Disclaimer: I don't own anything except my OC(s).

Oh my goodness gracious. I really wasn't expecting the response for the first chapter at all, but it was pleasantly surprising. I am just so glad that some people are enjoying this story. It's super fun to write. Anyway! I hope that y'all like this update! Thanks so much for reading and giving this little fic a shot!

Against the Tide
Chapter Two: Mangled Meetings

I felt my mouth drop.

The whole thing...I had to pinch myself - literally - just to make sure I was seeing correctly. This couldn't possibly be happening. This was too insane. This didn't happen to people in real life. This was the thing of a Nicholas Sparks book or one of those cheesy romance movies that cheated the main characters out of a happy ending for no particular reason. So, I guess, not so different from some of Nicholas Sparks' works. But different in the fact that I hated John Cena with the entirety of my being -

I shook my head, closing my eyes as I did so, and then saw nothing had changed. Albeit, Cena was still staring at me as if I were from another planet, but that was to be expected. I was the gaping, moronic girl staring at him, after all.

I turned around to face Rose only to find her missing from sight, gone off in the back where all the cooks were, I supposed. I half wondered if she made me take this table on purpose. Maybe she was trying to get me fired, because she certainly knew well enough to realize that Cena-hating was one of my favorite pastimes.

I turned and grasped one set of napkin-wrapped utensils, starting my walk towards Table Eight. Cena was staring at me as I came towards him, those large eyes of his friendly and clueless.

Oh, he was in for a shock.

Or, maybe not, since I guess he dealt with this kind of thing far more often than normal people.

"Hello," I said through clenched teeth, placing the utensils. "I'll be your waitress."

He gave me a jovial, amused smile. "Don't act so pleased."

I returned his smile with one of my own. Though, mine was strained and I almost shattered my teeth while doing it. "Oh, I'm just...tickled."

I reached down and got out my little ordering notepad and pen, then looked up at him. "What do you want?"

Cena gave a funny little laugh and then said, "Water would be fine."

"Water...interesting..." I mumbled as I scribbled the order down on my notebook.

"What's that?"

"Nothing..." I trailed off, fighting back any vulgarity I wanted to call him. I knew that this could very well be the customer that got me fired. But oh, I hated having to restrain myself. I settled for acidly calling him "sir" and then walking away to retrieve his stupid water. Which I would have loved to pour over his head.

"I hate you," I told Rose as I poured water from a pitcher into a clean glass. Damn, why couldn't there be any questionable ones that the dishwasher hadn't, well, washed? Ugh.

"Why's that?" she asked me, vacantly, uncaring.

"John effing Cena is at Table Eight. Duh."

Rose, apparently, either hadn't noticed or was a very good bullshitter. Her eyebrows rose into her hairline and her mouth dropped open. "Are you kidding me?"

"No! I would not make this up." I sat the glass of water rather violently down on the counter. "If I was going to make anything up, it would be that Orlando Bloom was at Table Eight, not John Cena."

"Orlando Bloom is here, too?!"

"No!" I shouted at her. Geez, the gift of understanding language was lost on some people. I gave her a glare and then set out to bring Cena his water. If this had happened any other time, I'd want to make him wait as long as possible, but really, I just wanted him to eat and leave so I didn't have to look at him this close up and personal anymore.

I walked up to him begrudgingly. It was almost like treading through thick soup or something. I sat his glass down on the table in front of him with the same traces of violence displayed before Rose just moments ago. "Your water," I drawled. "Ready to order yet?"

Cena cocked his head to the side. "You don't like me all that much, do you?"

"No shit, Fruity Pebble - " I cut myself off, curling my traitorous lips inward and biting on them.

Though, instead of reprimanding me or threatening to call his lawyer or whatever it was that famous people did when confronted with a rather...antagonistic individual, he started laughing.

Laughing.

I felt my eye literally start to twitch in response to it. Booming and unashamed, his laughter filled the stillness of the restaurant. Cheese Man over at the bar requested Rose for another drink. I didn't blame him. I would have ordered the entire stock, if I were him.

"Hey!" I snapped. "Can you please order already?"

Still chuckling, Cena closed one of his eyes as if thinking particularly hard about something. "Well, I would, you see, if I got a menu when I sat down."

My hands curled into fists as a frustrated flush flashed across my cheeks. Of course my lackluster waitressing skills would cause the figurehead of the freaking Cenation to stay longer at my workplace than was necessary.

"I'll get you a menu," I said, going back to my earlier technique of speaking through clenched teeth.

