Beta: Breathesgirl.
Disclaimer: C. Harris and A. Ball own these folks, I'm just playin'.
Sookie's Muse.
As I stood outside my new workplace waiting for the doors to open I frowned. I couldn't help but feel bad about handing my notice in at Merlotte's four weeks ago. I really appreciated Sam taking me on when I left Bon Temps Community College four years ago but I needed something with more hours. Something that would help me, and Gran, keep the house up. Twilight Bar and Grill was advertising for full time waitress and bar staff with fixed hours on a permanent rota. Merlotte's was a bit iffy in that department.
I didn't think I'd get in but I hoped and prayed that my years of waitressing and retail experience would be enough and the prayin' paid off. I needed this job. Sam, the owner of Merlotte's, gave us hours that brought in an almost comfortable wage plus we got to keep the tips. I knew with the Twilight's waitressing hours I would be more than comfortable and have some spare cash to do the things Gran and I needed in order to fix up the house bring it into the twenty-first century.
I might even be able to buy a color TV instead of that ol' thing Gran had kept all those years! That would be more for Gran than me though, I was quite happy with my books although it would be nice to have a computer in the house instead of borrowing the ones down at the library. Our family home dated way back and it was in need of a lot of upgrading - paint work mainly. Merlotte's just didn't give me enough to do this for Gran.
Gran was getting older, too, so the porch step needed to be turned into a ramp, our Interior design was also lacking in the twenty-first century look. We had old stuffy couches that creaked when you sat on them, old beds. Heck, I was still sleeping on the same bed I'd had since I was fourteen and I was now twenty-four. I dreaded to think how old Gran's bed was, how old her sheets were.
Don't get me wrong, I loved that house the way it was. It is filled with our family history and was real homey but it needed a lot of work done to it. I thought Gran would like to see the outside, more than anything, looking like it did in it's younger days when Grandpa and Daddy would do it up every summer.
At least they did before, sadly, my parents lost their lives and my Grandpa died of some illness before he turned sixty.
My Gran and Grandpa raised my brother and me from the time our parents died in a flash-flood when we were young. Now that I am earning enough I wanted to pay Gran back for raising me and Jason by bringing the house back to it's glory days and make it safer and more comfortable for her.
My brother, Jason, had lived in our parents home since he was eighteen. He was now twenty-seven and I'm now twenty-four but he had a more comfortable wage than me. He was also the handy man of the family so he didn't have to worry so much about upkeep and other things. He would probably quite happily do Gran's house up for us with his road crew boys on a weekend but I wanted something a little more special for a special lady, our Gran, so she could enjoy the house as she grew older rather than watching it in it's crumbling, outdated state and give something back to her.
The sound of a car door slamming pulled me from the depths of my musing. I look in the direction of the sound to see an open roofed red car and two people stepping out of it.
The woman had long brown hair and was wearing tight skinny jeans, a tank top and super high heels - Tara style. The guy had similar attire on but he had blonde hair - possibly even the same colour as mine. As they approached I noticed his build was all muscle and he sported bright blue eyes.
I wondered who they were and if they were the owners since the gossip hounds of Bon Temps hadn't reported anything new yet. I looked away from the approaching duo and noticed I was still the only waitress hear.
A clearing of the throat had me turnin' back in the direction of the newcomers. It was the guy.
"Miss Stackhouse I presume?" His voice had an accent and that manly, deep, husky sex on legs, as Tara calls it, tone of voice. NO, NO, NO SOOKIE! Don't think them thoughts hunni. I chide myself.
"Yes?" I answer. He holds his hand out.
"I'm Eric Northman, this is," He nodded his head in the direction of his companion, "Pamela Swynford De Beaufort. We are the new managers of this place."
The woman drawled, "Eric! It's Pam! When are you ever going to get it right?" In a clearly British accent.
The man, Eric, scowled at the woman. They obviously knew each other well. Some unknown emotion started to bubble up inside me at the thought and I quickly squished it down before it could develop.
"Um... Hi?" I said, unsure of what else to say. I held his intense gaze as he turned back to scrutinize me.
Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush. I chant to myself. Please don't let him become another Sam. After four years of working at Merlotte's the man never got the hint that I wasn't interested in being involved with him in that way.
"Well, this is already proving to be boring." The woman, Pamela, announced.
"Ignore Pamela," he said with a hint of warning in his voice. Hmm.
"Miss St-" I cut him off.
"Sookie. Just Sookie is fine." I saw the woman smirk, as she watched our exchange, in Eric's direction.
"Sookie then. Let's open this baby up." He turned to open the front doors then paused and looked back at me. "I hope we won't have any trouble with your previous employer Sookie."
He pushed the doors open and held them open for me and Pam. I thanked him (he look surprised for a second) while Pam just marched past him. Rude much? I thought.
"Sam shouldn't be a problem Mr. North-" He cut me off this time, smirking a sexy smirk - NO, NO, NO Sookie hunni. I chide myself AGAIN. Don't think down those lines chicka. (Chicka is what Tara calls me. Apparently it means friends in slang talk. It's kinda found a home in my mind's dictionary now since Tara's said it so often. It's just become a natural word between us.)
