A/N: I know, I know…I'm so cruel. I didn't update yesterday. You know what…shut up! I gave you two the day before and it's entirely possible that I'll have another one up by midnight. So suck it up. Ok…I may be being a little harsh. What I meant to say was : "I love you guys, I'm sorry I got distracted by good weather yesterday and got a sunburn instead of bring another chapter to my loyal fans." So…I'm sorry. But hopefully the following Eric POV with brighten your spirits a little. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Southern Vampire Mystery Series.

I let my head fall back onto the headrest and listened to the purr of my baby's engine. How the fuck did I get here? I had helped Quinn load up Maxwell into his truck before watching him drive off to wait for Felipe's instructions. I didn't want to know what they were going to do. There is no crime against being ignorant; the same cannot be said for whatever was going to happen to him. Don't get me wrong, I doubt they were going to kill him or do anything like that, but I was pretty fucking sure that Felipe wouldn't let him off with a slap on his wrist…or bump on his head…whatever. I had told Sookie that we were going to call the police. I felt bad about lying, but you can't exactly explain to a police officer that the guy that attacked you was after a case full of cash that was collected under illegal circumstances.

Thinking about Sookie just unlocked a whole new mess of confusion and thoughts. Two weeks ago, I would not have believed that one little swooner could cause so much upset in my routine. Pam had hated when I'd referred to her like that, but a week later, we had both seen the look on her face and her nervous behavior. She'd tried to shake my hand with a handful of broken glass. In a way, it was adorable. Most women got over the shock pretty fast and immediately started trying to seduce me. The swooners of the past had always gone from star-struck to aggressive. I was used to that. But Sookie was different. She was like a little girl. She had the sense to be embarrassed by her reaction, and nothing was cuter than her blush when she realized what she was doing. Fuck, even her Swedish Fish comment was endearing. I would never admit it to Pam, but my instincts about this girl had been wrong.

Initially, I had only thought about the hot blonde because she was…fucking hot. But after that first meeting, I was intrigued.

That night, a week ago, had turned traumatic fast. On my way to the men's room, I was attacked by a gang of drunken harpies in heat. Now usually, drunk women were entertaining in their interactions with me. I'd play along and laugh about the fact that they would say exactly what they were thinking about me, thinking they were being smooth and seductive. But these women had gotten annoying pretty god damn fast. I tried to free myself from the circle they had formed around me, but they didn't like that so much and responded by closing in. Before I knew it, there were women rubbing up against each of my legs. Two others were running their hands up and down my sides and holding onto my arms. I felt hands on my back and squeezing my ass, but I couldn't tell you how many. There was another one in the front that was holding onto my neck and nuzzling her head into my chest. I was not enjoying it. I tried to fight back, but those bitches were strong. As if that wasn't bad enough, I swear the lights dimmed and the DJ put on some fucking techno piece of shit that had some sort of tribal beat going on. I really could have killed him.

I was trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get out this in one piece when I felt their hold on me loosen a little. They started grabbing onto each other and squealing. I was about to make a run for it when I was pulled away from them and over to the wall. I could feel that it was a woman's hand and at this point I knew it was futile to resist. I just closed my eyes and braced myself for whatever was about to happen. When I finally did open my eyes, I was looking into the most beautiful blue eyes I could imagine. They were so soft and comforting, I could have stared at them forever, but I was distracted by the necklace she was wearing. After some confusion, Sookie explained why she had it and I trusted her to lead me off the dance floor that had become my least favorite place.

This lead to her checking out my ass, laughing at claw marks on my back and then agreeing to help me clean them up. In truth, I didn't really want her to leave me alone, I was kind of shaken up from those women earlier, and she had such a comforting presence. I could tell she was little nervous to be around me after her earlier embarrassment…again… endearing. I don't know why, but I caught myself telling her shit about my childhood. I had just met the woman for Christ's sake. When she'd finished, we'd somehow gotten into a tangle and Pam had caught me holding onto the poor girl's thigh. Being Pam, she decided to make Sookie as uncomfortable as possible and I high-tailed it out of their in hopes of sparing the girl whatever I could. After all, she had cleaned up the wild bitch scratches on my back.

I'd gone back to the game to find that I hadn't missed much. It ended up being a long and boring night, during which I often caught myself thinking about the feel of Sookie's thigh. We went until well into Saturday and Felipe decided he didn't want to bother getting together again this weekend. I'd never understood Felipe. When he hired me and proposed the plan, I had assumed he was addicted to gambling and was just creating his own outlet for it. But he was never as excited about playing as I had expected him to be. After watching him for months, I had suspected that he only started the club to socialize and have something he could easily have control of. I figured he was bored.

I didn't work during the week, so I went over to Pam's house on Wednesday afternoon to hang out with her when she wasn't distracted by bar business. I'd hoped we could just spend a day together as the best friends we'd been since we were in diapers. But she had other plans.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" She asked me as she opened the door.

"Nice to see you too, Pamela." I sneered as I pushed past her and plopped onto the sofa. If I had known this was how our day would be starting, I would have found something else to do.

"Eric, you know I love you. But I do not understand you sometimes." She closed the door and leaned against it.

"If you would tell me what you're referring to, I might be able to enlighten you on the reasoning behind my actions." I smiled up at her.

