The next morning Gold found his new employee waiting for him at the shop, ready to go with two coffee cups from Granny's in her hand. Too bad he preferred tea. "For you" she said handing him the cup.

"That was nice of you dearie, but I don't care much for coffee" he was trying to be polite for once, but if she kept pushing the cup at him he might start to lose his patience with her.

"It's not coffee. It's earl grey. I didn't peg you for a coffee person. I'm not one either. I brought some sugars from Granny's, I wasn't sure how you took your tea." She held the cup out to him again and this time he accepted it. He took one of the sugar packets and poured it in, stirring the beverage slowly and thoroughly before taking a sip. He nodded his approval and set to work continuing to fix up the necklace. "So, have you thought of anything that I could do?" she asked.

Taking another sip of his tea, he told her she could take inventory of the items he had stored in the basement. "I'm not sure what you'll find down there" he admitted. "Make sure you mark down prices, I trust you'll know what everything is worth."

Belle jokingly saluted him, and climbed down the stairs to the basement. Halfway down she turned back to call to him. "You aren't going to lock me down here, are you?"

He laughed at her joke, calling back from his desk. "I guess you'll have to wait and see dearie."

Belle sorted through about half of the disaster area that was Mr. Gold's basement before her stomach growled. She walked up the stairs to find the door closed and locked. "I can't believe you actually locked me down there!" she laughed as she knocked obnoxiously on the door. Within seconds he had it opened for her, trying desperately not to laugh at her annoyance. She glared at him and ignored his laughter, trying to be civil. "I'm going to get some lunch, do you want anything?"

"I'm fine dearie, enjoy your lunch" he said to her before sitting back down at his desk.

She gave him a smile, before leaving. The walk to Granny's was short and when she walked in and saw Ruby for the first time since high school she nearly screamed. "Ruby!" Ruby looked up from the counter and nearly tripped on her way over to Belle.

Ruby practically knocked them both to the ground when she hugged her old friend. "Belle! I missed you so much" she gushed. "How have you been? You're father said you were coming back, when'd you get in?"

Belle pulled away from Ruby, heading towards the counter. "I've been great, I got in around four yesterday. Sorry I didn't come see you then, but I was job hunting."

Ruby handed a Belle a glass of iced tea. "Any luck?" she asked.

Taking a huge gulp of her iced tea, and nodding her head at the same time wasn't the best of ideas. "Lots, actually" she said while wiping the bit of iced tea she spilt on herself away. "I'm now working at Mr. Gold's pawn shop" she stated proudly.

Ruby's eyes were bugging out of her head. "Mr. Gold!" she exclaimed. "You're working for Mr. Gold? Why would you do that? He's a monster!"

Belle was taken aback by Ruby's comments. "He certainly didn't act monstrously towards me. In fact we are going to have dinner on Friday" she said with a smile on her face.

"He asked you out! God what a perv! Don't worry I'll get you out of it." Ruby was really worried about her. But why?

"Actually..." Belle stopped unsure if she admit this to Ruby, who seemed to really despise Gold. "I asked him out" she said finally.

Ruby eyed her cautiously, "Why?" There was nothing but confusion etched on her face.

Belle shrugged her shoulders. "I liked talking with him yesterday. I think we could be friends" she said hopefully.

"Just friends though, right?" Ruby practically demanded. "You're not thinking about getting into bed with him or anything" she whispered across the counter.

If Belle was being honest with herself, she did feel a strong connection to Mr. Gold. But she thought it best to not tell Ruby that she was indeed thinking about him in that way. "No. No I just want to be friends with my employer, nothing more."

Ruby let out a sigh of relief, before her whole body tensed up. Belle looked behind her to see what had gotten Ruby so frightened. Mr. Gold. 'I hope he didn't hear me say anything' she thought to herself.

"Miss. French, you forgot your bag. I assumed you would be paying for your lunch so I decided to run it over here" his voice as harsh and cold. He had heard her. Damn.

She smiled weakly at him, "Thank you." Without another word he left the diner. She would have a lot of explaining to do. Turning back to Ruby she let her forehead collide with the counter with a loud thump.

"Looks like he didn't know it was just a friendly dinner you two had planned." Ruby was obviously thrilled by that, but Belle was devastated. She decided to take her hamburger to go so she could go talk to Mr. Gold.

The walk back to the shop seemed long. Opening his door and walking through the front room was suddenly uncomfortable. There was an all consuming tension in the air. She knew he was upset, but he appeared to be perfectly calm. He still sat at his desk, fiddling with that damned necklace. "Mr. Gold?" she whispered, now worrying about distracting him.

"Best get back to work dearie" he said without looking up from his desk. She nodded even though he couldn't see her and headed for the basement. "Oh, I'm going to have to cancel our dinner. I forgot I have a very important meeting with a client of mine."

Belle's face dropped, "How about Saturday then?" she asked, but she didn't want to get her hopes up. She knew what his answer was going to be. She should have just told Ruby the truth, then none of this would have happened.

"Afraid not, I collect rent on Saturday. Get back to work, you still have half the basement to get through." She sighed in defeat, and made her way down to the basement.

