Fridays at Noon by troublefollows1017.pdf

Fridays at Noon by troublefollows1017

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6453369/1/

Chapter 1

Friday, June 18th at Noon

I finished refilling all of the salt shakers, placed fresh flowers in all the vases on

the tables in the main dining area, helped cut up the fruit for the bar, took orders

for two tables, and now wanted two minutes in the back room without my damn

heels on while I waited for my tables' food. I never wore heels but they were a

required part of the uniform. How I hadn't sprained an ankle yet was beyond me.

"Bella! There you are!" Rosalie snapped as she came through the door and

spotted me. "Jessica's not coming in, and I need someone to cover the private

dining room."

"And you want that person to be me?" I said, sounding a little too shocked for her

liking.

She narrowed her hazel eyes at me. Rosalie didn't have to say anything, she

invoked fear deep within me with only a look.

I shook my head and tried to come off more confident. "I mean, absolutely.

Whatever, you need, Rosalie."

Waiting tables was not my chosen profession. It was more like my needed

profession, needed if I was going to have money to live somewhere and

occasionally eat. I was an English teacher by trade, but due to recent cutbacks

and the fact that I was on the bottom of the totem pole, I was let go at the end

of the school year. The entire economic downturn was making it hard to find a

job anywhere. Lucky for me, my roommate, Jasper, talked his sister, Rosalie, into

giving me a job at the restaurant she managed in the heart of downtown Seattle.

I had never worked at a restaurant before, but I was good at cooking dinner for

my dad when I was in high school. I figured it couldn't be that hard to take some

orders and schlep out food. I didn't have to cook anything, just deliver it to the

customer. Things at Eclipse were a little bit more complicated than that,

unfortunately. My week-long training session was a huge eye opener. I needed to

have the menu memorized, as well as have general knowledge of the wine list. I

needed to know what wine went with what menu item and be able to describe

how each dish was prepared. It was completely mind-boggling. Then there were

the rules of serving. I had no idea there were rules about what side you should

serve a person from or about allowing someone to taste the wine before they

were poured an entire glass. I felt extremely out of my league but was

determined to be a fast learner. It was the overachiever in me. I did not like

failing at anything.

Eclipse was also not the kind of restaurant I would ever eat at for two reasons.

One, I couldn't even afford an a la carte dessert on my budget. Two, they served

things I had never even heard of, things like foie gras and something called

ricotta and corn agnolotti in summer truffle consummé. I was more the veggie

burger and fries kind of girl. Lately, store brand mac-n-cheese was keeping me

alive. The people who frequented Eclipse were wealthy, very wealthy. We had

Seattle's who's who dining with us all the time. Sometimes it was some big name

athlete or some swanky politician. Powerful business people in fancy suits filled

the restaurant daily.

"Mr. Masen reserves the upstairs dining room every Friday at noon," Rosalie

explained as she led me to the stairs leading to the private dining room. "Jessica

is his server of choice but obviously she thinks I didn't know she planned to go

away this weekend with her boyfriend. For some reason, she thinks I am not the

eyes and the ears of this place! For some reason, she thought she could screw

me over last minute! Well, her little fake sick call just cost her this job. I hope

you don't need reminding that I know everything that happens in this

establishment, and anyone who doesn't understand that will pay dearly. Do I

need to remind you, Bella?"

I shook my head. Message received loud and clear – do not mess with Rosalie

Hale. Rosalie was so different from her brother. Rosalie was a high strung Type A

personality. It was the kind of personality needed to run a restaurant, I

supposed. Jasper, on the other hand, was one of the most easy-going people I

had ever met. We met in college and had been friends for a couple years. Besides

helping me with the job situation, he took me in when I couldn't afford to live on

my own any longer. Jasper had saved me from the shame of having to move

back home to live with my dad. For this, I would be eternally grateful. He and I

were great friends – completely platonic, of course. He had a girlfriend named

Maria, who I thought kind of treated him like crap, but it wasn't my place to

judge.

I started up the stairs to the private dining area and tripped on the first step,

landing painfully on my left knee.