"If I am to call you Sookie you are to call me Eric," he said, his accent coming out in full swing. There was a glint in his eye that I couldn't put my finger on. I almost melted before I could pull myself together again.
Well, shit. Now I was thinking that if I was going to keep the promise I made to myself I should have stayed at Merlotte's. Sam was easy to ignore and turn down, but Eric? He was a whole other level entirely.
"Ok... Eric!" I said his name for the first time. An unreadable emotion flashed through his eyes. Uh, oh. Oh, no, oh, no! Please don't tell me I'm gonna have to fend off another work colleague. It's bad enough I had to with Sam but Eric is a totally different situation. I didn't know if I'd be able to resist since he'd already brought up emotions that only one other has ever managed to bring up and I refused to name those emotions since I was NOT going there with a co-worker, let alone my manager!
Eric was standing almost directly behind me as the door closed behind us. I jumped as he clapped his hands. Pam looked up and saw us standing by the door, an unreadable emotion flashed across her face for a second before she composed herself.
"Let us begin ladies." Eric placed his hand on the small of my back which tingled at his touch - like bolts of electricity, and guided me over to Pam. He then ran through the list of things that needed to be done before we opened up officially tomorrow.
Eric's Muse.
"Why the fuck did you buy this place again Eric? It's in the middle of nowhere, in a dead end town by the looks of it, and it already has one bar and grill."
I smirked. Sam Merlotte is gonna be in for a fucking shock when he see's me! The thieving little bastard.
"You know why Pammy." She shot me a dark glare at the use of the nickname I gave her ten years before, back in England, when we were study partners for our Business course. Now we're both thirty, well she's ALMOST thirty.
"Yes. But why did it have to be here? We could have opened up in Shreveport and put posters up around the local areas, looking for staff."
"Meh. Where would the fun be in that Pam? Merlotte owes us. By opening up on his turf his customers will come to us instead of that little rat. He'll be paying us our money back that way which is a lot nicer compared to what some may do," I pointed out.
"True. I think you're going soft in your old age Northman." I glared at her as we pulled into our new bar's parking lot. We'd remained very hush hush about ownership of this place and it would remain that way. A friend of ours, Godric Hollow, would pretend to be the owner if push came to shove.
"My my." Pam suddenly said in a tone I knew all too well. It was the tone she used when she spotted something she liked.
"Check out the legs on that lil' birdie." She drawled. Hell she was practically drooling. I snapped at her before looking in the mirror myself to see what had Pamela Swynford De Beaufort drooling and in a daze.
"DON'T you dare get any of your drool on my baby, Pammy." She clearly, reluctantly, broke her gaze away from the rearview mirror and glared at me.
"You're ruining my fantasy Northman. Check blondie out for yourself. I see we are possibly gonna have a little competition. Perhaps this place won't be so boring after all. I wonder if that's the waitress Chow interviewed."
I glanced in the mirror and couldn't help but see why Pam was in such a daze and yes I saw that we were going to have a little competition. Ooh I wonder if she's the waitress from Merlottes? Hell, we only had one waitress at the time. Chow was our bouncer and interviewer. He'd worked for us for the past eight years and was our longest standing employee.
I sure hoped it is Miss. Stackhouse. From what Chow had been able to scope out she was Merlotte's star waitress. This was turning out to be even better than I thought. The little rat was going to get a very big slap in the face when he saw us. I only hoped he could keep his mouth shut... well he would if he knew what was good for him!
The girl looked to be lost in thought, staring at nothing. It gave me time to take a look at what she was wearing and how she looked. Her blonde hair shone bright in the sunlight. It was possibly as blonde as my own long locks which were tied back.
She was probably a little shorter than Pamela's five foot one. Maybe 5'4"? She was wearing yoga pants, a long black tank top and black ballet flats. Maybe she didn't know what to wear so she went for simple? Well she could continue wearing that since didn't leave much to the imagination. Her small frame was clearly well looked after and toned. Her tan was glittering in the morning sun's rays.
"I saw her first Northman, I get first dibs." Pam warned me. I smirked.
"I'm the boss Pam." Pam smirked smugly at me.
"She doesn't know that."
"And if she did? You think she'd go for me don't you?" I said. Pam rolled her eyes as we continued to gaze at the blonde beauty on my bar's door step.
"Obviously. She's the type you're attracted to and that type is only after two things: Money and sex. You should know this by now Northman, especially after the last bitch you got burned by." I winced at the memory of Sophie-Anne.
"She doesn't look the type," I said, trying to defend my new waitress. Once Pam had a bee in her bonnet it was hard to swerve her, even if she did find the chick attractive. I knew Pam would probably try her luck but she wouldn't take it any further than a fuck. That's Pam's motto: No strings attached.
"Eric. You said the same thing about LeClerq. Now lets go out and greet hot-stuff." As we got out of my corvette Pam said one last thing to me before she fell into bitch-bored mode.
"Fancy making that bet Northman?" I smirked at her words, my eyes on the gorgeous blonde before me. She looked completely lost in her thoughts.
"You're on De Beaufort." I said.
Unfortunately we reached the young woman before we could finalize any bet and winnings.
I cleared my throat.
Let the games begin! Operation Kick Merlotte's Ass was now in operation!