Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in updating, this coronavirus stuff is a huge pain in the butt! I hope everyone is practicing social distancing; just hole up somewhere and read fanfiction lol. Thank you to everyone who is reading! The story should pick up a bit more in terms of them interacting with each other directly.

Chapter 3 - Olivia's POV

Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep beep bee-

I threw my hand out and smacked the snooze button to shut off the annoyance. How could it possibly be time to get up already? I feel like I'd just passed out in bed like ten minutes ago. I opened my eyes slowly, but it seemed like it would be another cloudy and rainy day so there wasn't much sunlight for them to adjust to.

Glancing at the little clock on my bedside table, I groaned knowing that I needed to get up in the next few minutes or rush through my morning routine. That in and of itself wasn't necessarily the worst thing, but I would probably forget something on my way out the door and I didn't have the energy for that extra stress.

I stretched and popped a few joints before attempting to sit up in my bed. As soon as the cold air hit my bare arms though, I immediately pulled my fleece blanket back up and over my body. I couldn't stand the cold and it always made it that much harder to get out of bed. I hid under my blanket for a few more minutes trying to psych myself into getting up.

Although I already knew that it was later than I wanted it to be, I peeked over at my clock again and contemplated quitting my job. It just sucked to never really have a free day between going to school and working. I would love to just have a Saturday off!

Knowing that I was wasting more time, I finally shoved my blanket all the way off and flung it towards the bottom of the bed so I wouldn't be tempted to crawl right back in. Thankfully I kept a little rug on the floor right where I put my feet down so I didn't have to suffer the cruel hardwood floors immediately. I tucked my feet into my slippers, the grey stitching beginning to unravel on the sides.

I padded down to the only bathroom in the house, making sure that I stepped quietly past the thin door on the right. Although Dad was already at work, Mom was probably asleep and would stay that way for a while. She was always tired and wanting to sleep the days away when she didn't have to work. I made a mental note to check on her before I left if there was time.

Once I finished going through the motions of getting ready, I crept back to my bedroom to dress in my uniform. Thankfully the diner let its servers wear jeans, but we had to wear an ugly yellow polo shirt with the diner's name, Ronda's House, printed in purple on the top left side of our chests. Panic struck me when I couldn't find my little apron that had my order book tucked into a pocket. I began rifling through some of the piles of clothing and books that I'd left out, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Thinking maybe I'd tossed it somewhere in the living room last night when I had come home, I tried to take hurried, but silent, steps towards the front of the house. I couldn't help the squeaking and groaning of the floor beneath me though; this house was so old that you could barely step anywhere without some kind of noise.

Immediately after stepping into the living room, I spied my apron carelessly perched on the back of the couch. I glanced at the time on my phone and saw that I should have left about five minutes ago. I quickly ran through the list of things that I needed before leaving the house, hoping beyond all hope that I wasn't forgetting anything. Apron, purse, phone, keys…that was probably it. There wasn't any time for food, but I was hoping to sneak a biscuit at work if the manager was feeling particularly kind today.

Shrugging into my jacket, I scanned the living room one last time and let myself out the door. I didn't bother locking the door. There wasn't much for anyone to steal.

As I got into my beat up car, I backed out and started driving in the direction of the highway. Guilt hit me as I realized I never checked on Mom, but hopefully she was having a good day and would be able to feed herself until I got home.

The welcome sign for Forks slowly shrank in my rearview mirror until it disappeared from my view entirely. As I made the turn onto the highway, my thoughts drifted to Embry.

Should I text him today? He seemed like a nice and funny guy, just different compared to the usual guys that I've met before. It sounded cheesy, but I felt a giddiness thinking about him that wasn't normal for me. I couldn't remember the last time that I felt excited to meet a guy. I remembered the butterflies I'd felt and knew that those were a new feeling for me too.

I wouldn't mind texting with him, talking to him…other things with him. Good grief, I needed to get a grip on myself…sure he was good looking, but there had to be more to him than that. Also, what if he didn't feel the same way? Just looking at him, he probably had packs of girls fawning over him everywhere he went. I couldn't possibly stack up to some of them, especially in the looks department.

I narrowed my eyes just thinking about some faceless, big-boobed hussy batting her eyelashes up at him and giggling at something he said. I shook my head trying to clear it a little. Why would I even care? He's certainly not my boyfriend. For Pete's sake, we had only just met less than 24 hours ago!

Maybe last night was a fluke though? It was kind of dark, did he even get a good look at me? He probably didn't, and he had his eyes on the road for most of the time that we were together. In fact, he probably only texted me last night to be polite. I didn't have another text from him, so did that mean something?