"Bella," Rosalie spat like it was a curse word. "Try not to embarrass you or, more

importantly, me. Mr. Masen's business is a big deal. He's here with his assistant

today. You should be able to handle a table of two. I would send Emmett in there

but Mr. Masen prefers female servers, and you are all I have unfortunately. So

don't mess this up."

Don't mess it up. That would be my mantra.

The wait staff at Eclipse was mostly male, which surprised me at first. Then I

added up my first day tips. The clientele did tip extraordinarily well. Men could

support their families working as servers at Eclipse. I really had no idea what

Jasper was getting me into when he offered to help me out. This was not Forks

Diner. Hell, this wasn't even Red Lobster, and I used to think that was fancy.

I made my way up the stairs, careful to put one foot firmly on each step, so I

didn't fall again. I opened the door and found two men sitting at the long

rectangular table. They were both dressed in expensive-looking suits, and one

was noticeably older than the other. The older man had short, thinning grey hair

and a closely cropped beard. He was a good looking older gentleman, but it was

his younger counterpart who took my breath away.

The man had a wild mess of bronze hair on his head. There were strands of

reddish-brown hair sticking up in all different directions that somehow looked

purposeful. He couldn't have been over thirty, probably wasn't much older than

me, actually. His eyes were so green, you couldn't help but take notice of them

even from across the room. Then there was the jaw porn. Oh my, did the man

have a jawline that made me want to touch it, preferably with my tongue.

The two men were engaged in a serious conversation and paid no attention to

me. I stood patiently to the side, waiting for them to acknowledge me, so I could

welcome them and explain our specials for the day.

"I swear Alec, if I had a fucking nickel for every time someone has told me

they're sorry today," the younger man ranted. I couldn't help but think he should

be a little bit more careful about talking to his boss like that.

"I know, Edward. I know."

"It's ridiculous," he huffed, running his hand through that mess of hair on his

head. He turned his head just enough to catch sight of me. "What?"

Oh shit. He was talking to me.

"Where's Jessica? We've been here for five minutes, and no Jessica."

I stepped further into the room and tried to smile even though I was so nervous,

I could feel the sweat beads forming on my forehead.

"Sorry, Jessica is out today. My name is Isabella, I'll be your server this

afternoon." I hated using my full name, but Rosalie insisted that Isabella sounded

more formal and should be the name I used with customers.

"See!" The young man pounded his fist on the table, making the silverware and

glasses rattle. "What did I tell you? Sorry. It's all I've heard today!" he shouted.

This guy might've been hot, but maybe hot-headed was a more accurate

description.

"Relax, it's not her fault Jessica's not here. Right, Isabella?" The man I assumed

to be Mr. Masen looked up at me with a reassuring smile.

"Right, sir," I replied nervously, trying to focus on the much more polite Mr.

Masen. His assistant could really take some lessons on how to treat people who

handle his food. I handed them a menu and began explaining our daily specials.

"Today we have two specials-"

"I don't need to hear the specials," the snippy assistant said, never even opening

his menu. "We'd like a bottle of your Romanée-Conti, 2000 preferably, but 2004

will do as well. I'll have the heirloom lettuce to start and then the lamb."

I blinked a few times, not sure I heard him correct. I did not have our

significantly long wine list memorized, but I knew that was one of the most

expensive kinds of wine we offered. Bottles of that stuff didn't cost hundreds of

dollars, they cost thousands - a few thousand. I looked at his boss for some sign

that maybe he shouldn't be ordering such an expensive bottle. Mr. Masen was

busy looking at the menu.

"I'll start out with the soup and then the beef short ribs," he smiled warmly,

handing me the menu back. I picked up the other, unused menu that sat beside

Mr. Hot-headed Assistant because it was obviously too much work to hand it to

me.

"You're ok with the Romanée-Conti?" I asked, wanting to make sure he heard

what his assistant had ordered.

"Excuse me?" Edward the Assistant asked through a clenched jaw. His green eyes

were alight with a fierceness I was not accustomed to seeing.

"Sorry, j-j-just making sure that was ok," I stuttered.

He threw his hands up. "Did you hear that Alec? I'd be ten cents richer!"

