His Wolf Pup - a Jasper Hale Story

63- A Picnic

That weekend our entire family sat together, just enjoying each other's company.

Then my phone buzzed, letting me know someone had texted me. I looked at it to see a text from Sam inviting our entire family to a picnic in the woods on neither Quileute nor Cullen land.

"Is he serious?" Edward asked, reading my mind.

"I think so," I told him, texting Sam back to ask for more details.

"What is it?" Jasper asked me.

Sam sent another text with specific details, letting me know he was very serious.

"Sam just invited us all to a picnic with the pack tomorrow on neutral ground," I told the family.

"He does know we don't eat, right?" Emmet asked seriously.

"He knows; he just thought it was a nice thing to do and that maybe we could all play a game of soccer together," I told him.

"Soccer?" Rosalie questioned.

"Yeah, they play it all the time on the Rez."

"We should go," Carlisle said. "If they invited us, we should go for sure."

With that settled, we ended up going to the best picnic I've ever been to. Everyone was there. The entire pack had come, and those that had found their imprint brought them as well, and our entire family was there.

As we walked up to where Sam had set up an elaborate picnic, I could tell most of our family was tense. While Jasper and I had spent a lot of time with the pack, they had hardly interacted with them.

Then Sam saw us and quickly ran over in excitement. "Hey, I'm so glad you guys came," he told everyone. "I figured this was long overdue."

"Thank you," Carlisle told him. "We're really glad you reached out."

Everyone in the pack looked over as Sam ran over and smiled as they saw us. Seth decided to go overboard by yelling, "Jasper!" And running at him in excitement. The two of them did a weird handshake as Seth said, "I call you on my team."

"No fair!" Embry yelled at him. "You can't call Jasper."

"It seems he already did, Embry," Jasper yelled back, a small smile on his face.

I laughed slightly at them and grabbed Jasper's hand, pulling him to where the food was set out, leaving our confused family behind. They had every reason to be confused, seeing as they had never seen Jasper this relaxed around humans before. Because of all the time he spent with the pack, he had warmed up to them considerably.

Everyone slowly mixed in with each other. Emily and Esme started talking, and Sam spoke to Carlisle. Paul and Embry started challenging Emmet and Noah to arm wrestling contests while Rachel Black (Paul's imprint) and Kim (Embry's imprint) exchanged fashion tips with Rosalie and Alice. Seth, Leah, Quill, and Claire sat together and ate on the grass. Quill had just imprinted on Claire, and even though she was a lot younger, we all loved hanging out with her.

That's when Edward walked up behind Jasper and me. "I don't understand imprinting," Edward told me honestly. "How did Quill imprint on such a young kid?"

"It's just kinda what happens sometimes," I told him. "Quill has just taken on the role of an older brother, and maybe one day, when she's older, they'll get together, or maybe they won't. Sometimes imprints just become really close like family instead of anything romantic. Either way, Quill will love her one way or another."

"And her parents are okay with it?" he asked me.

"Well yeah. They know the whole pack would know if he did something weird, and we would attack him," I replied.

"Besides," Jasper told him, "he doesn't feel like that toward her. He treats her like a sister."

"Alright! Game time!" Sam yelled, gathering everyone who could play together in the middle of the field.

"I already called Jasper," Seth said excitedly.

"That is not fair," Embry complained.

"There are literally seven other vampires here, Embry," I told him. "I'm pretty sure there is enough to be on both teams."

"How do we split it evenly?" Sam asked me, seeing as I knew everyone the best.

Instead of answering, I just turned to Alice, as did the rest of our family. She could see the best outcomes of teams. She spoke up immediately. "It should be Sam, Seth, Leah, Jasper, Emmet, Emma, Rosalie, and me on Team 1. Then Paul, Embry, Jacob, Quill, Edward, Carlisle, Noah, and Esme on Team 2."

We looked over at Edward to see him concentrating on Alice before saying, "Yeah, that's the fairest pairing. She can't see clearly who wins with those teams."

"Then it's settled," I said, turning to the pack who were staring at us with wide eyes.

"That was the coolest conversation I've ever seen," Seth said in awe.

"That takes some getting used to," Jacob mumbled.

Everyone gathered together with their teams. Our team huddled up to talk strategy. After a few minutes, we were all ready to play the hardest soccer game ever. With only empowered people playing, it was sure to be interesting.

From the start, it was chaos. Soccer is much harder to keep track of than baseball, and with the vampires' added speed, it was chaos. The points were basically un-trackable, but Emily assured us multiple times that her notebook scoresheet was correct.

A few notable moments happened. Seth tripped Edward once and scored a point off of it. Carlisle and Sam slammed into each other at full speed, making them both fall down; Paul and Noah ended up working together to score that point. Esme got so into the game that she tackled me, which would normally have been a foul, but instead, it let Jacob have an open shot. Rosalie and Leah even worked together to outrun Edward. It was a fantastic game of chaos.

Then, as Noah was kicking the ball down the makeshift field, Alice froze in her spot, mumbling, "vision." Noah completely ignored the game and sped over to her, wrapping his arms around her protectively.

Everyone else on the field stopped what they were doing, waiting to see what Alice would say, but Edward spoke first.

"Oh no," Edward mumbled.

"What is it?" Carlisle asked, joining Noah by her side.

"The decision has been made," Edward said, looking over at Carlisle.

Alice came out of the vision, stumbling into Noah before saying, "The army's coming here."

"When?" Esme asked her.

"Thursday."

"Wait," Jacob called out. "What army?"

Jasper tensed up beside me as he said, "Newborns, our kind."

Sam looked over at me, saying, "Why haven't we heard about this?"

"It didn't think it was that important," I told him.

"Emma, they're after you, and you didn't tell Sam?" Emmet asked, annoyed.

"They're after Emma?" Seth asked, ready to help.

"There's so many of them," Edward mumbled, dazed.

"Can we help?" Sam asked, looking away from me and over at Carlisle.

Carlisle instead looked over at Jasper, who answered, saying, "They would give us the numbers, and the newborns wouldn't expect them, which could give us an edge."

"Then we'll be there," Sam said.