Well, I've been gone for quite a while now, and now I'm returning with something a little different. I've had this chapter sitting around, and I've decided to take it somewhere. Where, exactly? I guess we'll find out.

Disclaimer - This is based off of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. She created the characters and the basic plot, and this is my spin on it. These are my words about her world. Stephenie Meyer has all of the rights to her characters and the parts that were taken from her plot.

Chapter One

"Bella! Come help me put these burgers on!"

Bella raised her eyes to look at Jacob but was caught in another sultry gaze instead. Oh, my gosh, she thought frantically, hoping her anxiety wasn't showing on her face. He's always watching me. Has he even looked away the entire time I've been here? She wasn't that interesting. She'd been sitting on Jacob's picnic table with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring down at her hands resting on her ankles for the past twenty minutes. It wasn't like she knew any of Jacob's Rez friends that she could talk to, other than Quil and Embry, who were absorbed in a football game being broadcasted on the radio. She'd never been invited to one of their barbeques before.

Bella had known Sam Uley was different the moment she first laid eyes on him. The first thing she'd noted, of course: his physical dissimilarities – his unusually large muscles were even bigger than those of his other friends, though the others' weren't what Bella would call normal. Maybe for a bodybuilder, but some of those boys were sixteen! How much did the group exercise to have arms that big? Oh, and they were constantly together. Maybe they took turns bench-pressing each other, she mused.

Sam also had piercing black eyes. Bella had never met anyone with eyes that dark; they were almost inhuman. The fact that made her stomach flop was that every time he looked at her, she could swear she could see them lighten to a chocolate brown that would be similar to her own. He also had to be at least seven feet tall, or close. Maybe six feet, eight or nine inches. She wished she knew for sure because it had to be a record height for a twenty-two-year-old man.

The group of friends was always together, and when Bella saw them in public, they all seemed to look to Sam Uley for directions. Right now, as he was sitting in a foldable chair with a beer in his hand, he nodded to Jacob as the younger man offered him a bag of potato chips. Earlier, a boy she thought was named Jared had asked Sam for permission to drive over to a girl's house to pick her up. Sam had allowed it, and now Jared was sitting on the other side of Jacob's small yard with a redheaded girl wrapped under his arm. It was as if Jacob was having this party for the sole purpose of getting the group together. As if they weren't always. Sam Uley did seem to be, as many people in Forks gossiped, the leader of the "cult".

Bella wasn't sure it was a cult, exactly. She'd only first come face-to-face with these boys, other than Jacob, for the first time today, but they seemed nice. Quil had offered her a brilliant smile, tossing winks her way every time she accidentally caught his gaze. Jared had offered her his overly-warm hand in friendship.

Ah, another. They all ran temperatures, which had Bella's motherly instincts rattling in their cage. You all need to see a doctor, she wanted to shout. You shouldn't have a natural one-hundred-point-six body temperature! But she kept quiet because they all had parents who surely would have noticed, and if they weren't concerned, then Bella shouldn't be either.

Well, Sam Uley didn't have parents, but the others sure did.

"Bella!" Jacob called again. She realized she'd just been sitting there, staring at the ants in the dirt for at least three minutes. "You okay, honey?" By then, Embry had already moved to help Jacob apply the burgers to the grill.

Bella looked up and again met Sam Uley's gaze unwillingly. At the term of endearment, those black eyes seemed to burn with a sudden flood of anger, but when Bella did not respond in the way a lover would, they seemed to relax again. His rigid fists flattened and he picked his beer back up. "I'm fine," Bella answered her best friend.

"Bella's just anxious because she's around so many attractive men," Quil called tauntingly. Bella turned, realizing that his voice was a lot closer to her than she would have imagined, and felt a hot hand clamp down on her shoulder. Quil's laughter roared above her as Embry joined in from across the yard. "Her ovaries are probably going wild."

But something about that statement wasn't funny to anyone. Bella watched a hushed silence remove any chuckling from the group of men as all eyes flew to Quil. Bella wasn't offended; Quil wasn't one with words and often resorted to innuendos in hope of expelling any awkward silence. He didn't mean anything by it. But something about this particular statement sure bothered his friends.

Or maybe . . .

