Owning a bar was hard. Especially when you're usual patrons treated it as a nightclub; which I wouldn't have minded, if it meant them not vomiting up a hundred dollars worth of alcohol in the middle of the dance floor. The business was pretty hectic lately, my sister, Pam and I used to co-own to place. But she just got engaged to some Texas guy, she moved over there, and left me with the burden of fully owning the most popular night attraction in Shreveport. I shouldn't complain, I love being in charge of a business, I love the business, I love the staff and most of all, the benefit of meeting drunken girls every night who want to jump my bones. Not that I slept with all of the horn bags that came in, but I'd had my fair share.

I didn't really enjoy the one night stands as much as I used to. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm 26 and my sex drive is slowing down with time, or it might just be because drunk, random women aren't as classy as I'd prefer them to be. I'd rather someone who drank a bottle of wine for the taste than the ones who came into the bar shooting absinthe, purely to get as drunk as possible.

I was definitely getting older.

My sister, Pam, was 24 and already getting married. Personally, I thought she was crazy. She was only 24 years old and already getting hitched. Just 3 years ago, she thought she swung the other way sexually, and somewhere between then and now, she fell in love with Stan, and decided to give up her life in Louisiana, for love. The staff had already taken bets on how long the relationship/ future marriage would last, and I would be in pocket $200 if it was less than 18 months, but I secretly hoped things would work out with Stan. He seemed like a good guy. H e had a steady job and good genes; he made Pam happy in all the area's that mattered. It's just Pam wasn't know for stability in situations. So no one had faith in the couple.

Since she had left work load had increased a bit. I only went into the bar every few nights, but them nights weren't as much fun as they were when she was around. I now had extra forms to fill out, more pays to distribute, more finances to sort and more stupid bookings to organize. My sister had loved hiring out the bar some nights for hens/buck parties. Birthday bashes and themed nights for certain charities. They were great to attend to, but extremely annoying to set up. I missed Pam more than ever; a group of women were organizing a friend's 24th party. It was a surprise, and she didn't drink much apparently. Why they would book a party at a bar for a person that doesn't drink makes me question the logic of people, but they were paying good money and knew what they wanted so it could have been worse. I guessed from the decorations they wanted, this woman was either a house-wife or a food-junkie, since everything ordered through us had some sort of food print on it, they chose the most expensive bakery in town to bake the cake and they wanted the staff to wear "cupcake" hats?

Everything in total cost $1986, the cake itself being almost two hundred dollars. They were big spenders compared to the last birthday we had. It was a man's 40th, and his family couldn't even cough up a thousand dollars for the guy. I didn't organize it since Pam did all the work, but I know the guest list had 120 people. This 24th has 45.

I got through the planning alright, when it came to setting everything up on the day it was hectic though. There were napkins with cakes printed on them everywhere. Yellow balloons with fruits on them everywhere else. I also told the group of ladies, that I'd pick their stupid expensive cake up for them as well, so I had to leave mid-decorating to drive an hour to the Bon Temps and an hour back.

The bakery was a little place called "Hale's" and I'd been there before. They weren't all that expensive, although I'd seen some of the wedding cakes and could understand why they could charge ridiculous amounts of money for them. They were perfect. Whenever my sister and Stan booked the date for their wedding, I was definitely buying them a wedding cake from Hale's. The simplest cake on display at the moment was a two level tiered wedding cake with intricate swirls around the base and tropical flowers made out of icing on the top. It was amazing, and it was less than a quarter of the cost of the cake I was picking up.

I dinged the bell for service just as a short blonde woman came out from the back of the bakery; she had flour on her cheek and wore a smile that could have been fake seeing as it was so large. And lovely for that matter. Her blue eyes looked up at me as she asked me if she could help me. Her eyes looked familiar, but so many people wore contacts nowadays, I didn't really think much of it.

"I'm here to pick up an order," I said and smiled back at her. She seemed dumbfounded for a second, just gaping up at me as if she wasn't expecting me to reply. But she blinked quickly and gulped as she regained her professionalism.

"Sure, what's the name of your order?"

The stupid women from the party organizing had given me the name of the order, but I had hoped she wouldn't ask for it. I was hoping that since Bon Temps was such a small town, I would have been the only order for today, and the baker would just assume me to the expensive cake. But no, instead I had to say the embarrassing cake order's name, and look like an idiot in front of the quite attractive service girl/ baker.

"Surprise." I said in a mutual voice.

