sorry for the disappearing act. i honestly didn't do it on purpose. if you're still here, please enjoy and make sure to please please PLEASE read the a/n after the chapter!

i was too excited to finally post a chapter again so it hasn't been proofread by sophie. please just ignore any errors!

Chapter 9 - Bruises & Stress
Edward Masen

I sat in the slightly cluttered office, going over manual after manual on how to run all that fancy new equipment in the studio. I was having a hard time concentrating though because my butt was still sore from the other day.

When Angela and Sam had taken me to Vicki's for the first time, last Friday night, I was hesitant at first. It looked a little cheesy with the whole theme going on and the employees wearing 50's outfits, but soon after we arrived I changed my mind.

When we walked in the place was so alive. All the waitresses were dancing around to a very high-energy song that was vibrating through the speakers and there were so many customers. It was ridiculously packed.

I had to squeeze past a few people to actually get in the door and got separated from Angela and Sam. Seeing them waving me over to the table they managed to find, I started to walk over. Just as I moved behind one of the dancer girls I felt a dull sting in my jaw, followed by the feeling that my legs got hooked into something and pulled right out from under me.

At first, I wasn't aware of anything except a faint girl's voice apologizing. My only concern was that I totally wiped out in the middle of this restaurant and I had no idea how.

And the fact that my tailbone might have gotten a little crushed.

After feeling around to make sure I hadn't broken anything, I opened my eyes to face the crowd of people I'm sure were staring at me.

Except they weren't, and the only face I could see was mere inches away from my own.
This woman was clearly employed at the diner because she was wearing those ridiculous cat-eye glasses that make your eyes look all squinty and huge at the same time and she was looking at me kind of weird.

She asked if I was okay and aside from my throbbing jaw and butt, I was, so I told her yes.

After a few more unnecessary apologies on her part, she realized we were still pressed together on the floor of the restaurant and jumped up, blushing.

That's when I realized how cute this girl actually was. Her co-workers were giving her a hard time about being such a klutz, because apparently she did stuff like this often, and her face just got more and more pink.

So fucking cute.

Then she finally took off the ridiculous glasses and I was a goner.

Her eyes were a deep chocolate color, like brownies or something, and she had eyelashes that reached out and almost touched her eyebrows when she looked up at me.

I hadn't realized the lady behind the counter had started talking to me, but when I saw the girl's cheeks redden again and look away, I caught the end of what she was saying.

The woman behind the counter asked one last time if I was okay, and me wanting to be all charming asked them not to tell anyone I got beat up by a girl, winked, then walked away.

Fucking winked.

I don't know what possessed me to, maybe my brain was just trying to mess with me, but it felt like it came off more creepy than flirty.

I am a failure at flirting. It's official.

I internally kicked myself as I walked over to the table and half-heartedly made conversation with Sam and Angela. Just as I had replayed the incident with the waitress for about the hundredth time, she walked up to our table.

I panicked for a few seconds while she talked to Sam and Angela, trying to think of a way to redeem myself and not come off weird or unable to translate my thoughts into words.

I ended up doing okay, although our conversation didn't stray very far from what I should order. It was a decent conversation though. I found out the Vicki Burger was actually delicious like she had suggested.

About halfway through our meal the cute girl was replaced by the woman from behind the counter earlier. I didn't get to see the pretty waitress again until we were walking out the door.
She was trying to balance three different plates between her two arms and just about wiped out again, but thankfully one of her co-workers steadied everything before it all ended up on the floor.
I hadn't realized it, but I had turned to run over and help her and let the door fall back against Sam.

Now he has a bruise on his arm, which he was not all that thrilled about, and I still have a black and blue tush.

It was pathetic really, the fact that I was still hung up on this girl throughout the weekend. I especially hated myself for letting her ruin my sleep schedule.

I lay in bed that night, all ready to doze off, teeth brushed and everything, but when I closed my eyes nothing happened. Seriously, nothing happened. There wasn't a thought in mind and I basically just laid there with my eyes closed.

I figured it was nothing a little T.V. couldn't fix, thinking that I would probably pass out ten minutes into whatever show I decided to watch.

Nope, I was wrong.

Instead, all I could do was pick out characteristics about any person that flashed across the screen that resembled the waitress.

One actress had brown hair, so did she.

Another was wearing the same soft, pink, barely-can-tell-it's-there lipstick, even an actor with a similar shade of brown eyes reminded me of her.

I seriously couldn't take it anymore and started banging my head against the backboard of my bed.

A little irrational? Yes. Was I hoping it might knock me into unconsciousness? Hell yes.