"You know what the fuck I'm talking about. Why the hell were you snuggling up to Sookie on my couch? You said she wasn't your type." Shit. I let my head fall back onto the top of the couch and she came to sit in the chair across the room. "I like Sookie. I think she's a good waitress. She's got a good sense of humor. I do not want her to quit because you can't keep it in your pants and you end up hurting her."

"Fuck. Pam, give me some credit. If "it"," I used air quotes, "came out of my pants, it would be doing the opposite of hurting her." I looked up and smiled again. Apparently, she didn't like my joke. She threw a pillow at me.

"I'm fucking serious Eric. Don't mess with my staff. Do you know how hard it is to find hot waitresses that aren't ditsy, unreliable, or spend all their time flirting my customers?" She was glaring at me. Shit. I hated it when Pam was genuinely mad at me. I preferred her to be slightly annoyed or frustrated, it was always more entertaining that way.

"Fine. I won't go anywhere near her." I conceded. I was hoping this would end the argument and we would be back to normal. I was not expecting Pam to jump up, stomp over to me, and smack me across the face. In fact, it shocked the hell out of me when she did.

"What the fuck was that for?" I yelled at her while massaging my burning cheek. Damn, that girl could put some serious force behind a hit. I'd have to ask her if she had been working out.

"Don't be difficult. I did not mean that I wanted you ignore her, and you know it." She squatted down on the couch next to me and looked me in the eye. "I know you like her. Don't try and deny it, because I like her, and I have higher standards than you do." She looked at me, begging me to argue, but I knew better. I let her continue.

"What I do want you to do is not be the vain prick that you normally are when you encounter an attractive female you would like to mate with. Just make this easy on yourself, Sookie, and me and just admit to yourself that you might actually like this girl and therefore might not want to fuck it up. That includes groping her the first night you meet her. And don't you dare give me that lame ass story about her just 'helping' you out. Because I know somewhere inside that beautiful head of yours, you wanted to get her alone and feel her up. So stop it. Stop being the piece of shit Casanova you think you are, and be the honestly good man that I know is in there somewhere." She stood up as she finished her rant. "Now get out." She said pointing towards the door.

I just sat there dumb-struck. I couldn't believe what had just happened. Pam had never given a shit about my lifestyle before, why the fuck was she starting now. And what made her think that she knew what I wanted better than I did. Because you do want Sookie, my brain supplied for me. Realizing that disobeying Pam was about as useful as fighting a swarm of drunken bitches, I got up and made my way to the door. I opened it up, but stopped at the last second before leaving to look back at Pam. She was fuming, her hands were on her hips and her stare was about to burn a whole through the door. Shit. You better fix this you motherfucker.

"Hey Pam," I said in a soft voice, "have you been working out?" I gave my cheek a theatric rub for good measure. It worked. Her glare faltered and was replaced by a genuine smile.

"Four days a week." She proudly admitted. "I hate the sweat. But fuck me if there isn't always someone pretty to look at while I'm there." She added with a mischievous grin. I returned the grin and walked out, satisfied that we were back on good terms.

And that brought me back to tonight. I can't believe it had only been a few hours since I'd walked into the bar, intending to tell Pam and she was wrong and I planned to keep my distance from Sookie to avoid any problems. Before I could find her, I ran right into Sookie. Over the week, I had forgotten exactly how she looked. I'd never really gotten a good look at her (when I wasn't insane from being recently mauled). She was much prettier than I remembered. Her face was much more relaxed and her eyes were clearer. And she wasn't swooning. She was smiling, and it was genuine. It wasn't forced and she didn't have any ulterior motives of getting me naked, which was both refreshing and disappointing. Hey, I'm being honest here. I didn't really pay attention to what I said to her, but when she walked away, I was wishing that I had said something the required a longer conversation. And then that feeling hit me; that calm, content feeling. I'd been nervous and distracted all week and now I was perfectly clear. And I think I knew why. Fucking Pam would never live this down.

Just sitting at the bar and watching her later that night was a new experience entirely. I had a chance to appreciate the subtle sexually that she was exuding with every move, I hadn't noticed it before. And when she spoke to me, I shared more of my memories of me and Pam's summers. Those memories were the happiest I had, and they seemed even more private because of it, but I told her. And I think I knew why. Was Pam ever wrong?

I liked her. I fucking liked this girl. I was a fucking pansy reminiscing about my god damn childhood, and it wasn't even to soften her up and get in her in bed. God-motherfucking-damnit. I liked her.

But then Maxwell had to be a greedy asshole. And I had to knock him the fuck out. And I was pissed that he tried to attack me with Sookie standing right there, she could have been hurt. I only wished that I'd gotten a few good punches in and enjoyed it a little more. Piece of shit went down with one blow. But then she told me she could read minds. And Quinn heard. Putting the fact that she could read my god damn mind on the back burner…this was bad. I didn't trust Quinn as far as I could throw him; and he looked heavy. I didn't know exactly what he was thinking, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it. He was going to fuck this up. He was going to hurt her.

I did the only thing I could do at that moment to get him away from her. I told her to leave. And she did. And now I was sitting here, in my car, wondering what the fuck I was going to do about this.

A/N: Microsoft word never ceases to amaze me. Though it realizes that "mutherfucker" is not right…it will not offer spelling suggestions. Leading me to believe that while it will not help you write a profane/angry/malicious document, Word will look the other way (and essentially condone it) when you have a filthy mouth in conjunction with spelling skills (and/or accurate typing skills), because it does recognize "motherfucker".

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