As I expected, the corners of her mouth turned up a little more than what they already were, and she stifled a laugh with a fake cough. But I didn't expect her to open the little book in front of her, flick through a few pages and hold the book out to me. On the page was a picture of a giant cake with tiny little cupcake decorations surrounding every surface. The icing was predominantly purple, but there was a heap of blue, pink and yellow in with the icing as well. Underneath the picture was the cake order, and a place for me to sign my name. I gaped at the cake again. It really was a 'surprise', to anyone I guess, even me. I didn't think it was overpriced anymore, if anything, this cake should be closer to 500 instead of 2.

"Did you make this?" I asked.

Her blue eyes lit up and her back straightened up a little. "Yeah I did, it took double the amount of time to make because of all the stupid cupcakes around it, but I guess you knew what you wanted when you ordered it, it saved me having to decide on things like height and what color the flowers should be, everything was specific, and the time spent was worth it, it looks better in person." She winked and walked out the back of the store. I signed my name under the picture of the 'surprise cake' and had a flip through the book, admiring all of the blonde baker's creations. I lost some of my confidence when I saw a snowman cake; it would have been around 2 feet high and looked exactly like the snowmen you see in the movies. I'd always thought I was creative with my own concoction of cocktails, and they were pretty popular to be honest. But the different cakes that blondie came up with put my drink making skills to shame.

She skipped back into the room with a box in her hands that seemed almost half the side of her. Considering she looked 5'5, it was a big box.

"Can I help you with anything else?" she asked, placing the box on the counter and regaining her smile after she put the weight down.

"Do you have any lemon meringues?" I asked her.

"They'll be out in just 10 minutes; you can wait if you want,"

I smiled. I'm sure it looked goofy, but I love lemon meringue pies, and they were best served warm. In my opinion anyways. I paid what I owed her on card, and made some small talk about the bakery, which I learnt, was hers, and I put an order in for a snowman cake, since Christmas was 3 weeks away and Pam would be home for it, giving me an excuse to make a roast and buy a cake since I can't do that when I spend it alone.

"So what do you do for a living… Eric?" she questioned, her eyes dancing. I hadn't told her my name, so she must have read it of my order sheet. I gulped, owning a bar seemed like the best job in the world to drunken girls actually in a bar, but to street patrons, it didn't always seem that way. I was always embarrassed to mention it when I wasn't working.

"I own a bar, in Shreveport." I answered. Looking at my feet, hoping she wasn't Jewish or Catholic and I wouldn't get shunned on sight for owning a sinful business.

But she didn't gasp or call me sinner. She just nodded and talked about business, the highs and lows of the industry and how I handled having staff.

"I've always wanted another baker," she admitted, shaking her head a little, making her long wavy ponytail on top of her head bob up and down in a mesmerizing way. "I've been getting more customers, and I'm making way more than what I can ever spend, it's just I don't think many people would wake up at 3 in the morning and feel like beating eggs."

This poor woman, she woke up at 3 in the morning. 3!

I was usually just getting to bed at 3 on weekends. An hour or two less on weekday nights. I couldn't imagine doing the opposite, and waking up in the awful a.m hours.

She rambled some more about her hours, but I was still pretty miffed about her wake up time.

"What bar do you own, Eric?" she asked.

"The Chase, on Fourth Street"

"No shit," she muttered. "You're Pam's brother."

"No shit." I replied.

She burst into laughter. Actually, I think it was more hysterics than laughter. Tears were falling from her eyes.

"I don't get it." I stated after a good 20 seconds had passed. She was starting to regain herself, but the tears were still falling from her eyes. I handed her my handkerchief from my pocket and took it, blotting the corners of her eyes. Another giggle burst though her lips as she looked up at me when she took it, but it was actually quite adorable. She was the only person I knew who didn't have a morphed face when they laughed, she was still insanely attractive.

"I was Pam's best friend when we were seniors, I was the one who you puked on in sophomore year, and I was the one who gave Pam the loan to start the bar." She giggled again. "You're Eric Northman"

Oh god. I remembered her. The petite blonde friend of Pam's who always stole my spot on the lounge. She was the pretty friend of Pam's who I puked on after a Frat party. She was the friend of Pam's who was kind and smart enough to loan and invest in The Chase.

She was also the friend of my sister's who was going to be the maid of honor at the wedding. Pam's best friend. Sookie Stackhouse.

I remembered her clearly now. She was 2 years younger than me, the same age as my sister. She'd always had long, blonde hair. She'd always had the same sparkling blue eyes, the same as her brothers. Her brother was an ass from what I remember, he was the biggest man-slut anyone had ever seen at college, yet he was also the best football player too. I'd never liked Jason Stackhouse. The Stackhouse siblings' parents had died when they were young, so they're grandma raised them. But she got sick while they were in college, and eventually died. I went to her funeral; the whole of the Renard Parish did, since she was peach as punch. But Jason Stackhouse turned up drunk. He was cussing at his sister and blamed her for his grandma's passing, told her that he never wanted to see her again. I remember feeling awful sorry for Sookie after that, he was the only family she had left, so she and Pam were extra close after that.

