Chapter 6: Tell Me Something I Don't Know


It was my fault. I was mature enough to admit it. Embry didn't want to go to the bar; he said it was too loud and too smelly. But I was disappointed and he could tell, so he agreed that we might as well meet up there two hours before the movie to kill some time together.

The bar wasn't my favourite place, but it was familiar. I had been going there since I was twenty-one. It was pretty standard, dim lights, fuzzy televisions, floors you shouldn't look too closely at, but the atmosphere was welcoming. I wasn't scared that I had arrived a good twenty minutes earlier than Embry was supposed to. It was still early in the night and I knew no one would bother me.

I was wrong, but not in the way I expected.

No sooner had I glanced around for a table than I spotted them. Oops. I had forgotten Jessica, Lauren and Katie were going out tonight. And that they had good eyesight.

"Angela!"

The volume of Lauren's voice suggested they had been there for a little longer than I would have wanted considering my—Embry was going to show up very soon.

But I went over. They were my girls, after all, and I did adore them.

"What are you doing here?" Jessica demanded as Katie grabbed a chair from the guys next to them. "I thought you couldn't come because you had a date."

"He blew you off? Good," Lauren said before I could explain. "You can be on my side. Men are unnecessary, unwelcome distractions and we are so much better off without them."

It had been two months since the breakup, but Lauren still wasn't quite over him. Especially after a few drinks.

"I'm actually just early."

Her face fell, but she just tossed her very highlighted hair around. I wasn't brave enough to put all those colors into my hair at once, but it looked nice on Lauren. The disappointment on her face, however, seemed too severe to be cured by complimenting her hair.

"Does this mean we might get to meet him?" Jessica squealed.

Oh my.

"Um, yeah. It looks like that."

We still weren't technically official, but we had been seeing each other for over a month so I guess I should let him meet my friends. He had let me meet Quil and Seth, after all (I had gotten the impression he didn't have much choice about either of those meetings, but they had happened, so I sort of owed him this).

"Excellent," Jessica cackled. Jessica was already on her second drink, so she was friendly, if slightly evil. There had been a problem with the flowers and she had been in a foul mood at the beginning of the night I found out later; that was why Mike was currently sitting at home alone.

"I can't believe he called them a waste of money."

"They were a little expensive."

"But totally worth it."

"Totally."

"And it turned out to be a good thing I left him at home that night." She frowned suddenly. "Not that I remember much of what happened."

I had thought as much. That's why I was re-telling it.

"I'm not surprised."

"Uh…do I want to hear the rest of this?"

"You don't do anything embarrassing," I assured her. She wasn't completely reassured, but she nodded for me to go ahead. And that's why you shouldn't drink more than you could count on one hand when you were a little person.

"Just, um, family's off limits, okay?"

Which was the dumbest way to go about it, I admit. But I was worried, so I just blurted it out.

Of course, the next words out of Jessica's mouth were: "Why can't we ask about his family?"

"You just can't, Jess. Please just trust me?"

I should have known this was going to happen. If I hadn't brought it up Jessica probably wouldn't have thought to ask about Embry's family. Now that I had mentioned it, it was all she was going to think about. Why had I thought it was a good idea to introduce Embry to my friends?

Oh yeah. Because I wanted them to get to know one another so they could sit around together in sixty years planning my eightieth birthday party in the old age home. Right.

"Ang…why not?"

"Because he doesn't like talking about it." While I knew it was just him and his mom, he didn't like going into detail about his childhood. He was protective of his mother (I had seen that at once). His father was a mystery he did not want to explain. I would respect that. The last thing I wanted to do was unleash Jessica on him. "Please, Jess?"

She shrugged, agreeing, I hoped, and then Katie came to my rescue.

"This is still Seth's friend, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. So?"

"So?"

"Is it a Quileute thing?"

It was beginning to annoy me slightly, the way 'Quileute thing' was becoming an all-purpose excuse I heard all the time. But there was no way to avoid the question. Not that I didn't try.

"Is what a..." Okay, so I knew what she meant. Please let Embry be late, I prayed. The power of prayer worked. Not only did Embry not appear at that inopportune time, but I was saved from answering.

"Like Angela knows," Lauren pointed out.

"Just because she doesn't blow guys in airport bathrooms."

"Jess!"

Jessica shrugged at Lauren's mock outrage. "I thought we were in overshare mode. Sorry."

"That was one time," Lauren defended herself. "And he was really cute."

We giggled—that's what the drinks were for after all.

"So when is the shrimp coming?" Lauren said. "Oh, don't give me that look. We all know Angela likes them tiny."

