touch, squeeze, and pump. Honey, I wanna know about every vein on that man's cock-a-doodle-doo, every twitch of his dick-a-potamus. I wanna know..."

It didn't matter what Jake wanted, because he wasn't getting it. At that moment, the front door to the house opened and my father's voice echo through the downstairs. "Bella? You here?"

"In here," I hollered, smiling with relief as Jake pouted. He tossed another piece of popcorn at me, and I lunged toward it to catch it in my mouth. The move elicited a laugh from him, cracking his annoyed expression.

Charlie walked in, dressed in his work uniform with the morning paper tucked under his arm. He hesitated in the doorway as his eyes darted from me to Jake. "I didn't realize you had... company."

Jake held his hand out to my father. "Nice to see you again, Pops."

I held back my laughter as Charlie's eyes widened. He shook his hand firmly. "Uh, you too, Jake."

When Charlie let go, Jake went right back to munching on his popcorn and staring at me with a pout on his lips.

"Bella, I was hoping we could talk," Charlie said. "There's something I'd like to, uh, talk to you about."

Sighing, Jake stood up. "I guess that's my cue to make like a ghost. I have some things to do anyway." He kissed my forehead, putting on his boyfriend façade since we were apparently still together, and started walking out. "Oh, Bella, don't forget to read my column today."

"Okay."

"Promise me," he said, pausing in the doorway.

"Yeah, whatever. I'll read it."

Jake nodded, disappearing from the room. Charlie started to speak once we were alone, but the back door flung open and cut him off. Esme popped her head in and smiled, but I could see the panic in her eyes. "Sorry to interrupt, but is Edward over here?"

Charlie looked at me, clearly not knowing the answer to that, and I shook my head. "He stopped by a bit ago, but then went right back home."

Her brow furrowed. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I watched him."

"Oh, well, he didn't come inside. Tanya's still trying to find him. The rehearsal dinner is tonight, Tanya's panicking, and he seems to have slipped away."

Slipped away? "Is his car still here?"

"Yes, so he's on foot somewhere."

Sighing, I stood up. Leave it to Edward to go missing today, of all days. "I'll go look for him."

"But..." Charlie started. I turned to him, curious as to what he wanted to say, but he just shook his head after a moment. "Never mind. We'll talk later, sweetheart."

I headed out of the kitchen and grabbed my shoes, which I had discarded on the living room floor the night before, and slid them on my feet. "Jake?" I called out, wondering where he'd run off to and what he was doing. I checked the house before stepping out front, seeing his Prius still parked along the road. I grabbed my phone to call him, hoping he'd help me find Edward, but he didn't answer. "Fuck."

Now both of them were missing. What was with these men?

The next few hours were absolute chaos as we ran around the neighborhood, trying to make sure everything was in order and everyone was accounted for. I checked all of Edward's friends' houses, even most of the local stores, but couldn't find him anywhere. Edward showed back up eventually, casually strolling in the back door of the house, and offered no explanation for his long absence. I tried to pull him aside a few times, wanting to talk about what had happened. I wanted to know what he was going to do-what he wanted to do. I wanted to know what the future held-if he was going to actually marry Tanya or if he was going to give what we had a chance. But every time the two of us got a moment alone, someone interrupted before the words could escape my lips.

Jake remained gone all day. No call. No note. No sign at all. I was going to kick his ass.

Dusk approached quickly, the rehearsal upon us before we knew it. We all headed to the church Tanya had chosen to go through the motions, making sure we knew what we were supposed to do tomorrow. My stomach churned, sickness steadily trying to force its way out of me as I stood along the side and watched Tanya walk down the aisle. Carlisle escorted her, a fact that stung more than words could say. He'd been like a second father to me growing up, and he was giving another woman away to the man I loved.

Edward was distant. He didn't say a word unless someone asked for something... he barely moved unless instructed to. He avoided my gaze, never once looking me in the eyes. I watched him the whole time, seeing the vacant look in his expression. He was there, but he was gone. Conflicted. Under pressure.

