Chapter 2: Work
Working sucks ass.
The small diner in Forks was always full of customers. No matter what shift I was working I was always running around like crazy trying to serve all my customers right. Whether I was serving ice cream to a three year old or serving meat loaf to an old man…I was always busy.
I could not wait until my shift was over. Later on I was going to La Push to see the boys. Yesterday I had really only seen Paul, and I kind of missed the other two guys. The pack consisted of Sam, the pack alpha, Jared and Paul. Sam's imprint was Emily, who was super nice and always seemed to have something cooking in the house. Jared didn't have an imprint and as far as I knew, neither did Paul. It was a small pack but they had a feeling that it would be growing soon.
"Order's up, Katie!" the chef called from the kitchen. Our chef was amazing. He always made me crack up, was definitely gay, and always seemed to be able to put me in a good mood. I put my next ticket order on the chef's order wheel thingy, and grabbed my last order off the counter. I carried the plates expertly to the table and gave the patrons their order.
"Excuse me?" asked the woman at the table before I could walk away. I turned around and looked back at her.
"Yes?" she was quite pretty. I don't think I had ever seen her in Forks before. She was with a guy who I had never seen before either. They were out-of-towners.
"I asked for my salad dressing on the side." She said.
"Oh, I'm sorry." I said. "I'll get that fixed up for you right away."
I took the plate back to the kitchen.
"Mark! This Caesar salad was supposed to have the dressing on the side." I said.
"Oh my god, they're out of town aren't they?" he asked, sticking his pinkie up in the air as if mocking them. "Why not just order some lettuce with a side of dressing?"
I giggled. "Mark, calm down. She just wants to put her own dressing on her salad."
He rolled his eyes, all the time smiling. "Does she not realize that I am busy? Flipping burgers, frying fries, putting salad dressing into little cups…the list goes on!"
I laughed even more as I watched him re-create a salad, and as he made extra sure to place the little cup of salad dressing in what he called the absolute perfect spot on the plate.
I carried the plate back to their table.
"Sorry about that." I said. "Our chef didn't read the ticket right."
"Thanks." She quipped, obviously annoyed.
I rolled my eyes as I walked away.
The rest of my shift went pretty smoothly. I did drop a plate full of food once when a kid dropped his ice cream on the floor. Food went everywhere, and shards from the plate went everywhere.
"Katie, are you okay?" another waitress, Diana, called, rushing over to me.
"I'm fine…help me up?" I said, holding my hand out to her. She took my hand, and helped me off the floor. I brushed some food and glass off of myself and told Mark that I needed another order of what I had dropped, and went to the back room to get a broom.
I went back to the table and apologized to the family sitting there, and swept up the floor before getting a mop and soapy water to clean the floor. I put one of those "slippery when wet" signs on the ground where the mess had been and went back to the kitchen.
"Just in time." Mark said, handing me the plate. "Don't fall this time sweetheart."
I rolled my eyes. "I'll try not to."
I, carefully, walked the plate back to the table.
"I'm so sorry." I said to the customer.
"Don't worry." He said. "It was my son who had dropped the ice cream. As long as you're okay."
"I'm fine." I said with a smile before walking away.
When my shift was finally done. I got in my car and drove to La Push. I was super excited to be going to La Push. After the horrible day I had had at work, I needed some downtime with the boys.
On my drive there, I lit a cigarette, and took a nice, long drag from it. Immediately I felt a lot of the tension come out of my body. I understood why people did this. This was my stress reliever. It was horrible for me but it relieved the stress that I had bottled up inside of me. I always tried my hardest not to smoke when I was going to see the guys, the smell bothered Paul, but tonight I couldn't help it.
I finished the cigarette just before I got to Paul's apartment building. I pulled into the usual parking spot I used and went inside. I buzzed for his apartment and waited for him to answer me.
"Hello?" his voice came through the little speaker.
"It's meeeeeeee!" I said, dragging out the e sound.
"Come on up." He said with a laugh. I heard the front door unlock, and I went inside. I went up to the elevator, pushed the button and waited. These elevators were always slow. I bounced from foot to foot as I waited. After what seemed like hours, the elevator came and I went up to Paul's floor. If I had taken the stairs it would've been a lot quicker. I went to his apartment and knocked on the door.
"It's open!" he called, voice slightly muffled. I opened the door to see that he was sitting on his couch with his back to the door. I snuck up behind him and put my hands on his shoulders, trying to scare him.
Of course, I didn't. He had probably heard the elevator making noise when I had come up to his floor.
Stupid super human hearing.
"Hey Katie." He said. I could hear the smile in his voice. "How was work?"
I climbed over the back of his couch and sat beside him.
"Horrible. I fell with a plate food." I said. "I don't even remember what the order was. But the guy tipped me well…it was his son who had dropped his ice cream that made me slip."
