SPOV:
When Amelia threw the bathing suit at me, I wanted to recoil in horror. It was tiny! I was definitely not feeling confident enough to wear something so small. I'd been waxed a couple of weeks before so I was good on that front, but still, I was just feeling like crap run over and she wanted me to wear this? I could have strangled her with it.
She told me that she'd get to mixing me a good stiff drink—that might help my feelings on the bikini. I scowled at myself in the mirror, grabbed my towel and thought to hell with it. I was among friends… and well, I guess, Eric. Either way maybe I shouldn't care what they thought. I needed to relax and spend time with my people.
Walking out to the deck and down to the pool, I saw that everyone was already in a lot less clothes and chilling on the sun seats with drinks being passed around. Tara had Jessica in a swimming costume and sun hat and I could see from where I stood she's slapped the factor 4000 on her skin before tip toeing into the pool with her, sticking her in her little ring to float.
I saw Eric look at me from his seat beside Lafayette who was next to me. True to form his eyes seemed glued to my breasts, moving up and down of course, but always coming back to the girls. I could have giggled. Men, they really were simple creatures.
"Mmmhmmm, nice." Lafayette whistled and I slapped him with my towel.
"You hush."
"Hush to what mamma look at you! Ass for days, fabbalush breast-icles."
"You don't even play for my team!" I pointed out.
"So? That mean I can't appreciate..." he turned to Eric, "... on both sides of the fence?" He looked him up and down and turned back to me. "Someone is wearing too many clothes."
"It's a t-shirt not a sweater." Eric pointed out. Not looking up, he chose to drink his beer instead.
"Don't tease him Laf, he's probably just shy about his body." Where that comment came from, I didn't know.
With that, Eric chuckled and stood up. I looked over my sunglasses as he reached for the hemline of his t-shirt and yanked it over his head, firing it at me.
"I'm not shy about nothing, Sookie."
Tara and Amelia wolf whistled and I rolled my eyes. Of course he's not shy; he's built like a god under those baggy t-shirts. Defined abs ran up his torso—his long, long torso—to his rather, Amelia was right, lick-able neck.
Of course, I acted like it was no big deal. He was just a guy—a good looking, toned, hot guy. Not a big deal at all.
We sat, talked—well, Eric mostly listened and nodded along—and drank. I had one cocktail that I was only half fussed about. We talked about the service and how pretty it was, how many people came to pay their respects, how nosy they were around the house and how many times I'd been asked if I was going to raise the baby alone, like it was a horror! Old southern ladies liked to judge, that much we established. They also loved free tea and cake.
"Jessica okay?" I asked out loud laying down and adjusting my sunglasses to gain some sun in the 80 plus heat.
"She's fine, aren't you puddin'? She likes the water. This ring thing is amazing, fits right in all secure."
"Use her water wings just in case!" I called.
"Sookie, chill okay?"
"I'm plenty chilled."
"Mhhmm, just like Hadley." Tara mused in a sing song voice.
"What?"
"You women always worried about everything. You and Hadley more than most!"
"She did worry a lot, huh?"
"Do you remember her engagement party?"
"Remember it? There was a reason Alcide convinced her to elope, remember? God, that party was high stress!" I laughed.
"The ice sculptures! In July! What was she thinking?" Amelia screeched handing me a cocktail.
"Eric, you missed it man, it was … a disaster!" Lafayette leaned into Eric's side of the chair. "She was running around for weeks trying to have the 'perfect' party, and oh God…"
I picked up the story. "The day before, she was in such a rush picking her outfit up and getting her hair done, that she came running up the steps of my Gran's place and falls, smack on her face!"
"Oh my God!" He laughed.
"No! The best part... she broke her damn nose, but insisted on going ahead with the party! I have to find those photos! She thought her bangs would cover it, and Lafayette said—"
"Honey child, unless we turn you into Cousin It, ain't nothing' gonna cover that nose!" Lafayette and Eric laughed.
"Oh, my God it was hilarious. Alcide's face when he saw her, poor guy, he was trying so hard to stay on her good side."
"But the girl looked like road kill." Tara said without thinking, instantly calling a halt to the laughing. She rolled her eyes at herself before she apologised. I told her not to worry about it and that everyone had better get those sour pusses straightened out. Hadley would have killed us if we'd looked like shit at her funeral.
