A/N: Someone mentioned this in the comments and it gets brought up every once and awhile so I'd like to assure everybody that this is a Bella/Edward story. Also, I'm sorry about the format of the last few chapters. I've been using my iPod to upload and I didn't realize it was changing the format of my story and clumping it all together. I'm going to go back and try to edit those so it's not like that anymore.
Enjoy!

It took Jacob about a week and a half to get his motorcycle working. The whole idea was sort of exciting to me. I'd lived a fairly safe life except for recent events and I thought it'd be good to step out of my comfort zone just a little.

So when Jacob, who had told me again to call him Jake, texted me with the good news, I came right over. Without telling my parents about the motorcycles. I was very grateful that Edward couldn't read my thoughts as I knew he'd only be to eager to tell my parents so I'd be grounded and in his mind, safe from the theoretical dangers of Jake.

When I arrived at Billy's house, the bikes were sitting on the bed of his orange pickup truck and he was inside the truck, gesturing for me to join him so I did. Once inside, Jake started the truck and asked,

"You ready?"

"Yeah, it'll be fun," I replied, mostly trying to reassure myself of this.

"Awesome."

Jacob drives for awhile before stopping on a long, curvy dirt road. He stops the truck and quickly lifts the bikes out of the truck one-by-one with impressive strength for a human. Once both bikes were in the center of the road he exclaimed happily,

"Let's get started!" Teaching me to ride a motorcycle required lots of information, "There you go...don't be afraid...it's left, not right...press gently...no not like that...brake...not so hard...here, let me show you...that's it..."

Still, he was a fairly good teacher and soon he decided I was ready to ride without him walking next to me. I wasn't as confident but he assured me that I was doing fine. So, he climbed onto the other bike and we began to ride.

It was absolutely incredible. There was definitely something freeing about the whole experience. As my hair whipped in every direction (I really should have wearing a helmet but...I wasn't) I couldn't help but feel a pure excitement that I didn't get very often. It reminded me of the rush I got when Edward had told me he loved me.

This excitement was unexpected and wonderful and it automatically made me smile. It was miraculous but the even bigger miracle was that I didn't fall. When Jake slowed down I did the same and we came to an easy stop.

"That was really awesome," I told him breathily as he walked over to me.

"Wasn't it? You did amazing. Come on, let's walk them back." As we walked the motorcycles back to the truck we had a chance to talk.

"So what's the deal with your pack?" I asked.

His brows furrowed. "What'd you mean?"

"I mean, how does it work? When you guys are in wolf form, how do you talk and stuff? In howls?" He laughed, genuinely. It was cute but it made me blush. "I wasn't trying to be funny."

He smiled at me. "I know. No, we don't talk in howls. We can sort of communicate with our minds but only while we're in wolf form," he explained.

"Oh," I said simply, not sure how else to respond. "I have another question."

"Shoot."

"What happens to your, you know, clothes when you transform?"

His smile grew. "Well, they don't disappear into thin air if that's what you're thinking."

"I was not," I defended.

"Sure, sure. If we transform and we're not excpecting to, our clothes just get ripped apart but generally we just undress and also..." he hesitated.

"What?"

"We, uh, we hide clothes in certain places in the woods."

I couldn't help a sudden burst of laughter. "You mean like little pairs of shorts hidden in bushes?"

"Sort of," he blushed and I stopped laughing.

"This was really fun," I said as we approached the truck.

His smile returned. "Yeah, maybe we could do it again next week?"

I didn't even hesitate when I said, "Definitely."

I've been riding three times with Jake and it's been fun but today when he asked if I wanted to go again, I lied and told him I was busy at school because I had a date planned with Edward I felt like I hadn't spent much time with him lately and I missed him. I dressed in dark blue jeans and a purple v-neck with converse and then Alice forced on some makeup against my will. After this, Edward took me out to dinner at a little Italian place in Seattle where we sat cozily in a corner booth.

"You've been spending a lot of time with Jacob," Edward commented.

"I know. He's a good buddy," I replied with narrowed eyes.

"He's dangerous, Bella."

I rolled my eyes. "He hasn't hurt me yet."

"That's because you haven't made him angry yet," he insisted.

"Trust me, I tick him off plenty. Everytime I mention you or the family."

His eyes darkened. "Then you shouldn't do that," Edward scolded.

I sighed heavily. "I don't want to talk about Jacob. I wanna focus on us." He smiled at this and I beamed back.

"Alright. Us," he agreed.

So we spent a wonderful dinner together after that. Despite the fact that Edward doen't order food for himself, he likes to order for me. He's never given me a real reason but I think it's because he can't read my mind so he likes to guess. More often than not, he's correct. I ate the fancy (and delicious) lasagna while we talked about various things: school, Charlie, Mom's steely watch of us, our meadow, and then finally the most dawnting of all topics: the future.

"Don't you wanna go to college?" Edward asked.

I shrugged. "Anything I have a desire to learn, I'll learn in my own time, in my own way."

"So you're really going to stick with graduation? Have a nice happy day and then go home and spend two days in excrutiating pain?"

I rolled my eyes at his not-so-good attempt to sway me. "Opportunity cost."

"How so?" He sounded genuinly curious so I explained,

"I trade to days of my life to spend the rest of eternity where I belong with the people I care about most."

"That's not all you're trading," he noted. "Your also giving up aging, human friendship, and Charlie."

I pushed Charlie to the very back of my mind as I said confidently, "And yet, it's still worth it."

He shook his head and murmured, "You think that now."