Then Jason died in a work accident, and she literally had no family left. This was only a few years back, but she got an awful lot of money from his life insurance, and she loaned a bit to Pam for The Chase. From what I recall, Sookie Stackhouse had always been lovely to everyone, I remember liking her at some point in time, I think every person who had a penis did, yet she showed no interest in any of them. One time when she stayed at our house, she made everyone ice cream sundaes. When she put extra ice cream in my bowl, I figured she'd noticed me and I threw her a wink. She'd just laughed however, and told me she put more in because I was a guy, and guys eat more.

Sookie Stackhouse. The Sookie Stackhouse. I guffawed. I'd always known she was a good cook, but I never figured she'd open her own cake store. It made sense that she did though. She made some mean brownies back in high school.

The oven around the back of the store dinged, and her rushing out there gave me an opportunity to take the giant cake box out to the car, and pull out my cell phone.

After about 2 rings, Pam answered.

"This better be good, Blondie. I'm just about to get naked for a Swiss massage." Was her answer. How charming of her.

"When was the last time you talked to Sookie?" I inquired. I didn't really want to have a conversation with my sister when she didn't have clothes on.

"Two nights ago, I'm seeing her tonight as a matter of fact, why do you ask?"

"How are you seeing her tonight?"

"Catching up with friends, why do you ask?" she repeated.

"I'm at Hale's now. I just thought I'd let you know I just bumped into you're maid of honor." I heard Pam mumble something, but it was obviously being mumbled to herself, and that was normal for Pam. But what wasn't normal was a pause from her at the other end of the line.

"Make sure to get a lemon meringue, they're to die for." she said after a while.

"Thanks Pam." I knew by the recommendation that she was about to say goodbye. That was her way of things, everyone knew it.

"I love you, Eric. Goodbye." And the phone clicked. Weird. Pam was never one to say I love you.

And she said she was seeing Sookie tonight, which meant that Pam was in Shreveport or Bon Temps. Maybe Monroe, but that was a fair way to travel, so I highly doubted the possibility of Monroe. But she hadn't said anything to me, or made any plans to come in and see me, or the bar.

I walked back into the shop and there was another box on the counter, it had my name drawn on it with curly writing and a smiley face next to it. I guess Sookie was busy, so I just took the box and drove back to the bar. Letting the smell of warm lemon meringue fill my car, and my lungs.

The rest of the party organization went smoothly. One of the bartenders, Heidi, blew up the balloons, and moved the bar chairs around into a proper formation. And the lame food decorations were actually looking really good when everything was finished. By 7pm that night, 40 people filled the bar, enjoying cocktails and waiting for the birthday girl to show. I was outside, acting as the bouncer for any pub crawlers for the beginning of the night, and then I took over the bartending duties later on.

When a limousine pulled up outside the door, I knew it would be the birthday girl and her fussy friends. I also remembered that the girl didn't drink very much, so she probably wouldn't enjoy the party inside. Sure enough, 6 pairs of high hells clattered on the footpath as they came up closer to me. I immediately recognized all of the faces. There were 4 of the fussy party organizers, all looking quite cold in their vibrant cocktail dresses and eager to get inside, into the warmth. The 5th face was of my sister, who looked quite relaxed with a smirk on her face when she saw me, she mouthed something to me that I didn't understand and blew me a kiss, I was guessing she was already drunk. The 6th face was Sookie. She looked annoyed and kind of pissed off. She was wearing a white cocktail dress that didn't show as much skin as her friends. But her hair was definitely more elaborate, and her makeup was applied perfectly. She looked up at me with shock, and her annoyed expression became happy for a second. The 5 girls clattered inside with their high heels and cheers came from inside. I laughed and leaned against the building, but Sookie didn't laugh.

She had kept her gaze with me pretty steady for a girl of her height. I was at least 6'5, and she was easily a foot shorter than me, maybe 8 inches, if you included her shoes tonight. She sighed and looked down.

"Whenever I go out, I always get forced to down at least 20 shots, and I always end up with a hangover so horrible the next day, I promise to never drink again. So I really don't want a hangover tomorrow."

Poor girl. That explains the friend who hardly ever drinks.

"And most years, Pam usually saves me by saying the bar bookings are full, or drinking my shots for me. But this year she turns up drunk. So I know that's not going to happen."