It made Amelia laugh as she started in on another anecdote about our friends, this one about the road trip we took senior year of high school. Lord, I just hoped she left out the part about us flashing the truckers….
She didn't.
Eric raised his eyebrows at me; that smirk permanently attached to his face.
Lafayette just laughed as I rolled my eyes.
"On that note, I am going to put Miss Jessica down for her nap otherwise there will be hell to pay."
"Flashing truckers?" Eric whispered to me, surprised.
"There are things this Ice Queen has done, Eric that would surprise and shock even you, I'm sure." I leaned down to whisper back. Whether or not I gave him an eyeful of cleavage in the process was … I'm sure, totally accidental.
"Come on, honey." I said as I took her from Tara as she started to rub her little eyes. Yep, definitely nap time.
I took her up to my bedroom and sat her on my bed as I changed into a pair of denim shorts, slipped off my flip flops and got under the covers. Jessica crawled under them with me too. She was sucking away on her pacifier while her big blue eyes searched my face. She'd put her hand to my lips every now and again, before entangling her little fingers in my hair. She liked to twirl my hair it seemed.
It also seemed that the hair twirling had a calming effect on her; she stared at me for a long while before her little eyelids started close ever so slowly. She fought it though, trying her best to stay awake but eventually sleep dragged her under. It must have worked it's magic on me too because that's the last thing I remember before being woken up by her crawling on my legs more than two hours later.
EPOV:
I watched Sookie walk away with the baby in her arms all wrapped up in a big towel. I told myself that I was just looking out for Jessica, and not at all wondering what the view of Sookie's ass in those bikini bottoms looked like. I also told myself that she was just a girl having a shit time, just like I was having a shit time. We were both in this together and maybe I could try harder on the whole 'being nice' thing. I knew it was bad when Pam told me to go easy on her. But Pam, she knew me. She knew that I wasn't a talker; I didn't converse easily with strangers; I had to wait until someone wanted to know me… and if they tried hard enough, they did. Most people didn't though. Most people saw me, and thought one of two things. One, I was hot or two, I was an asshole.
Now the women who thought I was hot on first glance would flirt, and if they flirted and I found them hot, we'd have sex. Lots of sex. Sometimes weekends filled with sex… However, afterwards they usually thought option number two. Probably because I was the asshole that had fucked and run, leaving them high and… well, not so dry.
Conversing with women who didn't want to sleep with me was… well… difficult. I knew what to say to get in their pants, just not what to say to get into their heads and that almost always worked. Well, except that one time the chick turned out to be a lesbian… who then in turn became my best friend, outside of Alcide. The other time it hadn't worked, I got stuck with an eight hundred dollar bill for champagne.
From the age of eighteen, the game had worked. I kept myself limited to a number of people who got to know me and I was fine with that. Now I guess I had to add two more. Being stuck with Sookie and a kid, wasn't exactly how I'd planned my life to go in my early thirties… But then again, I guess Alcide hadn't planned on being scraped off a highway either. The dice was tossed; I just had to take my turn.
"You want another beer?" I offered Lafayette as he gathered up all his cooking supplies while the rest of us tidied up as best we could. Grieving people were messy as fuck.
Tara helped Lafayette finish up in the kitchen while Amelia and I sorted out the dining room and the living room. Tommy had to leave since he was on chore duty with his parents. He seemed like a good kid; for a busboy he was smart as whip and not even a senior in high school.
Amelia was sweet, she was kind and she was also kinda dumb. Normally she'd be exactly the kind of girl I'd be flirting with, but there was also something else to her, something that told me if I even tried that she'd shut me down flat. I guess to them I was still the Asshole date guy. Though, I had hopes that our time talking might have changed that opinion, ever so slightly. Why I cared what these people thought of me? I had no idea. But I figured if Sookie and I were going to do this thing, then they might be around a lot. So, it might be best to not be a total dick to all of them, all at once.
"You know, you're good with her." She said.
"Who?"
"Little Jessica. She's a cute kid an all, but damn she has lungs like …"
"Yeah she's a screamer alright. But …thanks?"
"You're welcome. And you know, no matter what everybody thinks… I know Sookie and she's really an amazing person. I mean, sometimes yeah, she's a bitch but she makes up for it like the other ninety-percent of the time because she's awesome."