Maybe Lauren was upset not just because of her ex-boyfriend, I realized suddenly. Maybe she was hurt I had left her out of the loop lately.

"Okay, first off, since Angela never tells us anything interesting, we don't know how big any of them were. Second, none of her boyfriends have been shorter than me, so they were not short. And third—holy shit."

"What?" Lauren turned to look. "Oh. Dibs on him."

Jessica grinned at me. "You weren't kidding when you said I'd know him when I saw him."

Lauren glanced between us. "That's him?"

"He's shorter than I pictured," Katie said. Just because he was only a little over six feet didn't make Embry short.

Standing up, I brushed down my dress and met Embry before he could reach the table. He was wearing a proper shirt for once, one that was actually buttoned up. Even though I hadn't warned him he was going to get interrogated tonight he didn't seem surprised. I guess he sensed this one coming.

It didn't exactly surprise me how much I suddenly needed everything to go well tonight. I had known I liked him. I just hadn't expected the feeling to be quite so strong.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

"I found some company. You want to meet my friends?"

"I'm all for running away like a coward, actually," he teased, "But if you'd rather we stayed..."

"You'll love them," I promised. I hoped.

I pulled him to stand behind me (I doubted he would fit on any of the bar stools) and introduced him, clutching his warm hand in mine the entire time. I hoped my cold hands could cool his enough so that no one would notice how hot he was. Not that I complained about the warm arm he placed around my waist.

No one seemed to notice anything odd about his temperature as they shook hands. I thought Lauren might have noticed because she seemed to linger a little, but then Jess rolled her eyes at me and I realized that was just a Lauren thing.

"You can't call dibs on Angela's boyfriend," Jessica pointed out.

Which was a little awkward because we hadn't really talked about words like boyfriend and girlfriend just yet. Even though...well, it would be nice.

"We need more drinks," Katie interrupted. I shot her a grateful smile as she took everyone's order before trying to flag down a server.

It didn't turn into a nightmare, of course. Jessica always soared in social settings and Embry was a friendly guy so we all managed to get along fine. Sure, when Lauren started talking about Ben and my virginity it got a little awkward, but this time I managed to rescue myself, buying her another drink. Another one and she was openly flirting with Embry, who was deep in conversation with Katie about the floor she was trying to install herself. Good boy.

I leaned back against him, playing with the fingers that were on my waist. He pressed a kiss to my temple as we talked to Jessica about her upcoming wedding. It was her favorite topic of conversation, nowadays, even if they were having issues. Embry didn't get too freaked out about my friends bringing up marriage. He just nodded and mentioned that the flowers at his friend's wedding—Jared's—smelt so strong that the entire bridal party got a headache. Jessica slammed her hands on the table.

"Thank you! Mike thinks it's not an important decision, but I keep telling him the wrong flowers can ruin the day."

She went off on such a long rant that at one point Embry turned to me and whispered, "Should we try to stop her?"

"If she didn't get it off her chest she might explode," I reassured him. "Don't worry. It's almost over."

I was right. Once Jessica had finished, she immediately turned the conversation to this play Mike was going to take her to soon that Embry and I had to see as well. Suddenly we found ourselves roped into a double date.

Eventually, the two of us did have to take off for our movie. The girls were more than a little tipsy at this point, so they gave Embry rather affectionate goodbye hugs, but he didn't seem to mind. At least he had the decency to blush after whatever Lauren said to him.

"Goodbye," I called one last time before I hurried him out the door.

The cool air felt nice against my flushed face. I probably shouldn't have had quite so many myself.

"Don't you drink?" Mostly I didn't want to talk about everything else that had happened.

"More than one is just a waste of money. It doesn't do anything," he complained.

"So you're not a lightweight, you're a heavyweight? Interesting."

He laughed, pulling me closer to him.

"I liked your friends."

Now I was smiling like an idiot and it wasn't because of the booze.

"Really?"

"Yeah. They know how to have fun. What more could you ask for?"

"And they're there for me no matter what. Always have been and always will be."

"Are you drunk?"

"Talking about my friends makes me all mushy. And being around you destroys most of my rational thoughts."

"I think I like the sound of that."

I found myself blushing. "Embry? Since you have agreed to go on a double date to a really bad play and you let my friends call you my boyfriend for over an hour—I figure that makes you my boyfriend. If you wanted."

"I was hoping it did."

"Good."

He stopped and kissed me and we were going to be late for the movie but for some reason I didn't care. His lips were warm, his arms were strong and I felt too happy for words in that moment.

