Disclaimer All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter One:

The sun is so warm, the smell of the ocean and the wind teasing my hair. I see someone walking towards me, he is tall, wearing a pair of board shorts. "Bella…" I hear my mom call.

Wait… why is my mom at the beach?

I slowly open my eyes only to blink again…

"Fuck!" It is 8:20am. Why didn't my alarm go off? I have to be at work by 9am and it is the week of the 4th of July which means traffic is horrendous on St. Simons Island and makes my normal 7 minute drive to work closer to 20 minutes. Thank god I had clean clothes. I threw my long brown hair up in a ponytail, grabbed a pair of clean khaki shorts, my brown belt, my shoes and clean Barbara Jean's shirt, brush my teeth, grab something to eat and run out the door.

"Thanks for waking me up mom!" I yell as I am running out the door.

"Fuck!" I hate to be late. Hate, Hate, Hate! Thankfully I am living at home with my mom for the summer and she only lives about 10 minutes away.

Then of course it is the week of the 4th of July on St. Simons Island, Georgia and it is just as crazy as usual, but at least because I open this morning I get a close parking spot. Any other shift you get, you'd have to park a mile away and make a run for it.

I park my old blue truck. I love my truck. It's a baby blue Chevrolet Scottsdale. It was my dad's old truck before he upgraded and it was as old as I was, but it was mine. I get out, and grab my black apron, along with my purse and my phone, and hit the lock on the truck. As I bump the door shut with my hip my phone drops and flies apart with the screen shattering.

"Son of a bitch!"

I scramble trying to grab it and see if it turns on, all while trying to run into the back door at work. As I go around the corner to the alleyway, someone runs into me, or maybe I ran into them. I don't know, what I do know is I fell and skinned my knee, badly.

Then the jackass didn't even help me up. He just stood there looking at me while I am picking myself up. I grab my stuff, and finish my quick run into the back door and into the restaurant. While muttering "asshole" under my breath.

"Bella!" My boss Mike yells out, "You are late!"

"By two minutes Mike. Some jackass ran into me. I need the first aid kit."

"Again Bella? Seriously we should just label this as Bella's first aid kit."

Mike walks through the double doors, that look like old saloon swinging doors to go to the bar to grab the kit. I follow him and we get my knee cleaned up and a bandage put on.

By this time Rose, my friend and fellow waitress has come in and is helping to prep the restaurant for lunch. We get the tarter sauce dipped, the tables set up, sweet tea made.

Then the rest of the servers start rolling in the closer to opening time at 11am it gets.

I check the schedule to see who is on the floor. Hmm… Me, Rose, Jessica, Laurent, and then Seth is running food today. Thank goodness it isn't me. I had to run food out to the tables one 4th of July week for 3 straight shifts in a row, by the end of the 3rd shift I could barely move.

I have a moment so I checked my phone. It is completely dead. Great, and with this week as crazy as it is I won't get over to Brunswick to the verizon store for another 3 or 4 days. At least the tips will make up for having to buy a new phone.

The day progresses and it is crazy. It isn't even the 4th yet. It is the 2nd of July, but the arts and craft show is going strong down the street.

I am starving and trying to eat really quickly in between customers. A bite here a bite there. Run back out to my new table.

"Hi! Welcome to Barbara Jeans. My name is Bella. Can I tell you about our specials today?"

The litany of the words just flow out of my mouth and I am not really paying attention.

"Sure." I hear this low melodic wonderful voice say.

"We have Shrimp Scampi as our entree, the soup of the day is Baked Potato Soup, the veggie of the day is Macaroni and cheese, and the cobbler today is Apple cobbler."

"What can I get you to drink today?"

I look up and finally to make eye contact and it is the jackass from earlier. He is looking at me with this stupid smirk on his face.

Well Fuck…. Can my day get any worse?