BPOV

I suppose having the most annoying combination of friends on the planet was the universe's way of getting back at me for not just simply getting coffee with Edward but instead turning the entire outing into some big production at a semi-nice restaurant. Following six beers for him and two and a half appletinis for her, Alice and Emmett got into a slap fight across the table. It had started out as a strange arm wrestling challenge, but by the time they had a few drinks in their system, neither one of them could get beyond silly slaps and giggling.

Rose and Jasper were doing their best to rein in their significant others, but it didn't help that they couldn't back of teasing each other about the situation. Jasper thought it was hilarious that Rose's "Yankee boyfriend" couldn't hold his liquor, while Rose thought it interesting that Jasper's "pipsqueak fiancée" was a sloppy, combative drunk. Edward and I were literally stuck in the middle of the circular booth and unable to escape or to get away from the fray caused by Alice and Emmett occasionally slapping each other across the table. Being slightly giddy drunk, the two of them missed on more than one occasion. Emmett socked Edward good in the ear area and Alice gave me a decent pop in the chin.

Things didn't get any better when Emmett lied and told the wait staff it was his birthday so he could get a free foot-high chocolate lava brownie cake with ice cream. The entire restaurant was already whispering about our loud table, and the entire staff coming up and singing "Happy Birthday" to Emmett at top volume only exacerbated the situation. Emmett sang the loudest in his booming voice, shaking the flatware on the table. Then we all had to pitch in and help him eat the dessert monstrosity because Emmett said it was his birthday and we had to share in the day with him.

In an attempt to prove her arm wrestling superiority, Alice did manage to shove Emmett's face down in his big dessert when we were pretty much halfway through it. After that, Jasper decided it was probably best to take Alice home and put her to bed. Alice had other ideas, decided she wanted to fly with the birds in the parking lot. Jasper showed his prowess as a former junior rodeo champion by managing to subdue Alice, fold her hands behind her back and then toss her over his shoulder effortlessly before carrying her back to his car. Once she was secured with her seatbelt in the front seat and, for some reason, mooing at the top of her lungs, Jasper bid us all goodbye and drove off. Edward looked pretty much like he wanted to shoot himself at that point.

Even though the plan was for me to hitch a ride home with Rose and Emmett, the idea was nixed when Rose decided to take drunken Emmett home herself. Apparently, Emmett got a little flirty and childish when he had a little too much to drink. In fact, he had given Edward a big hug before getting into a loud discussion with himself about how Rose had "porn star quality boobs, but natural." So Rose figured it would be best if she played nursemaid to him at his apartment. I was a little annoyed at Rose and called her out for taking advantage of her drunken boyfriend, though she didn't care. Before I could protest or ask for an alternate plan, Rose basically informed Edward he was driving me home and there was no room for argument. Rose finally managed to lure Emmett into her car after promising him he could see her boobs later as a reward. As Rose peeled out of the parking lot, I followed Edward back to his car.

"I am really sorry how that turned out," I told Edward as he clicked the little remote to unlock our car doors. "If I had realized it would get that out of hand…"

"It's not your fault that Alice is a total lightweight," Edward shook his head as we both settled in to the car. "I think she was probably trying to take the stress off of her wedding planning as well. I'm glad Jasper's the one who has to put up with her shit now."

"Emmett usually doesn't do that," I assured Edward. "Something about red meat and beer makes him a little obnoxious and competitive."

"He doesn't seem like a mean drunk," Edward shrugged. "More like a 'I want to see my girlfriend naked' drunk, but honestly, what kind of guy isn't like that when he's drunk? Do you think Rose can handle him?"

"Oh yeah," I rolled my eyes. "Rose and Emmett are very well versed in putting each other to bed completely sloshed. Emmett usually starts acting like a five-year-old and wants Rose to read him story. Rose on the other hand… well, she's kind of a slutty drunk. I mean, she acts pretty provocative but she usually passes out before she can make good on any of the suggestions that come out of her mouth. She'll bitch him out about it in the morning, he'll buy her flowers or something and they'll be fine."

"Well, it's not too late… we could still make good on that coffee if you really wanted," Edward suggested.

"I think that would be nice," I agreed.

Finding a place to get coffee in Seattle is pretty much easier than finding hay in a haystack. Everyone usually thinks of Starbucks or Seattle's Best, but honestly the best coffee in my opinion came from the small, privately owned cafes and coffee bars that dotted practically every block of the city. We ended up at a nice little bakery just about a block from my apartment building with cups of coffee and pastries for dessert. It wasn't exactly late, but the sun was starting to go down. Other than a few people reading books, two bored baristas, a man typing furiously on his laptop, and a couple of hipster girls obviously making fun of the rest of us, Edward and I were practically alone in the place.

"This was a much better idea," I admitted to Edward.

"Pardon?" Edward suggested.

"Just getting coffee. It's much more relaxed than the whole crazy group thing I roped us into," I sighed. "I honestly don't know what I was thinking."

"Weird that Jasper and Rose are cousins," Edward said.

"Yeah. I knew Rose had a cousin from Texas living in the area, but I never met him," I said. "He was still somewhere working on his doctorate when we graduated from college, so he couldn't make it to the ceremony. Rose has hung out with him in the past, but it's been mainly family weekends with her folks and stuff."