To be honest, I was actually starting to get a little pissed because I wake up at the ass-crack of dawn every Monday through Friday and when I get the chance to sleep in I'm bombarded with all these feelings and emotions towards a freaking woman.

So then, thanks to my fan-freaking-tastic idea to bash my head against a hard surface repeatadly, not only did my butt still hurt from falling earlier that night, but now I had a huge goose-egg on the back of my head.

When four o'clock in the morning started to roll around, I got so fed up with trying to do anything without thinking of this lady, that I just gave up and started my day a little earlier than most people.

I got out of bed, showered, and then gathered up two baskets of my dirty clothes to take to the laundromat.

The plus was that, I'm sure, very few people washed their clothes at five in the morning on a Saturday, so I would have all the machines to myself.

My silver-linings have seriously gone downhill since Friday night.

I was totally right anyway and was able to stuff four washers, two for my white load and two for my color load, with my laundry. I only really needed two machines, but I took up four because I could.

It cost me eight quarters more, but hey, I'm over it.

While my clothes were getting washed I had nothing to do but wait, so what did I subconsciously start doing?

I started thinking of the cute waitress again.

Of course.

So, what I have learned over the weekend is to never eat at a 50's themed diner named Vicki's, where they apparently only hire the hottest waitresses in Seattle, if I plan on ever sleeping again..

Well, too late now.

I slung the most recent manual I had been skimming through on the desk in front of me, the thwap as the spine of the book hit the wood made me jump in surprise as I was pulled from my day dream.

I hadn't been the most alert person since my lack of sleep.

I roughly rubbed the little eye boogers from my tear ducts and hoisted myself out of the desk chair. Grabbing my coffee cup, for what felt like the zillionth time today, I headed over to the small kitchen to pour myself some more coffee.

Carlisle was poking around in the fridge when I entered, "More coffee, Edward?"

"I had a long weekend…" I half-mumbled, half-laughed.

"Ah, too much action from the ladies?" he teased.

My eyes went wide for a second before returning back to normal, this was not the first thing I'd ever thought I would discuss with my boss in the break room.

"No, no, no… nothing like that." I said almost frantically. (Its not like I had enough oomph in me to be anywhere near frantic anyway.)

"So no lady action at all?"

I didn't know what to do.

I just nodded.

"Well, you'll be at the big opening of the McCarty's restaurant? I'm not supposed to say anything at work because Jasper's so eager you know, but Esme and a few girls from the magazine will be there as well. You boys can come sit with us. I'll introduce you to a group of three very interesting women." He clapped a hand on my shoulder, gave me a bro-nod, and then exited the room.

Did he just-?

…Yeah. I think he did.

I looped the last minute around in my head a few more times trying to decipher where in our measly conversation the topic had transitioned from how exhausted I looked to the guy who signs my paycheck hooking me up with three girls.

I was too tired to even try to figure it out.

...Or even complain, really.

...zzZzZZ…

I dragged my feet down the hallway as I made my way to my door and took three tries to successfully slip my key through the hole, turn it, and unlock it.

Once inside, I crashed face first onto my couch with my feet dangling off the edge. I let my nose smush against the cushion and felt myself slowly slip into the blackness from the cease of oxygen intake.

Basically, suffocating myself seemed to be the secret to all this insomniac crap.

…zzZzZZ…

I woke up, by my guess two to three hours later, with my cheek smushed against the cushion and drool seeping from the corner of my mouth.

My phone was visibly thrown all the way across my living room floor, it's notification light viciously sprouting on and off in red followed by a beep every few seconds.

I ignored the stupid thing and slumped my way over to the kitchen, realizing it was past my supper time and I was starving.

I whipped up a quick ham sandwich, grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and then walked over to pick up my annoying, and still beeping, cell phone.

I had one missed call and an awaiting text message.

If you were truly a good bro, you would answer when I called and come help me out down at the restaurant NOW. -Em

I looked from the text and back to my sandwich.

I can be there in a few if you promise to feed me. -E

Deal. -Em

I tossed my slightly bitten into sandwich in a plastic baggy and into the fridge for later and high tailed my ass down there.

When I arrived there was a plate of lasagna waiting for me, Jasper sitting at the table with his head in his hands, and a hysterical Emmett muttering things to himself and pointing around the room.

I made a straight shot for the food and tried to avoid Emmett for the time being. He seemed a little preoccupied at the moment and didn't even notice I had walked in.

Neither did Jazz, seeing that he now had his eyes shut tight and was rubbing his temples.