My thoughts continued to spiral down this rabbit hole. By the time I pulled my car into a spot on the side street near the diner, I was convinced that I would never hear from Embry Call or feel those butterflies ever again.

Three hours into my shift and I thought I would absolutely die of boredom.

The usual crowd of brunchers had not shown up today so it had just been a few random couples and lone individuals drifting in and out. I looked around at the other servers who were working with me; two of them were trying to build a house out of straws, one was sitting at the register trying to keep their head up and eyes open, and the last one was re-organizing the different condiments and jams.

I didn't understand why the manager on duty didn't just let one of us go home. In his words, "You never know when that big crowd will hit!" I rolled my eyes in frustration.

I approached one of the new servers…Ryan I think was his name. "Hey man, can you keep an eye on my section for me? I'm just gonna run to the back for a minute." He smiled and nodded at me. He opened his mouth to say something else, but I just turned and booked it to the back.

I camouflaged myself behind a couple of crates of sugar and beans. Looking around and seeing that I seemed to be alone, I pulled my phone out. My heart skipped a beat as I saw that there was a text from Embry.

Good morning, I hope you slept well. Do you have any plans today?

I bit my lip softly. He seemed like he wanted to see me again. Surely politeness didn't extend this far? Anyway, weren't guys supposed to wait like days before texting a girl to not seem too interested at first? It had been so long since I'd had any kind of relationship with a guy that I just wasn't sure. My last relationship had been years ago in high school, and that hadn't even last all that long. I typed my response out to him.

I slept well, thanks. I hope you did too. I actually have work for most of the day today. Wish I could leave though, it's pretty dead.

I decided I would wait and see if he texted back quickly. I probably needed to get back out to the front before my manager realized I wasn't out there. Thankfully, Embry didn't keep me waiting too long.

That definitely sucks. Where do you work?

It's called Ronda's House; it's the same place I was coming out of when I bumped into you. Sorry again for that by the way. Even though I really wanted to just stay back here texting Embry, I made myself go back out front.

Trying to make the time pass faster, I started to clean my tables and refill the salt, pepper, and sugar packets. I figured the sooner I cleaned and kept the tables clean, then I would be able to leave that much faster when I was eventually cut. I finished sweeping under the tables and even went so far as to wipe the seats of the chairs with a towel.

No new customer had come in yet so I walked back into the kitchen to start my side work. In the little nook where our computer for entering orders sat, I pulled my phone out and checked to see if Embry had texted back. I tried not to think too much about the fact that he hadn't answered me yet. He was probably busy, he's a grown man who has a life outside of texting me.

Doing my best to distract myself and shake the disappointment off, I grabbed a small tray and put a water pitcher and a coffee pot on it. I walked around to the few occupied tables in the diner to see if anyone needed refills. I was reaching for a customer's water glass when I heard the bell above the door ring. Finally, a new customer. Hopefully a nice one who tips well also…

After I refilled the water, I turned around and saw that a few people had come in and were standing near the front waiting to be seated. I couldn't see their faces, but it looked like two very large men and a young girl were observing the pictures on the wall. Actually, the men were huge and both had dark black hair cropped short, with tanned, rich skin. One of them turned slightly to say something to his companions and that's when I noticed he looked very familiar. In fact…

"Embry?" There was no way…

He turned fully away from the other two and faced me with a 1000 watt smile. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was really him! I probably looked like a fish with my mouth gaping open, but it was hard to imagine that this wasn't a weird dream. What was he doing here? I pressed my lips together and set my tray down on an empty table before walking towards them.

As I closed the distance between us, I noticed that the other guy, while looking very similar to Embry, was shorter than him by a few inches and seemed to be a little stockier. They definitely could have been brothers though for how similarly they looked. My eyes moved down to the shorter girl. She seemed to be a strange member of their group, she couldn't have been any older than 15 or 16 at most. Perhaps she was a little sister? She had the same skin tone as Embry and the other guy and hair that was so dark brown it almost looked black. This girl seemed to be bouncing with anticipation of some kind.

Finally, I stopped in front of Embry and gave him a hesitant smile. "Embry, what are you doing here?" My eyes slid to look over the other two again.

Embry opened his mouth to answer me, but the young girl beat him to the punch. "Hi Olivia! I'm Claire and this is my best friend, Quil! We've heard so much about you from Embry and when he told us you were working, we just had to come by and meet you! It is so nice to finally meet you!"