Bella felt her eyebrows pull together in confusion. Maybe it wasn't so much what Quil had said, but more about who he was speaking to. Or who he had said it in front of . . .

Bella's attention shot over to Sam, who glared balefully at Quil. His upper lip pulled up in a sneer.

Jared broke the silence with, "Well, it's not like we can help that." Except he didn't say it in a joking way. Completely serious, he gripped the redheaded girl tighter to his side. "It's just what we are. Our nature. Primal, mating instincts. It's –"

Sam's voice rang across Jacob's yard, low, steady, and dominant. It held a don't-defy-me edge that sent all of the boys' eyes to the ground. "Enough, Jared," he scolded.

Jared's mouth snapped closed as he realized he'd been rambling. He returned his attention to his girlfriend, or whatever she was to him. Bella hadn't noticed them showing any sort of affection for each other.

"Bella," Jacob called again. He hadn't moved from the grill, but his worried glances hadn't gone unnoticed by both Bella and her silent watcher. "Seriously. Do you feel okay? Need me to take you home?" His eyebrows pulled together and Bella knew he really didn't want to have to do that. He'd specifically told her that he'd invited her to this picnic so that she could "meet the guys" and become part of his circle of friends instead of being the one friend he had to spend time with separately.

And Bella wanted to like these boys. They deserved a chance, so she shook her head. "I'm fine," she repeated. "Just hungry."

"Okay, guys," Jacob yelled. "Burgers are done. Let's make an orderly –"

But the grill was already surrounded by the pack of boys. Bella did a quick headcount and noticed seven heads. She tested herself with names: Jared, Embry, Quil, Paul, Seth, Brady, and – of course – Jacob. Bella blinked, noticing the one that was missing. Her eyes wandered around the yard and noticed that the Jared's redheaded guest had stayed in her seat underneath a large tree. She was now chatting with Leah, who Bella thought was Seth's sister. She'd never seen her before, but something about the way Leah shot daggers at Sam every so often made Bella think she wasn't in a friendly mood.

"Bella," Jacob murmured. She looked over to see him towering over her with a plate in his hand. On it were three burgers and at least ten pickles. "Go on, get your plate." He swung a leg over the bench of the picnic table next to her and plopped down. Embry and Quil settled in across from him.

"Okay," she mumbled, standing hesitantly. Paul, the one man she'd yet to say anything to, was still stacking his food onto a paper plate that looked like it was going to collapse if one more ounce was added.

Bella then remembered that she'd been looking for Sam before noting Leah, and her eyes shot to the chair he'd been previously occupying. For once, she didn't meet his eyes. Instead she saw that he was marching dominantly over to the grill, his back to her. Oh, God, Bella thought, her stomach knotting. What did she say to him? Hello, may I ask why you find me so interesting to look at?

"Bells, bring me a soda when you come back, would you?" Embry requested as she stumbled over to the food. She threw a nod in his direction, her eyes on Sam's back.

As if he could feel her presence behind him, Sam turned and looked down at her. Way down. His lips turned up a little at the corners as he handed her a plate with one burger and a few pickles on it. She stared up at him, confused.

"For you," he rumbled quietly.

Bella blinked twice. "Oh. Thank you."

He nodded and turned back to the grill where he was assembling his own tower of food. He didn't say anything more, so Bella asked, "Do you . . . do you . . . want to sit with me?"

A loud coughing echoed behind her, and she turned to see Jacob practically choking on whatever he'd just bit. Embry reached across the table to slap him on the back a few times, and Jacob quieted down. Bella turned back to Sam.

He was staring at her. "Okay."

Bella waited for him to finish stacking his own version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa before the two of them awkwardly ambled back to the table. In the grass, under the tree, Paul, Jared, Leah, and the redheaded girl were sitting in a circle. Seth was sort of in the middle of the two groups, sitting in the grass, with Brady. Jacob would turn around to say something to them every now and then, if only to keep the group from being completely divided into sections.

Bella didn't fit in any of those groups, she realized. Jared and his girlfriend were both drinking alcohol, but from Jacob had told her, Sam was the only one of them who could legally drink. Seth and Brady were fifteen and sixteen – too young for her to hang out with. She was seventeen-going-on-eighteen.

