A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts!

Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.

Chapter 25 – Seamlessly Devoted


Edward:

I sat in the truck and answered a few emails while I waited for Bella and Tristan's camp day to end. There were still about twenty minutes left in the morning program, a shortened one for children of Tristan's age and accompanying limited attention span. Periodically, mid-word and mid-thought, my fingers paused on the keyboard, and I stole a peek through the windshield. I didn't expect to catch them headed my way as much as I was hoping, eager, more accurately, to see them so that we could start our day together. But, Lord knew Tristan loved his days at camp – running free around the lush grounds of Forks' Recreation Area with his little buddies, Esme and Quil while being looked after by his "Aunty Rose," Leah, and his favorite camp counselor, who'd been missing from camp for a couple of weeks. Today of all days, with the return of that favorite counselor, Tristan wouldn't want an early end to camp.

Honestly, as anxious as I was to see them, the fact that they weren't ending early was a good sign. With a little luck, it meant the day had gone off more than without a hitch, but wonderfully. Bella deserved a great day, the best of days. And as much as an undeniably significant part of me had been sorely tempted to do as her godfather suggested this morning and urge her to take another day off, to spend the day home with me relaxing, maybe curled into one another, maybe even…well, I wouldn't pressure her into anything she wasn't ready for. Or into any self-imposed limitations. What she was anxious about was a return to her routine.

And part of her routine – our routine – now consisted of my meeting them at the tents at ending time so that I could assist in clean-up. In my case, it was honestly a self-serving task. The quicker the camping site was set to rights, the quicker I could whisk Bella and Tristan away. Sighing, I shut the laptop and gave up on dividing my attention between summer work and my heart. It was clear which one was winning. Instead, I kept my gaze fixed on the windshield.

From here, the grouping of white pole tents, with their pointed frames set up in a concentric row, resembled miniaturized versions of the peaked mountains standing sentry behind them. The panoramic view of the Olympic mountain range alone was a picturesque selling point for a jaunt into Forks. I snorted into the silence of the truck, wondering if Sue, Forks' premiere tourism agent and metaphorical cheerleader, had purposely set up the tents to mimic the mountains. On top of being a great individual overall, Sue had a brilliant business mind. Had she lived in New York City as opposed to Forks, I had no doubt she would've earned herself a corner office had she wanted it.

Then again, her goddaughter by marriage was no less brilliant. After all, the reason so many tourists this summer even knew about Forks' wondrous landscape and views was due to the article she wrote before she was my girlfriend, the serendipitous article that first led me to venture across the country and into Forks.

Sue's husband – Forks' Chief of police – was also a good guy. Yet, unlike Sue and her goddaughter, Charlie Swan was currently on my shit list. Which was fine because I was confident I was on his too. I was also somewhat sure he and I would figure it out; we'd developed a pretty good friendship over the summer before I had the gall to fall for his goddaughter.

But I had no time to worry about Charlie just now, even if I got where he was coming from, misdirected route and all. I had heftier concerns, namely, tonight's conversation with his goddaughter. I was still trying to figure out how to ask her to spend the rest of her life with Tristan and me without making the prospect sound too daunting.

I mean, yes, I'd done it once before – asked a woman to spend her life with me. But this was massively different, not only because I had a son now, and such a request encompassed more than just the joys of couplehood. Asking Bella to become a permanent part of my life would also encompass a possible move as well as the glories and tribulations of forming a family. Did she want that…a move, and Tristan and me, forever?

But it was more than that. The first time I'd ever asked a woman to spend her life by my side, I'd been a young, somewhat arrogant, yet wholly naïve law student. Back then, I had no idea what it meant to feel rather than analyze, to choose someone not merely because you cared about them and they fit your lifestyle. Back then, I'd had no clue how need fit into that equation.

Had I loved Kate? Yes. Yes, I loved Kate when we married. We were both law students with similar goals and lifestyles. We made sense…at the time.

Had I needed Kate?

The truth was I hadn't known what it meant to need, to know without the shadow of a doubt, that there was another half to your soul, a half you hadn't even realized was missing until you saw how much of a better person you were with that other half accounted for, how that other half made you whole.

So, yeah, there were pretty huge potential ramifications to the said conversation.

With the truck's windows down – because who needed air-conditioning with the cool mountain breeze – a symphony of sounds and voices rose and fell; shouts, laughter, the squeak of rubber sneakers hitting the pavement, the thumping bounce of basketballs, the trill of a whistle being blown. A flurry of like-hued shirts in motion accompanied all of it.

Although technically too far away to be discernable, I was convinced that I'd managed to make out a small body with copper hair among the distant crowd of unrecognizable features. Close to him stood someone with a pair of longer, shapelier legs. This shape also boasted the dark, flowing mane of a goddess. When I caught myself smiling softly at the faceless-from-here figure, I laughed at myself. Man, I was deep in the trenches.