I stood up straight again and stepped towards her.

"C'mon." I said and beckoned her towards me. I put my arm around her shoulders and walked her into the bar. Sure enough the lights were off and there were drunken giggles coming from the darkness. I led Sookie over to the light switch and held me hand out so she could do the honors of flicking the switch.

The predicted "SURPRISE" came from all around her, and it was actually really loud for such a small group of people. But she managed to look genuinely shocked to see everyone, and did the rounds of hugging everyone and thanking them. I handed her a wine glass of lemonade during the process and she mouthed thanks to me, before moving onto the next person. I went outside and continued my bouncer duties after that. I knew there would be at least 10 of the usual patrons who forgot about it being closed to the public.

Sure enough, the ten people I suspected would turn up, came around, all before 10 pm. I gave them directions to the nightclub on Second Street.

Sookie came outside, just as I was about to go in, she looked tired, and she probably was if she woke up before dawn today, and then worked, and then went out.

"Is today you're birthday?" I asked.

"Nope, tomorrow."

"So you're not working tomorrow I hope."

She sat down on the floor besides my feet and took her shoes off. I didn't blame her, they looked painful to wear. I sat down beside her and started examining the stiletto. Bright red, strappy and at least a 3 inch heel. She was a size 6, and she wore gel pads on her souls. Smart girl.

"Thank god, no. I finally have time to make something different for dessert, instead of just cutting myself some stupid cake." She muttered as she spread her toes out to stretch them. It seemed such a normal thing to say, and I guessed it was coming from someone who made cakes for a living. But I'd never met anyone in my life who complained about having cake for dessert. I smirked at her.

"Well, after you have the birthday cake you made yourself, I'll get Pam to drop you off some extra waffles tomorrow morning if she's still in town."

She groaned. "That would be awesome," her stomach made a little rumble. I handed her the shoe that I'd been admiring and stood up, holding my hand out for her to take when she put her shoes on. She took my hand to help her get up and held onto it. She started walking in the opposite direction of the party.

"Where are you taking me?"

She giggled. "Chinese, I don't think people will notice I'm gone for another hour, and I'm hungry." She knew where she was going, so I let her lead the way. She skipped and hummed to herself, making comments about random smells in the air, and strange people we passed. She kept hold of my hand and it wasn't weird or awkward at all surprisingly. She told me how she was grateful I had gone to her grandmother's funeral, and then her brothers. We also joked about her being in my spot on our lounge.

"But I always sat in that spot when I went over your house. It didn't matter if you were home or not, it was my little cushion." And she made her face go hard. I chuckled at her.

"I sat there too, when you were over or not. It was my place and still is, regardless."

I felt her eyes burn into my face. I turned to look at her. As soon as she had my attention, she took my face into her hands, and bought my face down more or less to her level.

And she fluttered her eyelashes. Oh god.

Her lips pouted. Oh god.

She was beautiful. I already knew that. But looking at her face directly, instead of looking down on her was amazing. She was even more so.

She inhaled, and her chest puffed out more than it was already. Oh god. She had a rack. She had a rack and a half.

"I think you owe me that cushion, since you threw up on me that one time." She breathed. "And what do you mean; it still is you're spot?"

"It's my couch now, and I think that since I clean it once a fortnight, I deserve to sit wherever I like."

She stepped into my chest and breathed out; she pressed her nose against mine.

Wow. I wanted to look down, but her eyes were perfect. They just kept looking into mine, and I didn't want to look away.

"I think you'd give me the spot if I rewarded you with a lemon meringue or two." With that she quickly kissed the tip of my nose and stepped away again. All I could do was nod once as I stepped towards her again. She winked at me, and I realized what she'd done. Seduction.

I reached out and grabbed her hand again, placing it inside my own, it fit perfectly. We got to the Chinese restaurant and ordered. I chose Black bean beef, as I always did. She chose honey chicken. When it came to deciding if we wanted to dine in take-away, she chose take away. I have to say, I was disappointed. I was looking forward to being able to look at her face over dinner; I think she saw the look in my face as she smiled at me. "We'll dine out instead, is that okay?" I nodded at her to let her know it was fine.

She took her credit card out from her dress somewhere and I was wondering where it came from before I noticed she was about to swipe her card to pay for the food. I grabbed her hand quickly and took the American Express piece of plastic off of her. I took out my wallet and swiped my own through the machine, signed and looked back at her. She was scowling at me, but you could tell it wasn't serious. The look on her lips didn't reach her eyes.

"I'll buy the champagne then," was all she said. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"You drink champagne?"

She gasped. "Oh my lord, I'm sorry. I can get you beer, or maybe some whiskey. I didn't think of asking what you wanted."