I wasn't sure anyone else noticed, but it was all I saw.

After the rehearsal, we headed back to the Cullen's house for dinner. I should've known, after the way the morning had gone, that it was only the start of total anarchy.

Edward lay underneath the oak tree in the backyard, staring up at the sky. Our parents were still up in my bedroom, most likely still bickering, but I'd slipped out to see where Edward went.

He wasn't moving. I briefly wondered if he was asleep, but as I approached, he turned his head toward me. He didn't sit up or speak, but a soft smile graced his lips. I sat down beside him and could see his eyes shining under the moonlight, unshed tears barely being contained.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." His voice cracked. "Just... you know."

"I know," I said quietly. I did. I was about as okay as he seemed to be. "You know it doesn't have to change anything, Edward. All of that stuff they said upstairs doesn't really matter. We can still be together and get married and everything."

He sighed. "Are you sure you want to?"

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He paused. "I think I always have. All of these years we've been friends... it's been all about you the whole time. I know it doesn't seem that way, since I've dated other girls, but I always compared them to you. Always. They didn't laugh like you, they didn't read books like you do, they didn't cook like you do, they didn't have your sense of humor, they didn't blush like you... they wore make-up and dresses and watched shitty reality TV and read Cosmo. It pissed me off, because they weren't you. They've never been you. And the whole damn time, you were right in front of me, and I saw you, but I didn't really see you. And I'm afraid I'm going to blink and not see you again, because you're going to realize that I'm not good for you."

I frowned. "You are good for me."

"I don't have much to offer you," he said. "I don't have a job or a house or anything. All I have is a high school diploma… that's it. A piece of paper that won't get me much."

"That's all I have, too," I reminded him. "I got fired from my last job for burning the place down."

"Well, at least you've had a job before. My work history is blank."

I nudged him. "That's because you're a spoiled, trust fund baby."

He cracked a smile. "The trust fund won't last forever… especially since I used a good chunk of it this summer."

"Bailing me out," I muttered.

"Righting my wrongs," he corrected me. "And I don't regret it, no matter how mad you get that I did it."

I sat quietly for a moment, mulling over his words. "Thank you," I said, realizing I hadn't ever thanked him for doing that. I'd been so wrapped up in my guilt that he'd paid my fines that I'd practically attacked him for helping me. "I really am grateful. I would've been paying that off forever."

"It was the right thing to do," he replied, sitting up. He seemed steadier now, the alcohol wearing off a bit. "I'll always try to do right by you. I probably won't be the best husband, or hell, the best father, but I'll try, Swan. I really will. I want to do it. For you. For the baby."

Hesitantly, he reached over and pressed his palm to my stomach. I covered his hand with mine as I shook my head. "You'll be great, Edward. You're always great… at everything. It's me I'm worried about. I don't know what I'm doing with all of this. I mean, how am I supposed to know how to be a mom when my own was never around? I don't know what it's like, or what I'm supposed to do. And as far as marriage goes, my parent's failed at it. They were fine until they got married and had me, and then everything fell apart. My mother turned into an alcoholic and walked out on us. What if I do that? What if I ruin everything?"

"You won't," Edward said matter-of-factly.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I know you," he replied. "That's why."

The house was busy. Esme ran the kitchen while the guys gathered in the living room, chatting animatedly as the reminisced about old times. Jake was still missing and not answering his cell phone, while Edward had, once again, made himself scarce. The girls were up-and-down, in-and-out, running around in a frenzy. Random relatives and friends kept popping in as they arrived in town for the wedding, cousins and uncles and aunts of Edward's that I'd met in passing but barely recalled. They remembered me, though, and I couldn't seem to escape their clutches. I was trapped in a swarm of people, playing middleman as I tried to help Esme get everything under control.