I blinked a couple of times, not expecting her to say so much. As she gave me a smile that was all teeth, I registered the fact that she'd said Embry had told them all about me and I began blushing. Oh boy, here my face goes again.

Looking back to Embry, he was shooting glares at Claire and gave a pointed look to Quil.

I cleared my throat a little and said, "It's really nice to meet you all. I am a little surprised that you're in this diner though. Are you all in town to go to the mall or something?"

I wasn't sure how to process them showing up or what it all even meant to Embry. They weren't here for me, right? I mean, the guy had said that he lived like an hour from here. Maybe they had already been around the area and didn't make a special trip to come here.

Embry's eyes widened and he was quick to shake his head. "No, we're here to see you. I know you said that you weren't very busy and I figured we could come, say hi, and keep you entertained for a bit!" He finished with a sheepish smile aimed at me.

They were here for me? I wanted to take his word, but I wasn't completely convinced. There was no way I could call him out either. I wasn't sure what to think.

Embry's smile faded as the seconds ticked by and I didn't say anything, lost in my own head while trying to come up with a logical explanation for their presence. He rushed to say, "If you don't want us here, that's ok too. Honestly, I should have asked you, it's probably weird of us to just show up." He ran a hand through his short hair and was smiling nervously at me now.

Was he freaking out? Did he think that I didn't want them here?

"Oh no, you all are more than welcome to stay and hang out. I just didn't know if you planned on doing anything else up here or why you would make the trip just to come and see me."

Claire opened her mouth and started to say something when Embry looked in her direction and shot her a glare. She promptly shut her mouth and just smiled while rocking back and forth on her heels.

Embry slowly turned back to me with a smile growing across his face. "There's no other reason, we wanted to see you and keep you company! That's what friends do, right? As I recall, we're friends after last night."

My heart started to pick up pace again. I noticed Embry glance down towards my chest then back up at my face as his smile turned into a dazzling one with teeth. I was suddenly self conscious about the fact that I was wearing such an ugly top. At least I was wearing some jeans that made my ass look good…

I walked over to the host stand and grabbed three menus. I lead them to a table further away from the other servers' sections and watched as they all sat down. Quil immediately started tipping his chair back on its rear legs.

I took their drink orders (a water for Embry, a Coke for Quil, and a lemonade for Claire) and walked back into the kitchen. As I stepped through the swinging door, a round of applause greeted me and I looked around in confusion. The other servers were laughing and clapping towards me, but I couldn't think of why. Finally, one of them, Nadia, stepped up to me.

"We just wanted to say 'Well done' Olivia! Those guys out there are smoking hot!" I could feel a blush forming across my face. In order to move away from them, I started preparing my "friends'" drinks.

"They're not bad I suppose." I wanted to snort, that was the understatement of the century. Nadia stepped up to ask me something again, but I quickly pushed past her and brought the drinks out in the dining room. I set the glasses onto the tabletop and, after a quick look around the dining room, I sat down next to Embry.

Quil and Claire chirped out their thanks and proceeded to take long swigs of their drinks. Embry didn't reach for his drink or do anything, it was like he was paralyzed in his seat. Claire seemed to be challenging Quil to some drink chugging contest so I turned to face Embry. He still didn't do anything and I put my hand on his arm. "Are you okay? I can get you another drink if you want."

At that, he started forward so suddenly that he knocked his water all over the table and also onto my shirt and apron. Quil dropped his chair back onto all four legs, scanned the table, and then started laughing. I sat frozen in my seat, not quite believing that this could be happening to me. Embry looked like he wanted to bury himself in a hole somewhere never to see the light of day again. Leaning forward with his arms on the table, he started to gently hit his head on the table, muttering, "I'm sorry, I am so damn sorry. I don't know what just happened."

I wasn't sure what to do, but somehow I could feel a laugh rising up in me. I put a hand over my mouth to keep from bursting out, but ultimately I let out a full belly laugh. Claire joined in the laughter and then Embry, lifting his head and seeing that I wasn't mad, went from looking horrified to cracking a smile.

Telling them I wanted to grab a towel, I made my way back to the kitchen to see if there was anything I could do to dry myself off. I could hear Quil and Claire's laughter echoing in my ears as I passed through the door. As I looked for our bucket of clean and dry towels, Nadia approached me.

"Olivia, you look like you'd rather be anywhere than here. Does this have anything to do with the tall drinks of water out there? I'd be parched too," she finished with a wink and pretended to fan herself.