"There is…" Embry's breath was warm against my ear. But it was his words and not his breath that made me shiver. "I would never come back to you if…if I found someone else."

"I wouldn't want you to," was all I could say. It was a strange oath to make—not to be faithful, but to stay away if he strayed—but I found it acceptable. "I'll do the same."

"Good."

We were only five minutes late for the movie.


Jessica and I met up for lunch a couple days later. She worked at the bank, following in her mother's footsteps, but we could meet up at this cute little Italian place during our lunch breaks if I walked really fast. Since we hadn't discussed the past Friday night in depth it was essential we got together in person. Only she had more important things to worry about.

"Mike wants to push back the wedding," she announced as we hugged.

"To when?"

"To next freaking August. Apparently there's this conference that his boss might ask him to go on during our weekend. Please tell me there's a way to tell my fiancé to go to hell without breaking up with him?"

I laughed as the waitress came to take our orders. We always met at the same place—I always ordered the same thing and Jessica was working her way down the menu. It was easy for us to place our orders and then we were back to our conversation.

"Just tell him it's not possible. Everything must be paid for by now, right?"

"He never listens to me," Jess whined. "I've been telling him he's being ridiculous for weeks but he doesn't care. We've almost settled on an invitation design. I mean, really? He wants to change the date now?"

I grabbed Jessica's hand and she gave a little half-laugh.

"Do you think this means he doesn't want to get married anymore?"

"No, Jess," I assured her. "He wants to marry you. I'm sure he loves you and—"

"Loves me is not the same as wanting to marry me," she whimpered. "What am I going to do, Ang?"

"You need to be having this conversation with Mike, not me."

Jessica knew that. She was a lot smarter than most people gave her credit for, but the problem with Jessica and Mike, in my relatively limited relationship experience, was that she chased after him and he didn't realize that he should occasionally let her know that he wanted her to. Mike was the only person that Jessica couldn't hold a grudge against. Everything he did rolled right off of her, which is why she had to snap at everyone else. A person could only have so much patience and she rationed hers poorly.

"Was I really that neurotic leading up to the wedding?"

"You were…I'm sure I'm just exaggerating it."

"I was worse?"

"That's not what I said."

"That's what you meant. Oh god, how could I have been worse? Don't answer that."

So I didn't.

Even with her little quirks, Jessica was still a good friend. She was halfway through her rant when she suddenly froze.

"Not that I can have this conversation with Mike until Friday. Nothing must ruin our double date. Embry's still in, right?"

"He is. And he's looking forward to it."

"He is? Or he's just saying he is?"

"I'm pretty sure he wasn't faking."

"Excellent."

"So...?"

"Tall." We laughed, but she continued, "He spent the whole time staring at you; I have decided to be a fan of the guy who clearly adores you. What more does a guy need besides absolutely delicious biceps and good taste?"

"Well, if you put it like that..."

"Seriously, Ang." Jessica was beaming. "He was nice and the two of you are in the disgustingly sweet googly eyed phase and it was so cute. I approve."

"Why, thank you."

She bit her lip. "So have you told your parents about him?" My pathetic attempt at chewing instead of answering did not impress her. "You're Angela Webber. You have to tell them. You tell them everything."

"Mom already saw him."

"That's great," Jessica said. She sounded relieved. "She can ease your dad into the whole, uh, thing."

"It's not great," I admitted.

"But I thought—isn't her family a whole bunch of pagans, too? That means she should be on your side."

"She hasn't talked to Embry yet. She doesn't know he wouldn't know Jesus Christ from Johnny Cash." That was an exaggeration; Embry had a vague understanding of Christianity (mostly from Christmas specials). It just wasn't something he thought about. Ever. "She just—she isn't keen for other reasons."

"She just saw him, huh?" Jessica frowned. "Since when did your mom get all racist?"

"Jess!"

"Is there another word for it that I missed? If she doesn't like him because of the way he looks—unless she's discriminating against the tall? Or bodybuilders?"

"Shut up. And it's not like that." Okay, so it was because he was different but it wasn't nearly as simple as Jessica made it sound. I wish it had been that simple. "I can't accept that she won't accept him just because he's not exactly like me. This is my mother. She's not like that."

Jessica gave me a look that called me on all my crap. "I guess you don't need to talk to her since you're covering her ass so well."

"I'll call her. After I figure out how to make her see that he's amazing. And you should talk to Mike."

"Well, we aren't moving the wedding."

We got back to the wedding details. The worst part about meeting with Jessica was that she was right about things. I couldn't avoid my mother forever; I had to talk to her. She was my mother and I had to talk to her. As soon as I figured out what I was going to say.