The doorbell rang as a colleague of Carlisle's showed up, and I took the distraction as my chance to finally slip away. I'd reached the end of my rope, and I couldn't take not knowing anymore. I scurried up the stairs, desperate to find Edward and settle some things. I started down the hallway toward his room and was about to throw open the door and demand he tell me what he planned to do when I heard voices inside that stopped me in my tracks.

"He's going to skip out on me, I know it!" Tanya shrieked. "It's the night before and he's got cold feet!"

"Relax, T," Kate said. "You're getting worked up for nothing. It's not healthy."

"For nothing?" Tanya asked incredulously. "This is my life! We have to get married tomorrow, no matter what. He's all I've got; I'm out of time, and I can't even find him to talk to him!"

"I'm sure he'll come around," Kate said.

"You're sure?" Tanya laughed bitterly. "Oh god, I'm going to be sick. I'm gonna puke."

"Calm down… stop being such a drama queen. The wedding will be fine."

"It's not the fucking wedding!" Tanya spat. "It's the morning sickness!"

The moment those words hit me, the air left my lungs in a whoosh. My knees nearly buckled as I heard clambering in the room and the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up. Morning sickness? Morning motherfucking sickness?

"Have you told anyone yet?" Kate asked. "I mean, you're kind of starting to show, T. Everyone's going to know soon enough you're pregnant."

Pregnant. Tanya Denali was having a baby.

Now I was going to be sick.

"You're, uh… you're sure?"

Edward's voice was quiet and laced with disbelief. He looked to be in shock. Unsurprising, of course, because I was in shock, too.

"Yes," Carlisle said, his expression guarded as he glanced between me and his son. "The hCG levels are extremely low, under 25, and at this point they should be significantly higher. In the hundreds, possibly thousands."

"But the test," Edward continued. "There were two lines."

Carlisle sighed. "It could've been a chemical pregnancy… those are fairly common, and in a lot of cases women don't even realize they've had them. Also, home pregnancy tests aren't always accurate. There could've been human error, or it's possible it was just an evaporation line that you saw."

I was stunned. "So you mean…"

"There's no baby," Edward said quietly. "You're not pregnant."

At those words, an intense flow of relief rushed through me. I wasn't pregnant. Eighteen-year-old Bella Swan hadn't become a teenage mother, after all.

A smile spread across my lips, and before I realized what I was doing, laughter burst from somewhere deep inside of my chest. All of that stressing, all of the family fighting, was for nothing.

There wasn't a baby.

Edward's head snapped in my direction, his eyes wide, and I clamped my hands over my mouth to silence myself when a look of hurt flash across his face. "You're laughing?"

"I, uh…" Shit, I was. I couldn't deny it.

"Do you think this is funny?"

"No, but this means we don't have to get married."

His eyes narrowed. "What, you didn't want to?"

"Well, yeah, but we don't have to now. We don't have to grow up so fast now. We don't have to disrupt our lives. I mean, there's no baby. This changes things. I'm relieved… aren't you?"

Edward glared at me, shaking his head slightly, and stormed from the room.

"Is he mad?" I asked, baffled.

Carlisle sighed exasperatedly. "He's not mad, Bella. He's upset."

"Upset? First he's upset because I might be pregnant, and now he's upset because I'm not? He should be happy. He can go to school now. He doesn't have to worry about getting a job, doesn't have to worry about taking care of me and a baby. Neither of us was ready for this."

"I know, but that doesn't mean he wasn't excited about the idea of it."

"But he can play baseball now, or make music. He can do whatever he wants to do."

Carlisle clasped my shoulder, frowning. "I think this might be what Edward thought he wanted to do, Bella."

I was in a daze as I slowly descended the stairs, a haze of words and memories clouding my head. Downstairs was still hectic, people running every which way. I made my way through the crowd wordlessly, avoiding eye contact and pretending not to hear whenever someone called my name.

Reaching the dining room, I grabbed a bottle of wine from the table and didn't even bother with a glass. I tipped it back, pouring some of the bitter, red liquid into my mouth.

This was wrong. This was all wrong.

