Chapter 3: Have a Drink on Me

After the first week, school settled down into something less terrifying. I now knew all the children's names in my sleep; there was no longer any more lucky guesswork and deductive reasoning. Their schedule was becoming second nature. And the majority of the kids had stopped crying all the time for someone who wasn't me. So I was feeling good about life as I walked out of the school

Into a brick wall.

Only it wasn't a brick wall I discovered as hands grabbed my arms before I even registered I was falling backwards. When the world stopped moving out from under me, I looked up to find myself staring at a vaguely familiar man.

"Sorry about that." The smile looked like it was about to dance off his face, it was so energized. "Do you remember me?"

"Seth, right?"

"Yeah. You need a hand with those bags?"

I looked down at the overflowing bags, filled with the scrapbooks I needed to finish making tonight so the kids could start destroying them tomorrow.

"I'm good, actually. It's nice to see you again."

"Good." Despite being the most enormous man I had ever seen when he grinned I wanted to pat him on the head. "I saw you walking, thought I'd ask how you were doing. Maybe buy you coffee. Or whatever it is you drink. I like everything."

"My ankle's better now, thanks. And I'm doing fine."

"Good. So how do you feel about coffee?"

"I like coffee."

"And coffee with me?"

After a day of chasing children with running noses I was not looking my best. I smelt a little if you got too close and my hair was a mess. Men tended not to go out of their way to invite me to coffee on a good day. But my hesitation didn't seem to offend him, just set him off laughing.

"So we can become friends," he explained. "If you're going to be exploring the forest, you're going to need a friendly Quileute guide and I'm one of the best."

"I've been kind of put off the forest."

"Then in case you change your mind, you should come. Keep your options open."

"Seth—"

"Trust me, Angela. You won't regret it. How bad can one coffee be?"

It was startling how dark his eyes were, but I wasn't frightened. There had always been a pull to the strange men of the coast, but it wasn't as exciting as before. It simply was. Jessica always said I was too trusting, but he looked so open just then, so sincerely excited about just getting to know me that I don't think anyone could have refused.

"Okay." I even handed the bags over. They weighed a ton, but it didn't surprise me to see him lift them as if they were nothing.

"Excellent."

"So do you live around here?" I asked. "Or are you just here checking out the exciting...well, I'm sure Forks has something exciting in it."

He laughed again. If Embry laughed easily, then Seth was just always laughing. And talking a mile a minute.

"I'm sort of visiting, sort of...I am Quileute. I just don't technically live there any more, I guess. Or maybe I technically live there I just untechnically live other places? I'm not that sure how it works. It's a little weird. The police chief? Charlie? He's married to my mom. Sort of. So I have a room at his place, which is technically Forks. And then there's Leah and she lives in Seattle, so I stay with her sometimes. Though technically she's living in my place. I think. And then there's Jacob and he lets me live with him, so that's in La Push. And I'm there for the most part. But I'm not sure where that exactly puts me."

"Wow. It must be hard to track you down."

"No. I always come when I'm called."

It was a strange thing to say, something I would say about my dog, but I kept it to myself. It wasn't as if I cared about tracking Seth down. I wasn't even sure about having a friendly cup of coffee with him.

But something he said had reassured me, so I offered some information about myself. "It's funny that your mother's married to Chief Swan. I went to high school with his daughter, Bella."

"You're Bella's friend?" He smile grew. "Aren't her and Edward great? He offered to get me a car but Mom said I had to refuse. But he bought me tickets to this car show and it was the greatest thing ever. Even Leah admitted the leeches weren't so bad because it was that amazing."

Was I supposed to follow any of that? I didn't think so. I hadn't known the Cullens had been friends with anyone down on the reservation; I couldn't ever recall them going to La Push.

"I haven't talked to Bella since she moved away after she got married, I'm afraid. I always regretted not keeping in touch, but I couldn't seem to track her down. I'm glad you managed." A thought suddenly occurred to me. "When you said Jacob were you talking about Jacob Black?"

"Yeah. Do you know him?"

"No." This might not be the most appropriate topic considering it had been years since high school, but it was still funny and he seemed to enjoy laughing. "The entire senior class had bets on whether Bella would pick Jacob or Edward. Because when you're a teenager you have nothing better to do than talk about other people."

"Don't worry about it. All of us took bets too. Jake never really forgave us for betting against him, but what were we going to do? Eternal love, right?"

"Right."

"Oh, don't make me puke. Eternal love? He knocked her up!"

"We don't know that for sure, Jess."