Is Sam too old for me? she thought, and then reprimanded herself. Where did that come from? But that embarrassment did not stop her from continuing with the same thought – the age difference was not that large. In a month, she would be eighteen, a legal adult, and he would still be twenty-two. Four years wasn't bad. Her own mother's second husband was eleven years younger. Yes, Renee was quite the cougar. Satisfied with her logic, Bella sucked in a deep breath and calmed down.

Jacob looked up as the two of them approached and hastily moved over to the seat Bella had been occupying on the end of the bench. Bella hesitantly sat down next to him, and Sam sat on her other side, sandwiching her between the two and in front of Quil. She felt the heat coming from them and thought she'd roast to death before she finished her burger.

Meanwhile, next to her Jake had already downed the burgers in two minutes. "Jeez, Jake, slow down," she mothered. "You'll make yourself sick."

"Hey, Sam!" Jared suddenly hollered. Sam's head shot in his direction. Bella looked up into his eyes, but he was staring over her head, eyebrows pulling together in concern. "Collin called. He's coming over now. He's got . . . news." Jared glanced down at the redhead nervously.

"We'll have a discussion when he arrives," Sam informed the group. "Perhaps the women can prepare dessert while we talk." He looked down to Bella, and she nodded.

"Of course," she whispered.

Fifteen minutes later, after all thirty burgers had been consumed by those boys, Bella found herself standing in Jacob's small, green kitchen with two girls she'd never met before. Watching out the window, she saw the boys all gathered at the picnic table. Sam was standing at the head, arms crossed, eyes angry. The others didn't look happy, either, as Collin stood at the other end, explaining something with wide hand gestures. As if he knew she was watching him, Sam looked up and met her gaze. She saw his anger fade away, if only momentarily, and then he looked away.

"Hi, there!" a cheery voice rang in her ear. Bella turned to see Jared's girlfriend smiling at her. "I'm Kim. It's so nice to meet you. You're Jacob's friend, right? That's good. Maybe you know your way around this kitchen and we can get this dessert going. Leah? Did you bring the whipped cream? I always forget the whipped cream, and Jared loves it, so –"

"I got it," Leah interrupted. Her voice had a sad, depressed note that Bella hadn't been expecting, and suddenly she felt bad for the girl without knowing what was wrong.

Kim's face turned sympathetic. "Oh, sweetie. I know you're upset, but really, you two only went on one date, and you said he's a bad kisser."

"I didn't say bad," Leah defended herself. "I said passionate. That is not the same thing at all!"

"But you said that passionate kissing is not what you wanted so soon," Kim reminded, "and that is what made it bad."

"He doesn't want to date anymore," Leah continued, "so it doesn't even matter." She turned her eyes to the tub of whipped cream on the counter and popped the lid. "Get a spoon, would you?"

It took Bella a moment to realize that the words were directed towards her, being that Bella was the one of the three who'd been in this kitchen the most. She sat up straighter and yanked open the silverware drawer. "Here," she mumbled.

"You know what you need?" Kim asked rhetorically. "You need to forget about Sam Uley."

Bella's heart leaped in her chest. Leah had been on a date with Sam?

Why hadn't he been staring longingly at Leah, then? But Bella wasn't exactly sure she wanted it that way. Perhaps his gaze on her hadn't been so unwelcome after all.

"I don't know," Leah sighed.

"Why shouldn't you?" Kim demanded. She turned and got a tray of already-baked cupcakes out of a bag she'd brought with her. "Help me put icing on these. Sam Uley has already moved on, Leah. He hasn't looked at you once since you've been here." Bella thought she saw Kim's eyes glance to her for just a second, and Bella wondered if she'd noticed Sam's gaze constantly watching her. "He told you he wants to see other people. You should, too."

"And who would you have me date?" Leah snapped.

"I don't know," Kim said, an annoyed edge creeping into her tone. "Collin? He's single."

"He's also sixteen."

"Your point being?" Kim looked over to Bella. "Can you go grab my purse out in the yard? My hands are . . . well" – she held her hands up, showing Bella the icing that covered them – "a little messy. My cell phone is in there, and my mom doesn't know Jared brought me here, so I'm expecting a call when she gets home from work."