"Is that right?"
"Totally. She and I have been friends forever, and she was always the smart one, you know? But she always stuck around 'cause that's who she is, she's loyal. Sometimes too loyal, to dickhead's who don't deserve her loyalty…"
Like who, I wondered.
"But if you earn it, you get it and once you get it? It's pretty hard to lose."
Huh, maybe she wasn't so dumb after all.
"I hear you."
"Do you? 'Cause like it or not you guys are in this together now and maybe you both can try and stop butting heads for a change?"
"Believe me I want to. I'd like some peace, but it's just that … God, I don't know what it is but when we're together it's like explosions of sarcasm just go off in my head and it all comes out and pisses her off… Then, she's mad at me and it's a circle of that, and it's only been A DAY and half. It's excruciating."
She giggled.
"Then I wish you luck, Eric." She patted me on the shoulder, taking her bag of trash that she'd collected into the kitchen.
Yeah, good luck. I'd be needing it.
SPOV:
I woke up and the first thing I saw was Jessica's bottom. She was upside down on my legs, her little butt in the air trying to crawl off the bed.
"Nuh uh little Missy, you get your butt back here."
She laughed as I lifted her back to the head of the bed.
The sun was starting to set. I'd spent the better part of the afternoon napping. I guess I really needed it and from the looks of the wide awake baby next to me, she did too.
"You must be starving, and I shudder to think what awaits me in your diaper."
She decided that a game of peek-a-boo with my quilt was in order before we got up.
I fixed my bed-head as best I could. The messy bun wasn't working so I quickly braided it into two large pigtails as Jessica watched me in the mirror.
"One day when your hair grows all long and shiny I'll teach you how to do that. Would you like that?"
Yeah she's good at the staring and spitting bubbles thing, I'll give her that.
I walked into the kitchen to find everyone gone, and everything spotless. So not what I'd left when I went upstairs. Eric was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't surprising to me. It was almost dark. He probably had to meet his pussy quota for the day and was most likely out to find his next victim.
There was more than enough food in containers to last us a week. There were stews, roasts, chicken wings, potato salads, and three different kinds of coleslaw—who needed three different kinds of coleslaw?
I popped Jess into her high chair and knocked on the TV for her to gaze at as I worked on fixing us something to eat that maybe resembled a dinner.
I'd forgotten my cell was charging in the den just as I was re-heating the meats.
"I'll be right back baby, don't cry!"
I sprinted down the hall and to the right, grabbing my cell off the table where I'd left it charging. On turning around that's when I saw him. Lying curled up on the couch, gripping one of the pillows to his chest—Eric, sound asleep.
"He sleeps."
He was lying there in his basketball shorts, and not a whole lot else. I took a moment, just a moment to appreciate just how… pretty he was. You know, when he wasn't running his smart mouth or being a prick, he was really very pretty.
Pretty isn't the word I'm guessing he'd like me to use when describing him, but hey, it's a step up from asshole, right?
I left his pretty self lying there, but not before I felt sorry for him and draped the long woollen blanket over him to keep him warm.
Ass or no, he didn't deserve to wake up freezing.
I'd managed to whip up a pretty epic southern feast if I do say so myself. I was starving, and little Miss was just as bad. After a diaper change, I let her sit happily in her vest and little baby underwear over the diaper as I got together her dinner. Roast potatoes, mashed for her, roast chicken, gravy, veggies and biscuits. I made Eric a plate and left it in the oven; I wasn't going to let him starve. I was a lot of things, but a rude host was not one of them. It's just not how I was raised!
"Somethin' smells good..." came the husky voice from the doorway. Source of said voice was a very sleepy, bed-headed Eric.
"Hey. Thanks, its dinner. You want?"
He nodded. Right, he wasn't so chatty when he woke up. I'd reheated his plate while he took a seat at the island, yawning and wiping his eyes; his hair was sticking up all over the place. It was adorable.
"Have you already eaten?" He asked, actually looking at me and not my boobs for a change. Not that I could really complain, I was still standing there in my bikini top and shorts. He'd just have to deal. I was a southern girl who loved the sun; this was practically my uniform. He poured himself a glass of milk as I got his plate.
"God, this looks awesome."
"Yeah, there is seriously so much food here. I don't know how we'll get through it all."
