Chapter Three

Emily Bowen-O'Brien had spent the last four hours wishing she was dead. After what she had done to her best friend in the whole wide world, she deserved to be rotting six feet under with only the worms and bodily decay to keep her company.

Dear Lord.

She had walked in on Elizabeth and Jason obviously getting it on in the kitchen.

And for what?

Some goddamn apple juice! What the hell was wrong with her? Why couldn't she just stick with the fricking orange? Even if it was extra-pulpy and she hated pulpy ever since Johnny had forced large quantities of it into her body when she had the flu, and now it made her sick. Well, being sick was better than ruining Elizabeth's chance with the hunky fry-cook any day.

She wouldn't soon forget the look on Elizabeth's face when Jason had blustered out of the kitchen as if the seat of his pants was on fire. She looked…crushed. Like something she had wanted for so long was instantly seized from her the moment she touched it. And in effect, that was exactly what had happened. She and Jason had spent all of five minutes out in the cold and although Emily couldn't hear a word through the damn doors, she tried her best to eavesdrop anyway. Things weren't looking so great. And then Jason stormed back in and straight into the kitchen again, leaving Elizabeth out on her own for the next few minutes. Emily had finally worked up the nerve to go out herself to talk to her friend, who was then slumped in one of the chairs outside the door, but the minute she sat down Elizabeth had risen and gone back to work.

And so Emily had hung around the diner until her friend's shift finished, feeling hideous for even allowing herself in Elizabeth's sight and yet unable to drag herself away when she knew her friend was hurting. She had tried to pull her away for a minute to talk but Elizabeth had resisted. Instead, she kept serving her tables steadily without missing a step and only went into the kitchen when she couldn't possibly avoid it. The other girls helped out from a sense of sheer decency – Penny would always retrieve both her and Elizabeth's orders from the kitchen so that Elizabeth wouldn't have to set foot inside.

And there Emily sat, at a small table in the alcove, four hours later. She had waved away any of the girls' attempts to serve her, wanting only for time to hurry up so that Elizabeth's shift would be over. The minutes bled away, one after the other and pretty soon Elizabeth was done serving the lunch bunch and had the rest of the day to herself.

The brunette gratefully handed her apron to Penny who had offered to hang it up in its appropriate place in the kitchen, and then trudged up the stairs to her room. Emily immediately stood up to follow her but at the exact moment that she grabbed her purse and got ready to go up, Jason's blonde head poked out from over the double doors and the older man quickly raked a gaze across the diner. Emily frowned when she realized that the only word for the look on his face was relief – relief that Elizabeth was no longer around.

And that left Emily O'Brien in quite a quandary of her own. Was she to follow Elizabeth upstairs and talk to her? Or…

Wasting no time in thinking about it, as was true to her way, Emily grabbed her clutch bag in her hand and strode decisively over to the double doors and into the kitchen. Jason was sitting on the counter by the stove, staring at the wall, and turned a lethal glare on her when he heard her stiletto boots click over the hardwood.

"What do you want?" he growled in a voice rougher than sandpaper. "You're not allowed in here."

Emily ignored him and crossed her arms over her chest. "I need to talk to you."

Jason huffed and shook his head. "I don't even know you. If you think-"

"I think," Emily continued, bristling under her silk collar, "that you are going to tell me exactly what crawled up your ass and set up camp."

The fine Roman nose crinkled as Jason scowled at her. "Get out of here."

"Not until you tell me why you were such a jerk to Elizabeth," Emily refused stubbornly. "Look, it was my fault for walking in on you two-"

"No argument there."

"-but there was no need to take it out on her."

"I didn't take anything out on her," Jason spit out. "Now why don't you just totter back over to your table, Princess, and quit sticking your upturned little nose where it doesn't belong."

Emily flipped her fiery mane over her shoulder, not at all intimidated by the man who dwarfed her five foot three figure with his own towering frame. "Try again, Morgan. If you didn't take anything out on her, then why did she look like someone sucker-punched her out there?"

Jason cringed at the description and a new wave of self-loathing instantly washed over him. Damn. He hated that he hurt her that way. But it was probably for the best; she didn't belong with a nothing like him anyway. "Try minding your own business for once in your life, Princess."

"First of all," the redhead seethed, "It's Emily, Emily O'Brien, not Princess. Second, anything that happens to Elizabeth is my business. So if some ass decides to trample her to the ground, then, hell yeah, I have the right to go after him and serve him his balls on a platter."

Jason snorted. "Whatever you say, Emily O'Brien. Take your tough talk somewhere else and leave me the hell alone."

Emily's green eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as she stepped up to him, staring him down. "I don't think I'm going anywhere."