I laughed and motioned down at my clothes. "I think 'parched' is not quite how I would describe myself." Her eyes grew wide, but I could see her fighting a laugh too. I gave her the quick version of the story, still not really sure how it happened. "If you want, I can see if Joey will let you leave and I'll cover your section. It's dead anyway and then you can have that hunk of man meat make it up to you!"

I blushed, but considered her offer. My eyes lit up. "Nadia, are you sure? I don't want to be any trouble, and it's not a problem for me to stay at all."

She shook her head and grabbed my arm. "You don't want to be here any more than I do. Let's go find Joey now!"

We found Joey sulking in the office going over the sales reports for the last couple of hours. Hopefully he was feeling a little more open to cutting some employees right now.

I wasn't sure how to bring this up; I couldn't remember the last time I left work earlier than scheduled. Usually I was the one offering to work other servers' sections so that I could make more money. This warm feeling deep inside me wanted to spend more time with Embry and his friends. Mostly with Embry anyway.

Nadia, seeing my hesitation, relayed our situation to him. "Hey Joey, so it's been pretty slow out there as I'm sure you've seen. Olivia has a lot of schoolwork and errands to get caught up on, so we were wondering if she could leave early. It would really be doing me a favor if I could cover her section. I have a couple of extra bills this month and could use the extra income." An innocent smile graced her face as she waited for Joey to answer.

He looked suspiciously back and forth between us for what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds, his eyes lingering on the wet spots of my clothing. I crossed my arms uncomfortably and he looked away. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

"Olivia, you can go, but if Nadia has any trouble tonight, then this will be the last time I allow anything like this to happen. Does that sound fair?"

I found myself nodding before he could even finish talking. "I absolutely understand and agree." Nadia jumped back in and continued, "I'll be fine, I promise! Thanks Joey!" She dragged me out of the office before he could take back his permission.

Once I was heading back in the direction of their table, I started feeling more nervous. What was I doing? I'd never skipped out of work to go hang out with friends…if I could even call them that? I'd literally met Embry last night and his friends like twenty minutes ago! My head was signaling all kinds of alarm bells and whistles.

I would never be able to give a logical explanation for it, but my heart just somehow trusted Embry and felt that this wasn't a mistake. There was only one way to find out for sure; it was time to see if those movies about trusting your heart over your head were right.

I walked back out into the dining room and reached behind my back to start untying my wet apron. Embry immediately spotted me and smiled at me as I re-grouped with them. I put my apron on the table and untucked my shirt. As I met their questioning looks, I flashed a smile at them. "I'm free! Do you guys want to get out of here and do something fun?"

Embry cocked his head me. "I thought you were scheduled to work longer today?"

"I originally was, but another server is going to cover for me so that I can leave. Unless you all would rather stay here?"

Claire was practically vibrating with excitement. "Yay! This is going to be so fun! We should all go see a movie or go bowling!"

I smiled and shrugged to indicate I didn't care what we did. Quil turned to Claire and said, "I'm down for anything! Embry, does it matter to you?"

Embry just smiled and shook his head. I clapped my hands together. "Great, well we can figure it out outside of here. Let me just go put your drinks in the back and grab my stuff, then we can go."

Embry spoke up. "Olivia, I am so sorry again for spilling my water all over you. Is there anything I can do to make up for that? How much do we owe you for the drinks?" He started to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

I moved away from the table and replied, "It's on the house. We give free refills of these drinks all of the time, it's no big deal at all. Don't worry about the water either, it's not the first time that it's happened." He opened his mouth to argue, but I turned my back to him and power walked back into the kitchen. I didn't make it further than a foot inside when Nadia came and snatched the glasses out of my hands. "Oh no you don't, it's time for you to go and have fun! I'll take care of these and wipe the table down for you. Just get out!"

"Jeez Nadia, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to get rid of me!" She grinned and walked backwards toward the dish room. "I am a little, but you would do this for anyone here too. You need to live your life while you're young. Now go!" I held my hands up in a surrendering motion. "Fine, I'm leaving! Thanks again Nadia, I owe you for sure." She waved me off and turned around.

I quickly grabbed my things and thanked a higher power that I was wearing a tank top under my work shirt and could just slip a hoodie sweater on over that. I walked back out to Embry and his friends while stuffing my polo into my purse. "See, no harm no foul. It's only my work shirt that got the brunt of the water. Ready to go?"

We started to walk out the front door. Embry went first and held the door open for all of us. As I passed him, I gave a quiet thanks and felt him follow closely behind me. It was only as we were walking down the street that I noticed a warm and comforting hand resting on my lower back, sending tingles up and down my spine.

Damn, the butterflies were back.