Endlessly ▸ Jasper Hale [4]

XVIII

EIGHTEEN; WHITE CHRISTMAS

"If I hear All I Want For Christmas Is You one more time, I might put my head through this table." Cassadee said as the Mariah Carey song played on the radio for the tenth time in the last two hours. "Finish your dinner, girls." She said, watching the children, mostly Eden, sing along and slowly try to creep towards the presents under the tree.

Unlike Cassadee, Eden and Renesmee loved the song, they sang it every time it came on. And as much as she loved the little girls, the singing only made it worse. Surely there were more popular Christmas songs.

"This is payback for all the times you sang I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." Charlie told Cassadee, a grin on his face. "And made Bella do backup vocals."

"Is that your way of saying we should recreate that for the girls?" Cassadee teased her father with a raised brow. "I'm sure they would love to see that."

"I would most definitely love to see that." Seth chimed in with a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"You really don't." Jacob replied, "Cassie is a terrible singer."

"It's called being dramatic." Cassadee shot back, "You should know, you're the biggest drama queen of us all."

"Takes one to know one."

"He got you there, C." Bella said, smiling at her sister's eye roll. "You were the biggest drama queen until Jake."

"I would've thought Edward was the biggest drama queen." Jasper said, smirking at Edward as he rolled his eyes.

Bella got up and took her plate to the kitchen, looking outside. She froze when she saw the snow outside, which didn't go unnoticed by anyone at the table.

"Okay," Cassadee said to bring the attention to herself. "Why don't you girls help clean the table and then you can open presents?"

"You don't have to tell me twice." Eden said, hopping from her chair and taking her empty plate to the kitchen sink.

"The snow is sticking." Bella whispered as Edward walked up behind her.

"Hey, we still have today."

Bella smiled at Charlie and Sue as they cleaned the table with Eden and Renesmee. "I'm so glad Charlie found somebody to take care of him."

"Isabella," Cassadee said in a warning tone, making Bella cringe. "Stop talking like we're all dying tomorrow."

"How do you know that we aren't?" Bella shot back at her sister.

Cassadee crossed her arms, earning an 'uh-oh' from Eden as she left the table and hurried into the living room, pulling Renesmee with her. "Mama isn't happy."

"Maybe we should follow the girls, Edward." Jasper told his brother, giving his wife and sister-in-law as much privacy as possible.

"I don't know what's going to happen." Cassadee told her sister, "We could all die, who knows? however, I'm not going to spend my last possible day worrying about what is going to happen. I'd rather enjoy it with my family. I don't want Dad or the girls to look back on this day and remember how stressed we look when we could just focus on the now."

"Well, like you said before, if you die, the girls do too." Bella said, looking at her daughter and niece. "I think that's the hardest part for me to deal with."

"Then we just have to make sure that it stays as civil as possible."

"Meaning that we need to let Carlisle do all the talking."