Just then, the cell phone rang. I edged my eyes downward, reading the phone number off of the console, then sighed as I checked the time – eight minutes for the end of the camp day – and decided to let the call drop. Emmett, despite being a police deputy in this small town, could rarely end a conversation in under eight minutes.

Again, my phone rang, this time with a Facetime call. That caller usually needed at least a quarter of an hour. Again, I let the call drop.

But she Facetimed again. It rang once, twice, three times.

With another sigh, I answered.

"I thought you were going to let the call drop again."

Alice was propped against her pillow, her blue hair splayed over it like a network of pulsing veins. Judging by her appearance and the time on the East Coast, she was obviously just waking. Though newly awoken or not, she managed to raise a brow to impressive heights while instilling her tone with a note of accusation, even if I hadn't, in fact, let the call drop.

"Good morning to you, too, Al, and I considered letting the call drop again, but knowing you, you would've tried a third time. And a fourth."

"I would've," she confirmed with a shameless chuckle. "You know I don't like being ignored."

"Yeah, your constantly changing hair color attests to that fact. Wasn't it purple a couple of days ago?"

Her back arched off her pillow with her laughter. "You noticed!"

I rolled my eyes. "Very attractive, but I've only got a few short minutes 'til Tristan and Bella are done with camp, so."

She shot me a smirk. "So what you're saying is that you've got about sixty seconds to spare your little sister."

"Basically," I said. Then I offered her a contrite smile because I loved my pain-in-the-ass little sister and was looking forward to seeing her in a couple of days. "But I promise I'll call you back later."

"No problem, big bro. We'll talk later."

She offered me a thumbs up, agreeing breezily – a little too easily. My brow lifted in curiosity. As much as I loved my little sister, it meant that I was also familiar with her ways. Magnanimous patience wasn't one of her virtues.

"What?" I asked somewhat sharply.

"What, what?" she volleyed back, her broad smile way too innocent and failing to detract from her shifty eyes. My suspicion that she was hiding something only grew.

"What's going on, Al?"

She bit her lip. "What makes you think something's going on?"

"Seriously?"

"You said you only have sixty seconds or so."

"Then speak fast."

My gaze panned to the windshield. In the distance, I could about make out the same two figures from before, but their hands were up in the air now in a waving gesture to the first departing campers. I then noticed that various parents, also waiting for their campers, began to exit their cars around me. In the next moment, I accidentally made eye contact with Jane and Bree, a pair of moms with children in Tristan's same group. Though I still wasn't sure which was which.

"Hi, Edward!"

"Edward, hi!"

"Are you headed over to camp?"

"Want us to wait for you?"

"Yeah, we'll wait for you!"

Resisting the urge to groan, I offered them a wave that I hoped didn't come off as half-hearted as it felt, if only for the fact that they were the parents of a couple of Bella's and Tristan's fellow campers.

"Uh, thanks, but I'm on a call." I held up the phone as proof. "I'll head over in a bit."

Their shoulders collectively fell, and they stood in place despite my assurance.

"Aww. Well, we'll let Bella know you're on your way," one of them said before leaning into the other's shoulder and whispering none too covertly, "the lucky little wench."

The other one giggled. "Yeah, lucky wench."

Turning as one, they finally headed toward camp.

"Aww, but I do love Bella! She's so good with the kids!"

"Yeah! It's so good to have her back – and not just cuz that hot-ass man a'hers is gonna be hanging around camp again instead of rushing off to see her!"

"Yeah, not just cuz of that!"

They laughed together as they walked off.

I returned my attention to my sister.

"The fuck was that? Big bro, sounds like you may still need that radar-"

"Al, focus. You're making me nervous. Are you okay? Are Mom and Dad-"

She rolled her eyes. "Everyone's okay, Edward. It's nothing like that. Honestly," she chortled, shrugging, "it's nothing. I don't know even think there's a point in-"

"Spit it out."

"Ugh, fine. Tanya called me again last night to ask about you."

I blinked slowly, and despite my outwardly inscrutable reaction, a fissure of unease rolled in my stomach.

One lonely, confusing night, six months after Kate's death, her twin sister and I fell into a regrettable conversation where she disclosed secrets she'd shared with Kate. One secret, in particular, left me bewildered: that it had actually been Tanya and not Kate, whom I'd struck up a conversation with one fateful day at the NYU Law School library. Apparently, the identical twin sisters had a lifelong habit of covertly switching places when the need or desire struck them. In this case, Tanya decided to pose as her twin, and after a couple of hours of conversation, she followed up the deception by giving me Kate's number rather than her own. It was a switcheroo that eventually led to marriage and a son between Kate and me, and according to Tanya, to regrets on her part.