Oh no. She thought I meant I wanted something different. "No, Sookie. I was only asking if you're actually going to have a glass of champagne yourself." I shook my head at the girl. "I thought you didn't drink."

She squeezed the hand that I was holding. "I don't drink much" she corrected. She let go of my hand and started to run her fingers through her hair, unweaving the invisible knots that the wind had made during the night. Her hair looked perfect anyways. "But I'm sure you'd carry me home if I drank too much anyways. You look like you could handle my weight unlike your sister."

"How much do you weigh, Miss Stackhouse? You look pretty heavy to me.." I started, but she playfully slapped my arm.

"You hush now, I'm only 111 pounds."

I did hush. I could almost lift 200 on the bench press at gym. "You're tiny,"

"And you're gigantic." She teased. "I'm guessing 6'4 in height. 190 pounds."

"You'll never know." Was all I said. She didn't like that. The rest of the time we spent waiting for dinner and buying champagne was her guessing my height and weight. Eventually she got my height right. A lovely 6'5 to be precise. But when it came to my weight she had no idea what so ever. I ended up telling her as we got closer to The Chase she slowed down and took smaller steps.

"Is the park still at the end of the street?" she asked with a nervous expression. I nodded in her direction. "Good, we're having a picnic then."

Sure enough, we sat on the grass, eating out Chinese with the rough wooden chopsticks provided, and drinking the warm champagne straight out of the bottle since we didn't have any glasses. But we ate in silence, and it was comfortable.

"Do you know what 's wrong with Pam?" she blurted out in between a mouthful of my black-bean and a swig of champagne. I shook my head.

"Nope. But she had a massage today. I thought she only has massages when she's stressed."

"I guess she'll tell us what's wrong when she feels like it. She's not one to keep secrets."

It was true. Sookie knew Pam better than me. Better than anyone as for that matter. Pam was blunt with everyone, she was predictable, and she hated secrets. She's killed every single pet fish I've ever had, and owned up to it. She's worn my underwear, and told me. She even tells me when it's her time of the month. It might not sound like a lot, but when she doesn't live at home, and lives in a different state as you, it creeps me out.

We finished our food and walked back to the party. Sure enough, no one noticed the brief hour we spent away, and things moved on once we were inside again, as if we never left. I was on bartending duties, and Sookie actually drank the house champagne. She blew out her candles and cut the cake, but she refused to eat it since she knew exactly how much sugar went into it. But she was kind enough to bring me a slice. A huge man sized slice. And just as people were starting to leave at around 1am, I noticed just how much Sookie had to drink and I knew I'd have to carry her out to the taxi.

I asked Pam if she wanted to stay with me for the night and she agreed. Even though I hadn't seen her have a drink all night, she was acting really weird. Not as weird as she usually is when she's been drinking. But I'd seen her with sunstroke one time, and she was hallucinating in her sleep, the next day she's been a completely different person, she'd been completely mellow and oddly quiet. She was like that tonight, so maybe she'd just lain out in the sun for too long yesterday and didn't realize.

Pam told me she was staying with Sookie while she was here, and they would just split a cab on the way home, so I offered Sookie the other spare room at my house, to save her the full fare. I could drive them both into Bon Temps in the morning.

So sure enough, by 1:30 everyone had left and I closed everything up. Pam and Sookie were in the car, Sookie was half asleep in the back seat, and Pam was sitting silently in the passenger side, just staring into space. My house was on the opposite side of Shreveport, She didn't say a word the whole drive, and when we got home. She simply took my keys and the leftover cake and let herself inside, knowing that I'd have to lift Sookie and carry her inside.

I put her in the third bedroom, knowing Pam would choose the largest for herself, and I went to gather them both towels and spare toothbrushes for the morning. When I came into Sookie's room, Pam was in bed beside her, pulling the sheets up to cover them both fully.

"She's going to be hung over in the morning, and she's not going to like it." Spoke Pam softly, careful not to wake the sleeping blonde next to her.

"I'll have some Aspirin out, and I'll put some extra coffee on for her."

She smiled weakly. "You're a good brother, and a good host. You'll make some lucky girl happy one day." As she said this she looked down at Sookie and looked up to me expectedly.

"You'll make a good wife to Stan. No matter what people think, Pam." I said back to her. She laughed one of jolly laughs.

"I have no doubt about that, brother. But you should really start looking for a wife. I hear that marriage is a wonderful thing in today's society. Good for the soul."

Since she recommended something, oddly enough, marriage. I knew it was the end of the 2 second conversation. "Goodnight, Pam."

"Ditto, Eric."