Tears prickled the corner of my eyes, trying to force their way out as those words I'd heard upstairs pounded at the inside of my skull like they were being held captive and were desperate to get out. I wanted them to get out. I would've given anything to release them, to let them go and never see them again, but it wasn't possible. Those words had gotten in, and there was no turning back.

Tanya Denali was pregnant… and Edward was finally going to be a father.

I took another drink of wine. And then another. And another.

He'd said he was ready. It was no wonder. He thought he'd wanted it then, but it was clear he wanted it now.

I polished off the bottle, chugging it fast to try to dull the ache in my chest. Just last night I'd been on cloud nine, enveloped in a shroud of hope, and now it felt like I was plummeting back to earth- falling through the sky at a hundred miles per hour and dangerously close to slamming into the ground.

All of my plans had been completely derailed by those words I'd heard upstairs. While part of me was numb, in shock, another part of me was angry and on the verge of being sick. I could feel the wine sloshing in my stomach, the alcohol starting to course through my veins. Everything grew foggy as my chest constricted, and I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe.

Esme called my name from the kitchen, making the panic I was feeling explode inside of me. I darted out of the dining room before she could reach me and forced my way through the crowd. I needed fresh air. I needed to think. I needed a plan.

I needed my best friend.

I nearly knocked over one of Edward's cousins in my haste to get outside. Flinging open the front door, I lunged out onto the porch and inhaled deeply, taking the warm night air into my lungs. The tears I'd been fighting broke through, a few streaming down my flushed cheeks as I took a few steps away from the house. Not paying attention to where I was going, I ran straight into a form standing in front of me. I flinched, instantly taking a step back, but they grasped my arms to keep me from leaving.

"Whoa, Bella-boo."

I blinked a few times and looked up, peering at Jake with blurry eyes. He looked genuinely concerned, and I would've been comforted by his presence if I weren't so damn confused. "Where the hell have you been?" I asked. "I needed you today, Jake, and you disappeared!"

"Yeah, I know, but I had a good reason," he said, eyeing me peculiarly. "Why are you crying, honey? What's wrong?"

I scoffed. "What's wrong?"

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"Everything's wrong!"

He sighed dramatically, and I nearly blurted out what I'd heard upstairs, until I glanced over his shoulder and saw a familiar set of green eyes. They were eyes I'd sought all day long, ones that had avoided me at all costs. He'd been evasive and missing, but he was there. He was watching me, staring at me.

In my inebriated state, I wanted to poke him in his eyes.

"Swan?" he said quietly. "Are you okay?"

Jake let go of me and spun around so quickly that I grew dizzy just watching him. I wiped my cheeks, desperate to conceal my tears. I didn't want him to see me cry. I didn't want to make it a bigger mess than it already was. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Jake and Edward said at the same time. Jake glared at Edward before turning back to me, his concern changing into suspicion.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing," I whispered, my heart thumping erratically at the sudden forcefulness in Jake's tone. Jake was rarely so serious. He was getting upset. "I, uh… I just…"

I had no time to answer. Given how the day had gone so far, it wasn't a surprise. At that moment a yellow taxi cab pulled up to the curb in front of the house, the brakes letting out a loud squeal. The three of us cringed, our attention diverting to the vehicle.

The back doors opened, and out stepped two people I'd never seen before. The man was tall with a deep, dark tan, his features chiseled like he was made from stone. He was wearing a white undershirt, his arms covered in random black ink. The tattoos were unreadable from where I stood, but not one inch of his exposed skin was untouched. The woman with him had platinum blonde hair and extremely pale skin, her face coated in layers of makeup. She glanced in my direction, and although I'd never seen her before, I knew instantly who she was.

She was Tanya in about twenty years

I gasped and looked at Jake. "Is this where you were all day?" I hissed under my breath.

"No," he said. "But this is my surprise."

I shook my head. Surprise, indeed...

He'd invited Laurent and Irina Denali to the wedding.

A/N: By my calculations, there are 2 chapters left plus an epilogue.