Even worse, as much as this confession shocked and disturbed me, somehow, it also led to Tanya and me ending up lip-locked and with her straddling my lap. And even though I came to my senses after a few moments and decisively guided her off of me, to this day, the shame brought a mortified flush to my cheeks. Even now, I wondered if Alice saw it through the small phone screen despite being unaware of what had occurred that night. It wasn't a mistake I'd ever shared with anyone.

Either way, it wasn't by accident that Tanya and I had had little contact with one another since that night. Although I did feel a measure of regret that Tristan might've been missing out on a relationship with his mother's twin sister because of my mistakes, the truth was that Tanya had never been the warmest of aunts.

Now, twice in the space of half a summer, Tanya had reached out to Alice to enquire about me.

"And?" I prompted.

"And I don't know, Edward," Alice shrugged, sounding perplexed. "She was really weird. Like, she started off by asking me how Tristan is acclimating to his summer up in Potato Masher-"

"Forks."

"-and I said 'just fine,' but like, at the same time, I wondered why she keeps calling me to ask when she has your number and can just call and ask you – or ask her stalker of a mother," Alice snorted, "how Tristan is doing up there."

"Well, Chelsea calls Trist almost every night, but she's his grandmother, so not really a stalker."

"So why doesn't Tanya just ask her? And, I mean, it's not like I haven't made it clear just how annoying I think she is." Her voice suddenly took on a high pitch, and she flicked her messy, blue hair, batting her eyelashes, all in what I correctly assumed was an imitation of Tanya. "Oh, look at me! I'm so beautiful with my long, blond hair."

I chuckled despite the knot now in my stomach. "Yeah, you used to do that right in front of her."

"Exactly!" Alice said. "So, like, why is she bugging me?"

"Mm," I said in lieu of the possible reason for Tanya's reluctance to call me directly. Meanwhile, in the distance, "So was that it?"

"No! As I said, she started with that but got even weirder. She said she'd heard you had a girlfriend-"

"Wait, what?" I spat.

"Yeah. I didn't tell her, so don't look at me like that!"

"No, no," I said more calmly, letting her know the deep frown I now sported wasn't meant for her. "I know it wasn't you. It was likely Chelsea."

"You told Chelsea?" Alice looked surprised.

"I haven't come out and actually said the words, but Tristan mentions Bella regularly. And though Chelsea hasn't come out and asked me anything directly, she's made a couple of comments to make it clear she suspects."

"Oh. Well, there you go. Anyway, I replied to Tanya that you're a single, grown man, and your love life is your business."

"Mm," I said again, nodding slowly.

It was an unsettling phone call Tanya had placed to Alice, but as with Charlie, it couldn't be my main concern at the moment. And although I knew that, at some point, and at some point soon, I'd have to tell Bella about that shameful night, especially if I wanted to meld our lives together beyond this summer, I also had another confession to make to her that trumped the Tanya confession – and due to my upcoming trip to San Francisco, more pressing. I gripped my hair because, somehow, the secrets were piling up.

Meanwhile, in the distance, parents were beginning to reunite with their campers.

"Okay, well, if she calls you again, let me know, and I'll-"

"There's more!"

I sighed.

"She kept digging for information, and no longer even about Tristan! So, I lost my patience and was like, 'Look here, TeeTee,' cuz you know she hates it when I call her TeeTee." Alice snickered and added as an aside, "Remember when I was like thirteen, at Kate's and your baby shower, I made up that tongue twister: 'TeeTee takes too long to take a turd then turns to tricks-'"

"Alice."

"I said, 'Look here, Tee-Tee, since you've got so many questions about my brother's love life, why don't you call him and ask him? I'd bet he'd love that sort of interrogation into his private affairs, and he won't curse you out at all.'"

Alice chuckled mischievously but then shook her head. "And though she backtracked a bit after that, she got even fucking weirder!"

'Oh, no,'" Alice said, once again taking up that high-pitched imitation of Tanya. "'I just want to make sure that whatever woman he allows around himself and our nephew is devoted to fitting them just right. Because there are loads of strange and unfit individuals in the world nowadays.'

"What the fuck?" I breathed now, unable to restrain the words.

"I'm telling you! And although I gave her a look that clearly communicated that I think she's one strange individual, she finished with, 'I just hope that if Edward is ever ready to invite another woman into his and Tristan's lives, it'll be someone who can seamlessly become part of their world, as if she'd always been there.'"

With that, Alice stopped. In the distance, I saw the dark-haired beauty and her fellow counselors cleaning up the campsite while Tristan offered his brand of assistance.

"Is that it?"

Alice scoffed. "Is that it? I mean, yeah. After that, I told her I had more important things to get to, like counting every last pube on my vagina, and I hung up before I could find out her thoughts on that as well, but like, what the fuck did all that crap even mean? Someone devoted and seamless, as if she'd always been there? Who the hell has always been there?"