"Edward, relax," Mr. Masen said with great concern. "You're going to give yourself

a heart attack before you're thirty."

"I'm sure they taught you in waitress school that you should do what the

customer asks without question," Edward the Assistant spat condescendingly.

Part of me wanted to congratulate him on obviously graduating at the top of his

class from asshole school, but I mustered up enough restraint to stay quiet.

The only gentleman at the table turned to me with another kind smile. "Whatever

Mr. Masen ordered is fine with me. I would never question his taste, even if I

didn't work for him."

Time froze. My jaw must have hit the floor, and I wasn't sure how I didn't pass

out. Mr. Hot-headed Assistant was actually Mr. Masen/Hot-headed Boss while the

older, gentler Mr. Masen was not Mr. Masen at all but Mr. Alec the Not Hot-

headed Assistant.

"Of course, sorry," I apologized.

"Fifteen!" the real Mr. Masen roared.

"Sorry," I muttered again because my brain and mouth were no longer

connected.

"Twenty! Can we make it a quarter?" he asked, glaring at me with his hard, jade

colored eyes.

I shook my head and exited the room as quickly as my feet would move me. I

zipped down the steps and managed to slip just before reaching the bottom. My

butt hit the second to last step with a painful thud. I jumped up and winced as I

made my way to get their bottle of wine and place their food order.

Emmett noticed my fall and followed me.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. My butt's going to hurt tomorrow, and I probably will not be earning

anything close to a fifteen percent tip today, but I'll be fine."

"How's it going up there? Jessica says Masen can be a real ass sometimes. You'd

think a guy who's got billions of dollars could buy some manners."

My eyes went wide. "Billions?"

Emmett laughed, "Bells, do you seriously have no idea who that guy is up there?

Edward Masen, CEO of Masen Corporation. He's a software developer, created the

most popular software security program in the world right now. Came from

money, but in the last couple years, he's made more than everyone in his family

combined. I heard he's worth close to twenty-eight billion. He's like twenty-eight

years old with twenty-eight billion dollars. Can you imagine?"

Twenty-eight. Billion. Dollars. That kind of money just did not compute.

"Great. Well, that explains his choice of wine. It also explains why he looked like

he wanted me dead when I mistook his assistant for him. Great. Just great." I

was such an idiot. I questioned a multi-billionaire about a bottle of wine that cost

a fraction of what he probably makes in an hour.

Emmett laughed at me again. "Oh man. Don't mess this thing we got going with

him, Bella. He reserves that room every Friday at noon. Rosalie will have your

head if he stops coming in because you offended him."

"Got it," I replied, needing to find our sommelier, and suddenly wishing Jessica

and her boyfriend had waited one more day to make that stupid trip to San

Francisco.

Eric, our wine expert extraordinaire, handed me the ridiculously expensive bottle

of wine and reminded me for the millionth time to let it breathe for a few minutes

before handing it to the customer. I carried the forty-five hundred dollar bottle of

wine up the stairs like it was my own child. Something told me that if I fell and it

broke, I would be broke because Rosalie, in addition to firing me, would

confiscate my next paycheck and then sue me for the remainder, which would

still be a lot.

Amazingly, I made it upstairs without falling or breaking anything. I poured the

extremely expensive wine into his glass and gave it a few minutes to breathe. I

served their appetizers and then handed him his glass so he could taste the wine

and approve.

Edward Masen stared into the glass before swirling the deep red wine around. He

raised it to his nose, sniffing before he lifted the glass to his lips. I found myself

mesmerized. He had pretty lips, even for an asshole. He took a sip but I could tell

he didn't swallow. He let the wine sit on his tongue. I watched him swallow

eventually and then take one more sip. My eyes were focused on his mouth. I

wanted to look away but there was something about him that made it impossible.

His tongue poked out and licked his bottom lip. I strongly disliked him and his

twenty-eight billion dollar attitude but his mouth was kind of perfect. He set the

glass down and then nodded his approval. I filled his glass and then his

assistant's.

I managed to not make another major faux pas the rest of lunch. I served their

entrees without causing the nickel-counting Mr. Masen any other reason to shout

at me. I was feeling confident that I had redeemed myself and might actually see

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