"Uh, yeah we do." After their honeymoon, everyone in town had heard the rumours—and then the Cullens had left town. It looked black against Edward and Bella. And small town that Forks was, they weren't about to give the outsiders the benefit of the doubt. "And how come you never told me Seth tried to make a move on you?"

It was funny that I was thinking about Bella and Edward after all this time. When I got home I would have to call Jessica—or maybe not. She had never been that crazy about Bella; Mike's crush on Bella still made her upset even if he was clearly in the palm of her hand now.

"You couldn't have just told me to shut up like a normal person?"

"I don't want you to shut up, Jess. I just want you to trust I'll get there eventually. And Seth wasn't hitting on me. Or he wasn't trying to. Later on I found out he had broken up with his girlfriend, like, minutes before. Honestly, I think that's why he just didn't care about disobeying orders. He had to find some way to cheer himself up and Embry was it."

"I don't follow."

"Which is why I'm going to continue."

The coffee shop was fairly empty, since the tourists were not going to ruin their dinner. If I still lived at home, Mom would have been ordering me to set the table. It was hard without her. Only a week and I had fallen into the bad habit of cooking my own dinner well after eight.

We wandered inside and stood in line, arguing about drinks. He teased me about all the directions I gave for my tea, but he was drinking plain black coffee and that was just too boring.

It was when we were sitting down, steaming cups in front of us, that he said: "So I know you don't like the forest and you don't have a boyfriend. Tell me something else about you."

As I blushed, I clarified, "I never said I didn't have a boyfriend."

It just set him off laughing again. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"We can pretend. Serves him right, anyway."

"Serves who right?"

"Embry." The nervousness I probably should have felt seemed out of place beside Seth's complete ease, so I didn't bother being embarrassed. "He deserves it. Idiot. He wanted to ask for your number; I still don't understand why he didn't. He's been kicking himself for days. Don't worry."

Oh.

"That still doesn't explain how you know I don't have a boyfriend."

"Would you have come with me if you had?"

"This isn't a date."

"But you still wouldn't have come with me." Again there was that grin. "I've been friends with the guy since I was born and I still haven't bought anything from that store."

"I could be some kind of guy chasing harlot."

"People who use the word harlot don't cheat on their boyfriends."

"Is that a fact?"

"I think it might be."

Seth tossed back his coffee, not seeming to notice the steam coming off the top and I stopped being able to keep a straight face. When I stopped laughing (and blushing), I asked, "Was I that obvious?"

So obvious that he had told his friends?

"It's a good thing," Seth assured me. "He probably wouldn't have noticed if you'd been any more subtle. Women are not Embry's forte."

"And I suppose they're yours?"

"Not at all. We've got a lot in common that way. I actually just broke up with my girlfriend."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

He laughed again. "Embry was right. You are too good to be true. Yeah. I'm okay. You're not really allowed to be upset when you do the dumping, are you?"

"Sure you are. You're even allowed to talk to people about it if you need to."

"I don't really. I know what goes wrong. I didn't treat her very well." With one easy toss he got his empty cup in the garbage. "I never treat them well. At least Gloria's okay with being friends. It's nice when that happens."

"The best," I agreed. "Though it can be hard, too, when you look at each other and both know it's over. That you're already friends, you just haven't wanted to admit it."

It had been almost impossible with Ben, my first boyfriend. He had been my first everything and we were both still so young that admitting that we had changed too much to be together anymore was hard. There were tears at the end of that relationship. But time had managed to pull us back together and now I could count him among my closest friends. I had even offered to host an engagement party for him, just as soon as he worked up the nerve to ask his girlfriend to marry him. He already had the ring, he just had to ask.

The others that I had dated throughout college had been easier. As deeply as I cared for them, there always seemed to come a point when I took that next step or let them go and I had never felt the urge to try to turn one of those relationships into forever.

"That what happens to you?"

"I guess. My friends say it's because I'm too nice. That I—I get boring. So everything ends."

Why was I telling a virtual stranger this? I don't know, but I couldn't stop talking. It was like someone had slipped veritaserum in my tea. Or maybe I just knew a kindred spirit when I met one.

"Your friends sound like mine—kind of like assholes." Then he laughed. "We'd give anything for boring."

"Embry didn't seem that interested in boring." Then I had to say: "Did you just roll your eyes at me?"

"Sorry," he said sincerely. "Habit."

"Excuse me?"

"No feeling sorry for yourself," he told me. "The thing with Embry, well...the thing you have to remember about Embry is...Sam."

The teasing light faded from his eyes and he grew quite serious. It was a little startling to see; it was the first time I had seen him not smiling.