"Why tonight?" I heard Emmett's voice raise a little, "And where the hell is Edward?"

"Dude, how the hell should I know." Jasper sighed.

"Um... present." I spoke up with a huge globby chunk of food in my mouth.

I have never seen someone spin around so fast in my life.

"Shit, Edward! Why didn't you say something!"

I shrugged and pointed at my plate which was now completely empty.

Emmett looked like he might go off on me, but controlled himself and started speaking super speedy fucking fast.

"Okay, so one of my sisters fell and broke her wrist so Ma and Pop have to watch my nieces and nephews while she's getting checked out and they just called and said she has close to an hour and a half wait at the ER and don't know if they'll be able to get down here tonight. We still have to set all the places at the tables, we've got some reserved seating that still needs to be marked, Ma bought these fake vines or some branches crap that still need to be hung up around the walls and pillars, not to mention the health inspector is coming tomorrow morning and we have to be up to code!"

He looked at us expectantly so Jasper shot out of his chair and ran over to the box of artificial plant shit with a nail gun. Emmett was still staring at me so I quickly rushed over to help him as Em retreated back into the kitchen.

"Just an FYI, when Emmett gets stressed out he sort of goes ballistic and just... crazy, so be patient with him." Jasper snickered.

"Really? I hadn't noticed from his huge, twitchy eyes."

...zzZzZZ...

Eventually we had accomplished everything necessary for the health inspector's visit tomorrow and Emmett had mellowed out some.

Well, some meaning he wasn't yelling at us anymore.

Now we were going through the list of reservations that needed a table marked for the grand opening.

"Alright, so let's put the Henderson party of six up by that party of five we just marked." Emmett called out as I wrote down the last name and number on a card and handed it to Jazz to go put on the right table.

We had a system where we listened to Emmett discuss seating arrangements with himself, wait to hear a name and a number, then I would write it down on the place card and Jasper would run it over to the right table.

He flipped pages in the reservation book and hesitated a little for before looking up at the two of us. "Why is it requested that KZIZ is seated with Volterra Magazine?"

"Well I'm sure Carlisle and Esme wanted to be at the same table, but also seated with their company or whatever." Jazz shrugged.

Emmett looked thoughtful for a minute, "That's a party of seven. Do you know who...?" He trailed off and studied the book, never finishing his sentence.

"I know it will be Carlisle, Esme, Jazz, me, and then I heard Esme was bringing three women from the magazine." I offered up the information hoping it would help whatever confusion he was experiencing.

Jasper seemed to perk up a little when he heard about the three girls. I had forgotten he wasn't really supposed to know about that yet.

"Yeah, yeah. One of them, Isabella, wrote the article and is gonna write the review for the grand opening that will be in Volterra. I remember Ma saying she could bring some others along. You don't think..." He stopped and looked at the book again.

"Oh no." Jasper said, exasperated, "Dude, don't get your hopes up. Just because they work at the same place doesn't mean this Isabella chick even knows the girl you've been crushin' on. Don't get your hopes up, man."

"Shut up, Jazz. I was just curious." Emmett shot him a dirty look and shook his head.

"But, let's put you guys over at the table by the kitchen and move the party that we put there earlier to the other side of the room."

...zzZzZZ...

We got things all fixed up earlier than I had anticipated which was fantastic because I was ready to get away from this frustrating, lunatic version of Emmett.

Once I found myself back laying in my bed, wide awake, I made a deal with myself that if I went to sleep right now and got a good nights rest the remainder of this busy week, then the first free night I had, I would go down to Vicki's and try to find the girl I seem to be so infatuated with.

Hopefully, that would be enough to allow myself some much needed shut-eye.

good? i would love to hear your thoughts.

also, there are only going to be either one or two - possibly three at the complete most - more chapters. when i began this fic i wasn't sure how long it would end up, but i don't see it being much longer than around 13 chapters. and that's if i add more to my outline.

and edward's photo to go along with this chapter are on my profile. as are my blog, twitter, everything you could possibly need if you wanted to get in contact with me.

AND .Lera will be translating "555-1073" into Russian, so that's pretty awesome :) i'll have a link on my profile to her once she begins posting.

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favorite part?

i liked wacked out emmett. that is exactly/kinda how i was while trying to re-group and get back into the flow of this fanfic thing ;)

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Reviews are better than a bruised tush!

(i can't promise a teaser but i won't reply back with nothing!)

Love,
Emeleigh

p.s. if you haven't already please check out my entry for The Twilight 25! it's a series of prompted drabbles and one-shots that i am very proud of!