Jason took one look at her and snorted before pushing his way past her. "You would if you knew what was good for you."

Her laughter behind him only irritated him further. "Is that supposed to be a threat, Morgan? Is that how you get your jollies? Seriously, is it? Threatening strange women and blowing off the more familiar ones?"

"Why won't you leave? Is being a nosey little twit how you get your jollies?"

Emily slammed her clutch bag on the counter, not even blinking when her lipsticks crashed audibly against the wood, and put her hands on her hips. "Tell me why you hurt her."

Jason's shoulders fell on an exasperated sigh. "It wasn't intentional."

"That doesn't mean you didn't hurt her, regardless."

"It would have been a mistake."

Angry as Emily was with him, with herself, even, she didn't miss the dejected set of his shoulders. "Why?"

Jason didn't answer for a moment, and Emily began to wonder if he had heard her or not. She was going to ask again when he spoke. "I think you need to leave."

But Emily wasn't going to have any of that, as Jason realized when she placed a hand on his shoulder and boldly jerked him around to face her. "Why would it have been a mistake? Why?"

Jason's eyes sizzled with anger; the little woman in front of him just wouldn't take a hint. "That's none of your business. For the millionth time, just leave!"

"No!" she yelled back. "Tell me why – why was it a mistake? I should have known you were one of those egotistical assholes that thinks he can do no wrong. Well, you know what, pal? You're the one that's missing out here, because a man can't do much better than Elizabeth Webber."

"Tell me something I don't know," he muttered under his breath as he turned back around to fiddle with the stove. Unfortunately for him, Emily had heard the admission and lost no time in pouncing on him.

"Then why?" she demanded as she reached out and turned him around again, a little habit that was really beginning to grate on Jason's last nerves. He hated being touched, and by strange annoying women, no less. God damn, how he wanted to step on her. Maybe that would shut her up. "Why is it a mistake?"

That was it.

"Why?" he demanded, stalking forward until they were standing toe to toe. If Emily was frightened by his sudden outburst or the violent sparks in his electric eyes, the redhead did her best not to show it. "Why? Fine, I'll tell you why! You're right – a guy can't do much better than Elizabeth. She's smart and funny and nice and perfect – yeah, I get that. That's why it would have been a mistake, all right?" He was beyond angry right now, and it was only in his anger that the words were flowing forth as they were. Normally, Jason didn't discuss his emotions and certainly never with random customers. But he was far from his normal state of mind at the moment; after that hot make-out session with Elizabeth – who wasn't wearing a bra, either, not that that was something he needed to be remembering right now – and then being forced to avoid her after their little conversation outside, he was teetering on the brink of his sanity. And Emily O'Brien had just placed both hands firmly against his chest and shoved him off the edge.

"She doesn't need me fucking up her life, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear, Princess? That I think she'd be better off as far away from a nobody like me as possible? Is that the answer you were waiting for?"

Emily jumped when he brought a fist slamming down on the counter, immediately regretting her words during the altercation. Shifting her weight awkwardly from foot to foot as Jason remained bent over the counter, his chest heaving from his angry onslaught, Emily frantically tried to think up the best escape. When that didn't work, she figured she'd just mumble something and be out of there lightning fast.

"I, um, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to – to upset you like this. Uh, maybe I'll just go." With that, she was flying out of the kitchen and streaking up the stairs to the safe haven of the dim, empty landing outside Elizabeth's room. She stood there for a few minutes, trying to wrap her head around what Jason had blurted out.

Did he really think he wasn't good enough for Elizabeth? The more Emily thought about it, the more it made sense to her. Jason probably figured that since he was a mechanic that lost everything in a fire and was now forced to work at Kelly's and Elizabeth was an artsy college student, they didn't have much in common anyway. That and the whole thing of his calloused fingers contrasted with her soft, delicate ones, and she could see how Jason Morgan might work up an inferiority complex.

But that didn't change what she already knew – fight as he may, pretend as he may, it was obvious that Jason wanted Elizabeth. And that was what Emily would have to build on if she hoped to fix this at all.

Elizabeth was lying face down on her twin bed when Emily let herself in. The curtains were drawn back and the light reflected by the snow outside bathed the room in a bright, powdery silver. Elizabeth's shoes lay discarded by her dresser and Emily took hers off there as well, dropping her purse next to her friend's hair brush and perfume bottles. Slowly, she settled onto the bed, not wanting her weight to jostle Elizabeth even though she knew the brunette wasn't sleeping.

"Elizabeth?"

Her friend muttered something under her breath and turned her face away, burrowing into the crook of her arm. Emily sighed and reached out to stroke her hair, trying again.

"Liz? You wanna talk about it, hon?"