"This isn't going to make sense to you, but I think you deserve to hear it. There's a story we have, about how you discover the one person you are meant to be with, suddenly, without warning. One look is all it takes and the two of you just know. The two of you belong together. Forever. Strange, but true. We believe it—hell, I've seen it happen."

I was shaking, but I couldn't have said why; the words he said were almost too simple, but he had a way of saying them…there was a power in the words that made me tremble, the way you were always supposed to tremble at a power so much greater than your own.

"Knowing that it could happen, that it will happen—you didn't do anything wrong, Angela. Embry is just a coward—it wasn't perfect right away and so he didn't want to risk it."

"He wanted the close-up with the blinding spotlight and the violins?"

"Pretty much. Though you shouldn't blame him too much. It can get bad, when it goes wrong. He hates what it did to Leah—it really sucked what it did to Leah. And I can't really talk since Gloria—but don't we deserve to be happy? We deserve more than just waiting around, even if we haven't—"

Even though I wasn't following much of what he was saying, there was no time for me to come up with a response. He just kept going: "That was a little longer than I expected. Oh well. What matters is that it worked." Then he kissed my cheek with a smile that made him look slightly demonic.

"Leah wants you."

Embry stood beside the table, arms folded, shaking a little. I hadn't even heard him come in. Not that he looked at me at all. He and Seth were having an impromptu staring contest.

"Sure thing," Seth said with a smile. "We should do this again sometime, Ang."

It almost sounded like Embry growled—the way an animal might. I didn't imagine the way he watched Seth until the other man left the coffee shop. It was only when the door closed that Embry turned his attention to me.

"Seth falls in love every half hour or so. Don't take it personally."

"Who's Leah?"

"What?"

"Leah is…?"

"A bitch." The word came out so mindlessly I was sure he hadn't meant to say it. It was why he hurried to add, "Technically speaking, of course."

"And Seth occasionally lives with her because…?"

"She's his big sister," he said. Since it seemed we were having a conversation, he sat down in the empty chair. "She always looks out for him. In her way."

"And how do you know her?"

"We're…friends, I guess. Friends with the same people, anyway."

"But you still worry about what happens to her?"

"Of course." Then he frowned. "I shouldn't have said that. She's never going to let me live it down. You are far too easy to talk to."

"I won't tell her."

"Thanks, Angela. Leah's also sort of my boss."

"The scary evil boss lady that eats wannabes for breakfast?"

"And lunch. And dinner. And for a midnight snack." His smile was shy. "You paid attention."

"I try."

"Whatever Seth said—" He sighed. "I'm sure it was true. It might not have made sense..."

"Not really, no." I couldn't help laughing. "Is he—he's a very energetic sort of person."

Strangely enough the older man reminded me of my kids. I bet he would have liked finger painting.

"Yeah. Kid's special. In the world according to Seth...well, I think people would like living there."

"Is it such an impossible place to live in?"

"Sometimes." I wasn't quite sure what to make of the expression on his face. I know it made me blush, but I wasn't quite sure why. But just then I didn't doubt Seth had been right when he said Embry had been kicking himself for not asking me out. I just didn't know what to do with that knowledge.

"I see. Well, I guess I should—"

"Leah's on my side," he blurted out. He didn't touch me, but somehow I felt like I couldn't move. His eyes were too pleading too look away. There was none of Seth's incessant laughter, nothing simple about the way Embry looked at me.

"What?"

"She's on my side. She's going to be furious, when she finds out what he did. Because she knows—we know—it doesn't work. It's not fair." His chuckle was rather bitter. "It should have been a sign. If Leah's on my side, then I must be wrong."

"What does—I don't follow, Embry."

"I'm sorry. Really sorry I acted like—Cullen, I guess. Ugh. I'm very, very sorry. Let me make it up to you. Let me—I can't promise I won't accidentally put my foot in my mouth, but I'll try really hard."

"It's not a crime not to be interested."

That made him laugh. "How could someone not be interested in you?"

I kind of liked how he made it sound impossible.

"Is that your way of saying you are?"

"Yeah. Even if—I can't believe I let Paul tell me what to do."

He looked so physically pained at the thought, I couldn't help but laugh.

"That's okay."

"No. No, it's not. But I will make it up to you. If you'll let me. Um, that was my totally smooth way of asking you out, by the way."

"I got it," I promised. "And I'd like that."

"Dinner on Saturday?"

"I have dinner with my parents every week. Lunch?"

"I have lunch with my mom. Friday then?"

"Friday is good. Though a simple dinner never made up for anything."

"A dinner and a movie? And the possibility of being serenaded?"

"That might work. No guarantees."

But I had a good feeling about it.