"Well, that's good." Paul said.
"Yup." I said, leaning back against the couch cushions. "Are any of the other two coming tonight? Or are we gonna go to Em's?"
"Nah, they're off patrolling." Paul said. "Sam gave me the night off."
"Well that's awesome." I said. It was always good when any of the guys could relax. Since it was just the three of them it was harder on each of them. They rarely got to have time to just chill. Emily had told me that whenever Sam was home, he only really had time to eat and sleep before he would go out running again.
I personally didn't understand why they constantly needed to be running. The Cullens had told me that they wouldn't risk waging a war by coming over the border, and you didn't see them constantly running along the border to try and make sure none of the wolves crossed over.
Paul and I sat together quietly. I knew that he was tired, and he knew that I was tired.
"How stressed are you?" he asked.
I looked at him weirdly. "What?"
"You must be really stressed or upset about something if you had a smoke on the way here."
See? Even he knew that I normally wouldn't smoke if I was coming to see him.
I shrugged. "Long day at work."
Now, you'd think that this was awkward, but it wasn't. We were perfectly fine just sitting here in silence. It wasn't awkward at all to sit here with Paul. It was possible for us to just be able to sit together in what would normally be an awkward silence.
I wanted to sleep, but I would do the right thing and wait until I got home. I didn't want to pass out on Paul. I sighed quietly, thinking about Edward.
"I meant to ask you, have you talked to Cullen since yesterday?" he asked.
"No I haven't." I said. "I gotta do that soon I guess, huh?"
"The sooner the better." He said. "Don't let him think everything's fine when it isn't. He'll think he's getting away with this when he isn't. Don't let that happen Katie."
"Trust me, I won't." I said. "He doesn't deserve that."
"Good." Paul said, and I could tell that he was angry. "I still can't believe what he did. And I can't believe that he actually thought he would get away with it. What an idiot."
"It's pretty much over now." I said. "Or at least it will be other within a few days."
Paul shifted so he was sitting closer to me, and wrapped his arms around me.
"Are you sure you're okay, Katie?" he asked softly.
I nodded. "I'm fine. Yeah, I was hurt at first, and I was pretty sad. But now, I realize how horribly Edward treated me. I mean, he didn't even have the decency to tell me straight up what was going on. He didn't have the balls to just come out and tell me that he had met another girl. That's the part that upsets me more than anything. The fact that he didn't even tell me that he wanted to be with Bella instead of me. And I don't blame her for it. It's his fault. Yeah she knew that he and I were together, but he had been talking to me about her since she moved here a couple weeks ago. It's not her fault he was being an ass to me."
I took a deep breath after my little rant to Paul. But he seemed to understand exactly what I was saying. He knew what I was upset about, and he didn't judge me for it, Paul never did. Paul never judged me when I ranted to him about things. I knew that I could talk to Paul about anything…and I was starting to really get some feelings for him. I had always known that Paul had feelings for me, and it made me feel bad that I couldn't return the feelings when I was with Edward. Whenever I had mentioned Edward's name he would get annoyed or short with me.
It was times like these that I had a feeling that Paul had imprinted on me. He seemed to care for me a lot, and the way he looked at me sometimes made me think that. If I so much as tripped over something on the ground, he would jump up to make sure I was okay.
I heard the annoying buzzing sound that told us that someone was trying to get into the apartment. It scared me slightly and made me jump up about three feet in the air. Paul sighed and got up.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"It's Sam. Open up!" came Sam's voice through the intercom thing.
I sighed quietly. Thinking about how annoying Sam could be. A few minutes later Sam was sitting in the living room with Paul and me.
"We need you tonight." Sam said.
"What about Jared?" Paul asked. "I ran all day today."
"Jared had a family emergency." Sam said. "I don't know when he'll be able to come back."
"Is he okay?" I asked.
"He's okay, but his mother isn't. She had a heart attack earlier today; he's been at the hospital all day today."
"Why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?" Paul demanded. "We were running this morning. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't find out until I got home. Em told me." Sam said.
Paul sighed. "Sorry Katie, but I gotta go."
"Don't worry, I understand." I said, getting up off the couch. I gave Paul a quick hug before leaving his apartment and going down to my car. On my drive home I lit a cigarette and smoked it the whole way there. I couldn't help but think about Jared's mom. I felt horrible for him, and I hoped that she would make it out okay.
Then I started thinking about Paul's parents. His mom had died when he was really young, and his dad had a drinking problem. He had never had a good relationship with his dad, and he had moved out as soon as he could.
Hell, I didn't blame him. If I were in his shoes I probably would have run away from home.
As I pulled into my driveway, I thought more and more about my feelings for Paul. I really was starting to like him. It confused me, scared me, and excited me all at the same time.