She nodded, realizing that they really didn't need her for anything else. Besides, it was awkward for Bella to listen to their conversation while just standing there in the middle of Jacob's kitchen. She pushed the screen door out of the way and stepped into the yard.

The heads of all nine men whipped in her direction, eyes angry and shoulders tense. Bella stopped dead, realizing that she'd probably just interrupted a very important and private conversation. She met Sam's gaze and his eyes softened. "Bella," he called, "what do you need?"

"J-just . . ." Her voice failed. "Just Kim's . . . purse." Oh wow, did that sound stupid. Bella almost grimaced at herself, but withheld it.

Jared sat up straighter. "Is she okay?"

"Yes," Bella said, and explained Kim's situation. Jared nodded and settled back down. Bella stumbled over to the tree the couple had been perched under just ten minutes before and bent to snatch the denim bag from the grass. Straightening, she stood and spun to return it to its owner, and once again, her gaze was met with the dark, serious . . . sexy eyes of Sam Uley. Only now, taking his image in and remembering Leah's obvious interest in him, this gaze did not make Bella uncomfortable. He was an attractive man – any girl could see that in his toned arms, well-defined chest and abdominals, and hair that seemed to have been made messy on purpose. Bella's eyes swooped over him and then retreated to his face before she let them travel any lower.

Only Sam's eyes had shifted from her face to the rest of her body.

Oh my God. Is he . . . is he checking me out? She blushed.

She didn't know exactly how long they stood there staring at each other. The only thing she could think about was the way his fingers seemed to tighten around his forearms while his throat wiggled with a swallow. She wrapped the strap of Kim's purse around her index finger nervously, feeling her heart rate increase and her hands begin to shake. She'd never had this reaction to a man before – she'd never been this nervous to be around someone. She'd never felt so . . . attracted to someone.

But most of all, she'd never felt as beautiful as Sam Uley's stare made her feel. And that installed a new fear inside her.

Someone at the picnic table cleared his throat. Sam looked away from her, towards the boy who'd broken the comfortable silence. Well, comfortable for the two of them. Probably not for the teenage boys watching them.

Sam's face morphed quickly from gentle to angry as he glared down at Jacob. Bella blushed, embarrassed that she'd forgotten where she was. There she stood in Jacob's yard, her best friend, who had invited her there to spend time with him, and she was more focused on someone else. She was ashamed of herself, upset that she'd let Sam weasel his way into her mind.

Bella found her feet again and quickly reentered the house. She hadn't missed much – the cupcakes were being decorated with two things that Bella was sure hadn't been Leah Clearwater's ideas: purple icing and rainbow sprinkles. Kim looked up from her work and smiled. "Thanks so much. I hope they didn't give you a hard time."

Bella grinned back, pleased to have made some sort of friend during Jacob's outing. That's what she'd come for, right? To spend time with Jacob and meet the other people he spent his time with. Well, there. Done. Now perhaps he would give it a rest with the constant invitations down to the Reservation.

Bella sighed. She wasn't fooling herself. She knew that she would jump at the next time Jacob asked her to join them in some sort of outing. Now she had something to prove – to him, to Sam . . . to herself.

She would not let him distract her from the goals she'd set for herself – high school, college, life of her own. In that order. And "super-hot boyfriend with a body like the Greek god Zeus and the personality of a rock" was not included in that plan until after she got the life she'd always dreamed of.

She glanced out the window once more at the clan that had gathered. They all sat more relaxed now, lightly tapping on the table with calloused hands and chatting loudly. Sam's stance, too, had relaxed. Now he nodded along to something Paul was saying, but – as he had before – he looked up as if he felt her gaze on him. He did not smile, but something in his eyes changed – lightened, warmed. Bella's heart fluttered.

Alright, Sam Uley, she thought. Challenge accepted.

Thank you for reading. Please leave me a review. My favorite thing is to have my readers copy and paste their favorite line from the chapter.

Please tell me what you think! If you'd like to see more, tell me so. If you hated it, then don't continue reading.

I will base my decision about continuing this story off of the response I receive.

Until next time!

~Sparkling Amethyst