"Jasper told us he had family in the area and that's one of the reasons he accepted the job in Seattle," Edward agreed. "But what are the odds, you know?"

"Slim, I would guess," I said before taking a sip of my coffee.

"So… do you have big plans for this weekend?" Edward asked.

"Not really. Well, other than worrying to death over whether or not Irina will like my article," I shrugged. "I mean, I was a good writer by college standards, but it's so hard to make in the real world. I'm sure Irina won't fire me or anything because I'm not a good writer or I didn't do well with the assignment, but I'd really hate for her to say that writing just isn't my calling. That would be… well, dream crushing."

"I really think you're being too hard on yourself," Edward shrugged.

"So, what are your big plans for the weekend?" I asked him.

"Working on the Femme site mainly and then doing some freelancing work for the other companies I work for," Edward shrugged.

"Don't you take off time for the weekends?" I shook my head.

"Servers and websites usually don't hold off on crashing unless it's between nine to five on a weekday," Edward replied. "Besides, I sort of own and run my own business. Work is pretty much twenty-four seven if I want to make enough of a profit to have food and my own place. I would really rather not be one of those guys who still lives with his parents and works off of a computer out of their basement. And to be fair, did you honestly spend all that time you put into that article during work hours at Femme or did you put in some time after work and on the weekends?"

"Touché," I agreed. "So, what are you doing once the whole Femme project is complete?"

"Well, I've probably got another four to five months on it, so I haven't really thought that far ahead," Edward admitted. "I guess I'll just have to see how satisfied everyone is with the finished project and where I can go from there. Irina would be a great reference to have."

"Have you ever thought about working for a company full time? You know, just be their website guy and have sort of semi-regular hours?" I asked.

"I have, but I like this better," Edward said. "I can be more creative and I'm not stuck doing the same thing every day."

"I suppose that's why I wanted to be a writer," I admitted.

"So, what are you doing to do when Irina wants to publish your article? Do you think you'll start working full time as a writer at Femme or is there somewhere else you'd want to be?" Edward asked.

"Writing for Femme would be my dream job. And I'm really trying not to think about that because I don't know if Irina will even like what I've done," I shrugged.

"You're going to have to send me a text or something on Monday morning when Irina talks to you about it, you know," Edward informed me. "I really don't think I'll be able to wait until Friday to hear what she says. Impatience sort of runs in the family, I guess."

"I'll let you know," I nodded. "Of course, I'll have to tell Rose first. She's promised me some sort of big party or something, which I'm terrified will end up like tonight did. You know, drunk Emmett begging to see her boobs."

"Do a lot of nights end up like that?" Edward asked curiously.

"No. Most nights with them end up with sober Emmett wanting to see her boobs," I shrugged. "I'm sure you and your friends have much more down-to-earth evenings than I have with the two of them."

"Well…uh… not exactly," Edward coughed. "Mostly… I sort of… hang out with my sister or my parents."

"Yeah, but when you hang out with your friends…" I began.

"I really don't have that many friends," Edward said quietly.

"What do you mean?" I said, still sort of confused.

"I mean, there are people I talk to on Facebook from college… and my World of Warcraft guild… but other than that…" Edward said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'm busy with work, I guess, and Alice got all the social butterfly genes… I've never exactly been good at… you know… making friends. I usually just wait for people to approach me."

"I find it hard to believe that you don't have any friends," I shook my head. "I'm sure there are people outside of family you hang out with…"

"Tonight was the first night in maybe two years or so that I've really hung out with anyone outside of family," Edward shrugged. "I mean, back when I was dating my ex I used to hang out with her friends boyfriends, but honestly… I hated them. They were the same kind of guys who pushed me around in high school and Tanya always thought it was my fault we didn't get along. She always said I wasn't making enough of an effort. Because, you know, it takes a lot of effort to talk about all the times you've cheated on your girlfriend and not gotten caught or how you embezzled enough money for a new Porsche from work. Anyway, all of 'our' friends were really 'her' friends, so when we broke up, I didn't really have any friends."

"That's…" I said, not wanting to use the word 'sad' or 'pathetic' or anything else that might make him feel bad. "…not fair. You're a great person and you shouldn't let anyone, especially guys like that, make you feel bad. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would think you'd be a great friend…"

"You sound like my mom when I was in middle school," Edward said, pulling a face.

"Well, she was right," I said. "I think you and I have the same problem, you know."

"What's that?" Edward asked.

"We both spend so much time focusing on our careers and our work that we never get out and meet people," I surmised. "Rose tells me that all the time, that if I branched out more and opened myself up more I'd get to experience more things. Besides, making friends isn't supposed to be easy. If friendship were easy then Rose and I wouldn't be at each other's throats every other week."

"You're right," Edward admitted. "Maybe I should stop blowing off all of my sister's invites to hang out with her and Jasper and their friends. Jasper seems like a pretty cool guy, so I'm sure he's friends with some cool people."

"You know, you can hang out with Rose, Emmett and me whenever you want to," I said. "And not to sound cheesy or anything, but I'd like to think after this weird night and meeting your parents and all you can think of me as a friend."

"I would like that," Edward smiled.