Rose was busy filling up another drink for the sole guy at the bar, and I snatched a menu from a pile of the items on the front desk, scowling all the while.

I tossed the menu at Cena and he caught it in his large hands, that stupid grin never leaving his face. "There ya go, big guy."

This was apparently very amusing to him, since he just laughed at me and took his sweet time in deciding on an appetizer. Appetizers meant he would be ordering more food afterward. And then maybe even a desert, since he seemed enraptured at the variety of cakes and pies we served. And that meant, more time with him.

I wrote down his appetizer - crab cakes - and then placed the order to one of our late night cooks.

"Dude," he said, waving his spatula like it was a magic wand. "I'm cooking crab cakes for John Cena."

"Shut up, James."

And thus was the night. Cena would order. I'd give the order to James. James would crow things like, "Dude, I'm making John Cena's bacon cheeseburger," or "Dude, I'm making John Cena's ice cream sundae," or "Dude, I totally tweeted pics of John Cena's food to everyone we work with."

To all of which, I would go, "Shut up, James!" in varying degrees of desperation.

I brought Cena his burger and fries, which he ate in an almost painfully slow way. I refilled his water several times, spilling accidentally only twice and purposefully only once. The sundae came last, and it really looked so good that I might have stolen the cherry from atop it. But, of course, no one has to know about that.

Just when I was in the clear, bringing Cena his very last foodstuff of the night, I saw Rose chatting him up, looking eager and excited as Cena bent over something, scribbling away. After a moment, he looked up and handed her a napkin. It was then I realized that Rose had asked him for an autograph, and had provided the nearest thing possible for the signiture.

"Oh, what the hell," I breathed, shocked. Rose wasn't even interested in WWE or anything like that. I supposed that it didn't matter who the celebrity was, an autograph opportunity was an autograph opportunity.

"There's my sundae!" Cena said cheerily, motioning me forward. I paused purposefully, hating being beckoned forward like his wench.

After a moment, I stepped forward, placing the bowl of desert in front of him while simultaneously handing him the check. "Well, that was quick," he said, staring at the little black book on the edge of the table.

"When you're ready," I told him uneasily, hating myself for even giving him that much leeway in his timeline.

"What's your name?" he asked, randomly.

My eye twitched. "Why?"

Cena shrugged. "I'd just like to know the name of the person who hates me so much."

"Are you, like, a masochist or something?"

This garnered a laugh from him. "No," he said. "Though I don't think being a masochist has anything to do - "

"Tessa," I told him sharply, interrupting his sentence. "My name is Tessa."

"Pleasure to meet you, Tessa," he said, extending his hand. "I'm John."

I wanted to ignore that hand. It stayed hanging in between us for the longest time before Rose kicked me in the shin. And, seriously, that hurt like a bitch. I glared at her and she looked like she was going to do it again, so I shook Cena's hand. Ew.

I dropped my hand after the minimum amount of time that was required to satisfy Rose. "Whenever you're ready," I repeated harshly.

He gave me a smile and a friendly nod as he dug into his ice cream. Rose watched, fascinated, and I had to pry her away before she pounced on him like a gold-digging vulture.

"Hey, what was that for?" she protested, ripping her arm away from my vicelike grip.

"Being a shameless celeb-whore," I told her.

"Hey!" she exclaimed in indignation. "I am not shameless."

That earned a laugh out of me, and then I looked over to Table Eight, seeing that Cena had vacated the premises, leaving an empty ice cream bowl, plate, and glass. The chair was tucked neatly underneath the table.

"You skank," Rose scolded. "You scared him off with your bitchy mean-ness."

"Maybe he thought he had another stalker on his hands," I said, prodding her arm with a finger. She winced, that wimp, and went back to tend to the guy that was still at the bar. Seriously, maybe he needed to go to AA or something.

AA, I thought, cringing, Attitude Adjustment. Jesus.

I walked over to Cena's abandoned table, picking up the leather booklet with one hand while looking at the massive amount of dirty dishes he had left us with. Change jingled from inside the booklet, and I found myself amused that he would pay the exact amount. No tip? Yes, I knew I disliked Cena for a reason.

But then, something caught my eye.

Shoved just underneath the napkin holder in the center of the table was a small rectangular piece of white paper. I cocked my head to the side as I shoved the leather book in my apron pocket and tugged the paper out from underneath the holder.

My breath caught in my throat.

The piece of paper was a check addressed to Tessa from Hugh's.

For the amount of one hundred dollars.

End Chapter Two.