Elizabeth's sigh was a whisper in the quiet room, but her friend didn't say anything further. Emily was regretting barging in and asking her to spill her guts so soon, but Elizabeth's soft voice interrupted her mental berating.

"God, Em. I made such a fool out of myself."

The redhead's heart nearly broke in two at the sadness in her best friend's voice. "Oh, honey, oh, no, you didn't. That was me, remember?"

Her humorous attempt to lighten the mood barely caused the corner of Elizabeth's mouth to lift. "It wasn't your fault, Emily."

The woman sitting next to her cringed, and her wedding band caught the silver light as she reached up to sweep a curtain of red hair behind her ear. "I walked in on you guys, Elizabeth," she reminded her. "God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to mess things up for you. If I had just kept my big mouth shut and forced the pulp down, you two could've-"

"Em, stop," Elizabeth ordered wearily. The brunette didn't even make the slightest effort to get up off her pale blue snowflake comforter. "Just trust me on this one, okay? I don't blame you at all. It's not your fault that Jason's not attracted to me."

Emily's slender brows furrowed at that. "What? Elizabeth, you can't honestly think that."

Her friend quirked a brow and then sadly slumped down onto the comforter again, picking at a loose thread. "He doesn't want me, Em."

"Like hell he doesn't!" Emily exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "Elizabeth, from what I saw in that kitchen, not only does he have it bad for you, but he's had it bad for a long time."

"He just got caught up in the moment," Elizabeth argued back lamely, lifting a section of the comforter up as she pulled that same loose thread taut.

Emily rolled her eyes and slapped a hand down on the mattress, snapping the blue thread from Elizabeth's slender fingers. "Think about it for a minute, Liz – would that moment, as wise a euphemism it is, have happened in the first place if Jason hadn't been attracted to you?" She let her friend think about it for all of three seconds before answering herself. "Nope. Not so much. He wants you, Liz. And he's been fighting it. But when…that happened in the kitchen, whatever it was that got it started, he couldn't control himself. If that doesn't prove to you that he wants you, I don't know what will."

"You're reading too much into it, Em," Elizabeth disagreed, dragging a hand over her face to clear away a lacy curtain of chocolate waves. "He was just being a guy."

"Elizabeth, he was holding you in his arms and was ready to take you right in the middle of the kitchen," Emily pointed out objectively, ignoring the crimson stains that spread across Elizabeth's cheeks. "There's no way he was just being a guy. Honey, that man wanted you. He was just able to stop himself. Damn it."

Elizabeth watched curiously as Emily glowered at her socked toes, bringing an index finger up to her mouth and nibbling on the polished nail. She knew that look in Emily's eyes – it always appeared when the redhead was hatching a plan.

"Em?"

Her friend looked up at her then, and Elizabeth could tell that she had come up with something. "Uh-huh, Elizabeth. No more second-guessing yourself – or worse, me. You're just going to accept the fact that Jason wanted you – he wanted you but somehow, he was able to stop himself. So I'll tell you what you're going to do."

Elizabeth propped herself up on her elbow for the first time during that conversation. While her instincts usually told her to flee for the border when Emily hatched a plan, something in her friend's voice told her that this one was worth considering.

"You're not going to get angry or upset over this," Emily ordered calmly, her painted lips curving into a slow, cocky smile. "It's not worth getting angry about. You know why? Because Jason Morgan is just one confused little man. And you know what you've got to do, Elizabeth – you've got to play him big-time."

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed at the proposition. "I get what you're saying, Em, but what if he's one of those guys that gets turned off when a girl chases him around?"

Emily frowned. "Why would he be?"

"Well, think about all those other girls that hit on him," Elizabeth pointed out, trying to keep the irritation and jealousy out of her voice. "Not the other waitresses – they know what'll happen to them if they do – but the girls that come in here to eat. They drool and fawn over him and flirt like crazy, and he totally blows them off. Something tells me that he doesn't like it when girls do the chasing – that he likes the whole traditional men and women roles and wants to do the chasing himself."

Emily offered her a self-assured shrug and a mischievous smile. "So what? If that's the case, then we let him think he's doing the chasing while we play him like a violin."

The glitter in the redhead's emerald eyes had Elizabeth drawn in to her plot, and memories of high school assaulted her all over again, when she and Emily would sit and hatch plans for the guys they liked and the girls Emily had on her hit list. Some things never changed.

"I've got an idea," Emily confided smugly, leaning closer to her best friend. "And if it works out the way it should, then Jason Morgan will be crawling on his hands and knees just to get you to look twice in his direction."

"I like the sound of this," Elizabeth grinned slowly. "Tell me what's going on in that devious head of yours, lady."