I didn't reply, although my nostrils flared and my jaw tightened. My gaze panned back to the windshield.

"All right, Al, I've got to go."

"That's it?" Alice spat. "You don't think that was weird as all hell?"

"Yeah, it was weird as all hell," I retorted more sharply than I meant to. After all, none of this was Alice's fault. "But," I sighed, "Bella and Tristan's camp day ended a few minutes ago, and I can see them cleaning up from here. And I usually help them."

"Oh!" Alice exclaimed, and when I looked back at the screen, the scowl she'd been sporting was now replaced with sudden concern and chagrin. "How is Bella? Is she still feeling better?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "Thanks. Yeah, she's still feeling better. Don't worry. You're still invited to stay with us in a couple of days."

The scowl returned. "That's not why I was asking, asshole. I may not know her yet, but I know that she means…the world to Trist and you, which makes her important to me."

"I know," I said softly, nodding. "Al, you're going to love her. And she's going to love you too."

Alice sighed successively. "I hope so. But, what are you going to do about your nutjob of an ex-sister-in-law and her nosiness?"

I shook my head, exhaling a heavy breath. "Don't worry about her. I'll…take care of that later. I've got more important things going on right now."

"Yeah. Like planning for your little sister's crashing your vacation up in Can Opener?"

"Forks, and your kitchen appliance references are getting ridiculously larger, and no, like getting off this call and getting to my son and my woman."

Alice belly-laughed so hard she dropped the phone, and all I saw was an irregular and twisted view of her crumpled sheets. Before she could retrieve the phone, I shouted out,

"Al, I'll call you later to get your flight info!"

And with that, I ended the call, hopped out of the truck, and sprinted to the campsite. Both Tristan and Bella saw me coming, the former taking off on his miniature legs and running toward me.

"Dad! Dad! I's and Bella had such a fun day! Dad! Dad!"

While the latter…well, she stood and watched us, with the mountain breeze billowing around her long hair and the day's rare sunshine making it look like threads of silk. She wore her shades, a necessity in the sun and after an episode, but the most beautiful smile in the world lit up her gorgeous face.

With every step closer to both she and Tristan, all my concerns about Tanya and Chelsea, an impending trip to San Francisco, necessary confessions, and even my nerves about our upcoming talk dissipated like the morning mist displaced by the afternoon sun.

Tristan jumped and landed in my arms. From there, and with an exaggerated groan, I hefted him above my shoulders. He shrieked, giggling his childlike giggles.

"Dad! Dad! We saw cat-pillers today! And Bella showed us how they turn into bootiful butterflies, and we went on a hike 'round the rec with Bella and Leah, and we…"

On and on he went while I ooh'd and ahh'd appropriately, allowing him to share to his heart's content - until we reached Bella.

We stood a few feet apart for a few seconds, smiling like two people marveling at having found one another after mutually difficult paths. And I got the feeling…I'd always marvel about finding her in this usually overcast corner of the world, whose path I'd found myself on by an inexplicable whim. Seated on my shoulders, Tristan was still going when I closed the space between Bella and me. Holding him securely with one hand, I carefully and slowly lifted Bella's shades with the other while simultaneously forming a makeshift visor for her.

Her eyes struck me as they had from the beginning. It was as if all the constellations in the universe – those stars her godfather had taught her to name – gathered and existed within her dark depths.

She grinned up at me. "You're late, Edward Cullen, Esquire, Attorney-at-Law."

I snorted. "I'm late. I'm sorry, my gorgeous Lumberella. Blame Alice."

Chuckling, she shook her head. "Always tagging an excuse on to your apologies."

Laughing, I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers. And the words were right there, the ones she'd made me wait to say. But I'd hold off on them just a bit longer. Until tonight, and then…

"Was it a good day, love?" I breathed instead against her mouth. Meanwhile, on my shoulders, Tristan shouted,

"Kisses! Kisses!"

Bella nodded, then backed away just enough to hold my gaze for a few moments before guiding my hand back down so that her shades covered her eyes once more.

We'd learn.

"Edward, you and Tristan are here. It's always a good day."

With a chest that felt close to bursting, I wrapped my free arm around her shoulders, leading us back to the tent.

"And by the way, don't call me Edward Cullen, Esquire, Attorney-at-Law, anymore."

She stopped walking and looked at me.

"I finally got around to changing my automatic signature."

"Why?" she breathed after a moment.

"Oh, I just think it's…time for a few changes."

And with that, I led us forward again.


A/N: Thoughts?

Facebook: Stories by PattyRose

Twitter: PattyRosa817

Threads: Still debating the merits vs. drawbacks of yet another social media site. ;)

"See" you soon!