"So what's the verdict?" I asked, standing in front of Carlisle's desk in his home office.
Carlisle was reading through one of his many journals, shaking his head.
Standing next to me was Rosalie, a pensive look on her face.
She wasn't happy about the tests Carlisle had to do on Liam to find out if he was actually like me.
Thankfully, the combined efforts of Carlisle and me managed to sway her just enough for her to agree.
These tests weren't anything insane, like cutting off a couple of his fingers and seeing if they would grow back; no, these were simple tests.
Carlisle started by testing Liam's reflexes, which he passed, showing a higher level of reflex than a normal kid his age.
After that, it was muscle mass, which was at a normal amount for a kid his size and age.
But even though he had a normal amount, he could lift more than the average kid, managing to lift 30 pounds easily.
The real breakthrough happened by accident when Liam scraped his knee while playing outside under Carlisle's supervision for just that moment.
He saw firsthand as the scrape healed itself within a minute.
"It's just as you had thought," Carlisle said, looking up at me and Rose. "There's no doubt he shares some of the same abilities as Adam."
I smiled, looking over at Rose. "Do you know what that means?" I asked.
She smiled back at me, the tension she had been trying to hide finally relaxing as she nodded her head. "He won't need to be changed."
"Or we wouldn't have to live on and watch him grow old if he decided he didn't want to be a vampire," I said, giving her shoulder a soft squeeze.
"Pfft! That wouldn't have happened," Rosalie said, turning and leaving the room, probably to check on Liam, who I could hear talking to Emmett and Edward.
Focusing my attention back on Carlisle, I raised a brow. "What did you figure out about his growth?"
Carlisle shrugged, leaning back in his leather chair. "There hasn't been enough time to really tell. Give me another month, and I'll have answers." I nodded my head, understanding.
"I just hope he won't stop aging until he's at least twenty or so."
Carlisle agreed with me.
Leaving Carlisle's office, I made my way into the lounge room, where Edward and Emmett were playing chess on the coffee table while Esme was reading a book in her chair by the fireplace.
"Where did Rose and Liam go?" I asked.
"Outside," Edward said, moving one of his rooks and putting Emmett in checkmate.
Walking to the back door, I stopped just before opening it, watching through the glass windows as Rosalie tossed a pile of red and orange leaves into the air over Liam's head.
"Again! Again!" Liam shouted through loud giggles.
This was the life I had always wanted.
It might have taken thousands of years to get, but sometimes the greatest things in life are worth waiting for.
Opening the door, I joined my wife and son in their fun, sending large piles of leaves into the air to come showering down on our heads as if it was actually raining leaves.
---
1952
In a large clearing, I stood, watching the slowly setting sun.
Turning my head, I watched as my son, Liam, stretched his arms.
"You ready?" I asked, turning to face him. "We have time for one more, then we gotta head home before your mother comes looking for us," I said, turning the baseball in my hand and lining my fingers with the stitching for a wicked curveball.
"Yeah," Liam said, getting into a batter's stance, his eyes focusing on me as I readied myself to throw.
Instead of using a normal wooden bat like anyone else would have used in our time, I had a steel bat created just for his use.
It was basically a solid steel pipe molded into the shape of a wooden bat, just smaller to fit his current size.
Turning my body to the side, I ran my fingers over the bill of my hat to dry them, my eyes narrowing as I readied myself to throw.
Pausing for a few seconds, I let the wind settle before winding backward to throw.
I couldn't throw at full speed, which would have made it impossible for him to hit.
Instead, I only used about 5% of my strength.
Even still, the ball was faster than any pitch a 21st-century pitcher could have thrown.
Liam was on the outer edge of the small batter's box we had drawn in the dirt, his eyes following the fast-approaching missile.
Bringing his leg up, he twisted his body, hitting the baseball perfectly and sending it soaring into the air.
Following the baseball's trajectory, I smiled, taking off in its direction into the surrounding forest as Liam quickly tossed the bat and ran for first base.
Again using only a fraction of my power, I ran after the ball.
By the time I had gotten the ball, which had bounced off a tree and landed on the ground, Liam was already passing second.
Picking up the ball, I started running back into the clearing.
Behind home plate was a wooden stick representing the catcher.
If I could hit that stick before he reached home plate, it would represent an out. The issue was, he was already halfway to home by the time I threw.
Watching closely, I saw Liam go into a dive, his movement nearly fast enough that he would almost be a blur to a normal person.
Liam's dive kicked up a cloud of dirt as he slid into home, obscuring the stick.
Waiting a few seconds, the dirt began to settle.
"Wooowhooo!" Liam shouted from the ground as he looked up at the stick, seeing it was still whole.
"Dang it," I said, happy to see Liam so joyful that he had won.
Walking up to him as he dusted himself off, I ruffled his hair. "Good job," I said. "But you know I let you win, right?"
"Sure, that's what you always say," Liam replied.
Picking up after ourselves, we gathered the remaining baseballs and Liam's bat before heading to my cherry red 1951 Chevy 3100 pickup.
Setting his bat and the bucket of baseballs in the back, we got into the truck.
These baseball games had become a bit of a weekly tradition for the two of us—a way for us to bond and have some fun while we were at it.
Putting the car in drive, we drove to the other tradition his mother didn't know about.
Pulling into Dawn's Burgers, Bellfountain's best and only diner, we got chocolate shakes.
But while we were savoring our shakes, I had to stop mine from shooting out my nose as I saw Rosalie walk through the front door of the diner.
Rosalie was tyrannical when it came to Liam eating healthy.
Her head turned like a radar, slowly honing in on me and Liam in the corner of the diner in a booth.
"Quick! Duck!" I whispered, grabbing my and Liam's shakes from the table as we ducked down, hoping, no, praying, she wouldn't find us.
But it was too late.
I had forgotten I was married to a vampire who could follow our scents, even in a packed diner.
Walking over to our booth, she looked down at the two of us.
"You two can stop trying to hide," she said, surprising the two of us since she didn't sound angry.
Sitting up slowly, I watched her, wondering if this was some kind of trick.
"I've known the two of you were coming here the whole time."
"Really?" I asked in surprise, wondering how.
We went to great lengths to make sure she never found out.
The smell of body odor and dirt from our baseball games would keep any scent of Dawn's out of our clothes, and the copious amounts of mints we would eat on the way home would keep it from our breath. So how?
Even I couldn't smell it on us, so how else could she have found out?
"A couple of weeks after the two of you started this whole 'Guys' day,' I passed Dawn's when I was going shopping. Your truck isn't exactly inconspicuous, and the two of you always sit in the same spot by the window where it's easy to see you. The only two people with bright snow-white hair."
Liam and I looked at each other in unison before looking back at Rosalie.
"And you're not mad?" I asked, confused.
She put a hand on her hip, giving me a look.
"No, I'm not mad. It's not like you're sneaking him shakes every day," she said, looking up and out the large window we were seated next to. "Anyway, I'm not here to berate the two of you. Carlisle sent me. It would seem we had some unexpected visitors, and he wants you there."