"Challenge accepted." He smiled. Typical guy.
"Knock yourself out."
He started to chow down, and I suddenly felt very awkward standing there.
"I uhh… I should go and leave you to eat in peace…"
"Hey no, you… I mean it… if you don't have anything to do … the company would be … be okay."
I nodded and sat across from him, "So, you sleep okay?"
Awkward. So totally awkward.
"Yeah." He smiled. "I hadn't meant to but I guess this last couple of days finally caught up with me."
"Yeah, same here. I'd only meant to lie down till Jess went to sleep but I got pulled under too."
He nodded, still chowing down. Man he could eat.
"Where is she?"
"She is in the den; there are building blocks, toys, teddies, and not a whole lot of sharp edges. Plus, she's been crawling back and forth to me for about an hour now."
I still had the baby monitor on my hip though. I heard her giggling at the TV and I glanced around the corner to see that, yep she was on her stomach watching Barney and clapping.
It killed me to know that she had no idea what these last few days had meant or what they would mean for her for the rest of her life. I turned back to the kitchen, lifting the pans from the dishwasher.
"You have a nice ass."
I saw him through the window reflection. He face palmed, he actually face palmed.
"Excuse me?" I spun around.
"I… Uhh. I'm just sayin' you have a nice ass." He shrugged.
"Okay?"
"Do you think I have a nice ass?"
Yes. No… Yes.
"Oh my God, why are we having this conversation?"
He shrugged again taking another bite of his chicken. "I don't know, I thought you have a nice ass and thought you should know. If someone thought I had a nice ass, I'd like them to tell me."
I glared; I didn't know what else to do.
"Well Eric, I can't say I've been paying all that much attention to your ass since you've been a little too busy BEING an ass for me to look elsewhere."
He smiled.
"Well, feel free to look… I know I will."
Why was he so weird?
"You realize these are words coming out of your mouth right?"
"Sorry for paying you a compliment!"
"Compli-… oh my God, Eric when you tell a woman she has a 'nice ass' it's the same as you telling her she has 'nice tits'. It's not a compliment, it's…"
"It's what?"
"It's insulting!"
"Well, would you rather I said you had an ugly ass?"
"N-No, but that's not the point!"
"It's entirely the point. You don't want me thinking badly of your ass, but when I think good of it you don't want that either! Women, I swear!"
"That's not … Not…"
Again with the frustrating sexism.
"It's degrading. I'm not just an ass. Or tits!"
"No, I know that. But again, I'm just saying, they're… you know… nice."
"Yes. I get your point. You think I'm hot."
"Ohh hooo-no, I never said that." He sounded off. There was that damn smirk again.
"What?"
"I never said you were hot."
"Yes you—"
"Nooo, I said you had a nice ass. That's so not the same as being hot."
I blushed, I was embarrassed. Way to assume, Stackhouse.
"So, you're saying that I'm not hot?" I stood, hands on hips in protest, and I may have straightened out the girls in the process.
He just laughed; the bastard was laughing at me. He stood up to put his empty plate in the dishwasher, brushing past me in the process. He was standing a breath away from me; I say a breath because I could feel his on my skin when he spoke next.
"Do you want me to think you're hot, Sookie?"
I ignored the tingles that ran up my insides as he spoke in that lower sleepy octave.
"I don't really give a damn."
"You give a damn."
I looked him square in the eye, tingles or no tingles I wasn't going to let him get this one over on me.
"Nope."
"Really? So if I said that I didn't think you were hot, you wouldn't be upset?" He toyed.
"Upset?" I scoffed "Hardly. In fact it's probably a good thing. It means I haven't descended into ho-ville quite yet, since I'm guessing the women you're used to finding attractive are usually of… questionable moral content. So you can think I'm the wicked witch for all I care, Eric." I sassed him, raising my brow as he licked his lips, staring me down.
He didn't say anything, just quirked his eyebrow at me before reaching behind me, brushing my arm in the process to grab an apple from the fruit bowl.
"Good to know, Stackhouse." He smiled and bounced off in Jessica's direction, while I tried my best to make the goose bumps that had appeared on my arms go away.
What the hell, self?
A/N: Ohhh these two! *Shakes head* :D So glad you're lovin' these two so far! The reviews, adds, and pms have all helped my urge to write, so big thank you again!