Disclaimer: The Twilight series/universe/characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25 dot com

Prompt: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Pen Name: GetDrunkOnVictory

Pairing/Character(s): Kate/Garrett, Lauren, Tanya

Rating: T

Another day, another dollar. It isn't so bad working for my Aunt Carmen and Uncle Eleazar. At least I could say that I liked my bosses and I never had to be nervous about any suggestions that I came up with. I moved out here for school and they offered me a room in their house and a job in their organic goods store.

Truthfully, the only problem I have is with some of the people in this town. I haven't met everybody yet, so I can't make a general observation. But the majority of the people that I have met are self-centered and judgmental. My past encounters have left me not wanting to meet anymore of the people that live here.

Of course my first customer of the day has to be one of those people that I truly dislike. Miss Lauren Mallory, who thinks she is God's gift to the entire world. Rich, popular, prom queen, and unfortunately for the rest of us no one has told her that high school is over.

"I need an oatmeal face mask," she tells me while fixing her hair in the mirror that we had on the counter next to the bamboo reading glasses.

"Aisle four …" I glance up at her "… or you can go to the spa down on 65th." And keep yourself as far away from me as possible, I add in my mind.

She stops messing with her face long enough to look at me like I am mental. "Well, go get it."

I make it a point to lean over the counter to look at her legs. "The lack of plaster on your lower half indicates that you should have no trouble walking and getting it yourself. Or maybe you just don't know how to read."

She scoffs and stomps over to the fourth aisle and I go back to my sketchbook.

Some time passes and a few more customers come in, but they lose themselves in the aisles and I'm left to my sketches. That is until Lauren and her attitude come back to the counter. I have to rush to move my sketchbook out of the way when she carelessly dumps her selections on the counter. Bitch.

I don't notice Garrett walk in while I'm ringing up Lauren's purchases until he's standing at the counter.

"Good morning, lovely. Can I interest you in having a wonderful dinner with me tonight in which we get to know each other and fall madly in love?"

I ignore him as I continue with Lauren in front of me, but I'm sure he can see my lips twitch as I fight a smile.

"Can't get away tonight? That's perfectly all right. We could always have a grilled cheese and tomato soup picnic in the park on Monday. Or a pancakes and French toast breakfast with perfectly golden hash browns at the diner on Tuesday. Maybe you'd prefer getting together for a cold chocolaty-caramel and milk blended coffee on Wednesday evening where I keep you entertained for so long that you get hungry and we have no choice but to have a wonderful dinner together because we are just so fascinated with each other that we can't bear to part just yet."

"I'll have breakfast in bed with you on Tuesday after we have dinner together on Monday," Lauren says while dragging her finger along Garrett's arm. Can you believe this little sket cadet?

"I'm busy." He doesn't take his eyes off of me, but he removes her hand from his arm and takes a small step away from her.

"But you just said–"

"I'm only free, if it's for Kate."

"Who's Kate?"

She can't be fucking serious. Garrett and I both look down at my nametag and notice that I am in fact wearing my own.

For the first time since he walked in, Garrett takes his eyes off me and looks at Lauren. He opens his mouth to say something to her, but shakes his head seemingly giving up on her before turning back to me. "I'll be by tomorrow, Katie."

I quickly finish up with Lauren to get her the hell away from me and I may or may not have accidentally on purpose left one or two things out of her bags.

My cousin, Tanya, speaks from behind me and I startle not realizing that she had been standing there. "I can't stand Mallory. She's like the town bicycle…"

"Everyone gets a ride," we finish together.

Tanya gives a short chuckle before becoming serious. "Why do you keep turning down Garrett?"

Garrett Ameriot has come into the store almost every day for the last month trying to get me to go out with him. He's pretty creative with his date scenarios and it makes me wonder how much effort he would truly put into it. Would he put as much effort into the date as he has been just trying to get me to say yes or would all of this build-up just lead to disappointment? There is one thing that I have to say about him though, even with my consistently negative responses he is never without a compliment and a genuine smile.

"I don't know why I keep telling him no, Tan. I just do." I truly don't know why I still haven't agreed to a date with him. He's nice, smart, funny, and he has turned down all female advances since he began asking me out including slutty Lauren Mallory who we all know is a sure thing.

"Well you better figure it out before he thinks that you really aren't interested and stops asking."

It's as if the universe heard her and has decided to prove a point because Garrett doesn't return to the store for almost two weeks.

It's been a while since I've seen him and I wasn't expecting to see him today either. It's almost closing time and the store had been shockingly busy today. In fact, this is the first chance that I've gotten all day to even open my sketchbook. I'm hunched over my sketchbook at the front counter when a flash comes out of nowhere. I look up quickly and I'm shocked to see Garrett lowering a camera from his face. For the first time in the couple of months that he's been coming in here, his smile is nervous.

"Garrett, it's been a while."

"Uh, yeah … I had two back-to-back photo shoots out of town. I was going to come by before I left, but I overslept and almost missed my flight." Tanya had told me he is a photographer, but I didn't realize that he is big enough to be called out of state for a shoot.

"So what's with the picture taking now?"

He looks down at the camera and fiddles with the buttons as he answers. "I've gotten pretty used to seeing you almost every day and while I was gone I realized that I, a professional photographer, don't even have one photograph of you. That's not why I'm here though." The smile I've come to expect is back on his face and he's looking at me again. "Lunch tomorrow with some ham and Swiss on toasted buttery croissants and orange soda?"

I shake my head and fight back my smile.

"Okay." He sighs and nods in resignation before turning towards the door.

"Hey, Garrett." He pauses, but doesn't turn to look at me. "The store closes in twenty minutes and the diner is still serving pancakes and French toast with perfectly golden hash browns."

He turns to me with his mouth hanging open in shock and I finally stop holding back the smile that's been begging to take over my face since that first morning he walked in here.

AN: Thank you to my best friend, The Original Bella, for catching my mistakes and to Pandora's Box is Heavy for prereading and just generally putting up with me.

ericastwilight suggested that Carmen and Eleazar own an organic goods shop. (She spoke to me and I may or may not have squealed in excitement. Don't judge me.)

I am not responsible for the couple of insults thrown at Lauren. Destructo Girl on twitter ( dearsaima) chose "sket cadet" and the lovely Pandora's Box is Heavy chose "the town bicycle."

Find me on twitter: GetDOnV

I came up with back-stories for all of my entries so if you have questions, feel free to ask.

Don't forget to check out the entries from the other challengers. Just search for TheTwilight25 here on ffn and check out the community.