For the next three weeks, that's how their day would go. She would ask him about rescheduling dinner, and he would ignore her. Belle was ready to give up. What's worse was that she didn't think he'd care if she did. What's even worse than that was that since everyone in town hated him, she had no one to talk to about it.

What she really needed right now was a drink. That's how she found herself in the Rabbit Hole. She was sitting alone at the bar, swirling her scotch around in its glass. She was deep in thought until an unfamiliar voice broke her trance. "Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

Belle looked up from her drink and shook her head no, not really paying attention to the man. "So, I don't think I've seen you around. You new to town?" Belle wasn't in the mood for this. Unfortunately she was too nice to simply brush him off and send him on his merry way.

"Just moved back, a few weeks ago actually" she said simply, turning her attention back to her drink.

He ordered a drink and made himself comfortable. "Looks like you just went through a bad breakup" the man inquired.

Belle turned to him, agitated. "I don't even know your first name and your asking m about my love life? Isn't that a tad bit inappropriate?"

He raised his hands in mock surrender. "No need to bite my head off sweetheart. The name's Garret." Belle cringed at the pet name he used on her. "Wanna tell me yours?"

Belle shot the last of the scotch back, asked for another and proceeded to ignore her new drinking partner. "I'll take that as a no" he said, stating the obvious. "So, you wanna go out sometime?"

"You've got to be kidding me!" Belle swirled around on her stool to face the man. He was rather attractive, tall, well-built, strong. Mr. Gold had nicer eyes though. When Gold smiled, it made her knees weak. She really needed to stop thinking about Gold. Maybe this guy was the solution. Maybe if she could make sure that Gold saw her with this man, he would get jealous. After thinking about it for another second, Belle made a decision. Probably a horrible decision that would make her life incredibly complicated, but maybe it would be worth it. "Where would you take me?" she asked Garret.

Garret just smirked at her. Hopefully Gold would get jealous very quickly. "Tell me your name, and I'll tell you where we'd go" he countered.

"Belle" she said. "My name's Belle."

Garret eyed her, up and down, but his eyes never met hers. No, his eyes tended to linger at her chest. "Well, Belle, I'll take you places you've never been before."

Belle nearly gagged at his unbelievably corny line. 'Think of the benefits. Think of what Gold might say' she told herself. "Why don't we start with dinner?" Garret just smiled wickedly at her.

Belle downed her second drink, scribbled down her phone number on a napkin and handed it to Garret. "Call me" she told him. Walking out of the Rabbit Hole, Belle felt the affects of the alcohol start to kick in, thanking God that she wasn't wearing heels. The night air was refreshing, it helped clear her head. It helped her realize that using that guy, Garret, to get Mr. Gold to pay attention to her was a childish idea. Tomorrow she would try, yet again to explain everything to Gold. If he didn't listen then that was it. Maybe Garret wasn't such a terrible guy anyway.

That next day, Belle walked into the pawn shop with a wicked headache. Too much scotch, she decided. She had her speech planned out perfectly in her head, which meant everything was going to come out horribly wrong. She was prepared for that too though. She was not going to lose this fight. She walked straight up to the counter, placing his earl grey down and quickly making eye contact.

"Mr. Gold, can I ask you a question?" she started, not wanting to just jump right into things.

He stirred his sugar into his tea and let his gaze drop, "I suppose."

Belle took a deep breath, "Are you ever going to reschedule our date?" Well that wasn't what she had planned to say at all. Now she would have to improvise.

Gold looked up, looking very uncomfortable. "I wasn't aware it was a date" he said nonchalantly.

Belle rolled her eyes at him. "Of course you knew. Don't try to play dumb with me. I know you heard me talking to Ruby about it at Granny's. I didn't mean what I said, she was just getting on my nerves and..."

Gold stopped her, anger glowing in his eyes. "I'm not the one who misunderstood dearie. I was just being polite. You were new to town, and I wanted to make my employee feel welcome. That's all."

Belle had her own anger building inside of her. "Why do you always do that?" she asked tossing her hands up in defeat. "I know you felt a connection, just like I did when I walked in here three weeks ago. Why are you so afraid to explore it?"

Gold's grip tightened on his cane, making his knuckles turn white. "I think you should learn to hold your tongue in front of your boss. Take the day off, Miss. French. Maybe once you clear your head you'll acquire some manners" he spat at her.

"No my head is clear!" she shouted. "I understand if you don't want a relationship, but you have barely spoken to me at all since you canceled our date. Why can't we at least have some kid of friendship?" Gold just glared at her. Belle opened her mouth to say something else, but he gave her a warning look and she shut it.

"I'm not going to ask you again Miss. French, leave, or I'll fire you." Now he was threatening her, looks like Garret would be getting a date after all.

Almost as if by magic, her phone rang the second she stepped out of the pawn shop. "Hello?" she answered, having a pretty good sense of who was on the other line.

"Hey Belle, it's Garret. I was wondering if you had any plans tonight." He was being very polite, something he wasn't last night.

Belle looked back inside the shop, "No, I'm free" she said sadly.

"Great!" he clearly hadn't picked up on her mood. "Why don't we keep it simple this first time and go to Granny's. Meet there at seven?" he suggested.

Belle sighed, "Sure, sounds great." She hung up her phone and started walking back home, wondering what she would wear on her date.