Chapter Three

                                                                                                                      ~I'm Doin' Just Fine~

 EPOV

"I miss you, too."

"Yeah, things are picking up around here ever since the summer crowd plowed into town over the weekend."

"The hotel's booked solid through Labor Day and we've got several parties on the calendar for catering throughout the summer."

"Yup."

"Mostly weddings… oh and a booking for a two-day memorial service, too."

"I don't know, some big-wig that passed away who knew more people than God, apparently."

"Ummm, I think the name was Harrington? I'm pretty sure that was it."

"Oh and one huge bash on July 4th weekend for an engagement party."

"I don't know… this lucky bastard who landed a lovely girl..."

"Yeah, maybe you know them."

"Hahaha. I know, but I'm your dork and you love me."

"Hey, you said yes. You're mine now."

"Okay, okay…tell that director to keep his grimy hands to himself."

"I know, I'm just kidding. I miss you, too. We'll talk again in a few days when you're back in the city with cell service."

"Love you, too. Bye baby."

Tori.

Edward Cullen

My fiancee.

I can't wait 'til she's back here in New Jersey and in my arms again. I hate when she has to go gallivanting all over the globe for location shoots. But I knew what I was getting myself into when I started dating the hair stylist for the "up and coming" Lauren Mallory. Nice girl, very attractive, decent actress, but sadly she's dumber than a bag of hammers. If she doesn't have a script in front of her, she seriously can't hold an intelligent conversation. I suppose it's a good thing that she's pretty much the latest and greatest in Hollywood these days. Studios are clamoring to get her signed to different movie deals. She certainly keeps my girl employed, but that translates into a long distance relationship for us for most of the year. It sucks.

Once we're married, I really hope that she'll consider opening up her own shop on the island. She originally approached me with the idea and I was thrilled. I hate when she's so far away for great lengths of time. Our entire relationship has basically been spent over the phone with occasional monthly visits peppered in here and there. I hope once we're together again, the connection is still there...I wonder sometimes. It's so hard to tell over the phone.
Now that the summer's here again though, we'll be together for the holiday weekend surrounding July 4th and then again once the film wraps after Labor Day. I don't know how or when we're going to plan all the details for the wedding, but that's Tori's mom's responsibility. Just give me my tux and tell me where to be on December 17th. The details don't matter much to me; I just want the end result.

I was all for hopping on a plane and eloping in Vegas, but Tori's mom had a shit fit at the premise, so here we are. We're catering the engagement party in five weeks and then some Jack and Jill thing in October- I have no idea what the fuck that is. Tori said something about a bridal shower, but for guys and girls…I don't know.

Whatever.

Like I said, just tell me where to be and I'll be there. Between Four Seas, the hotel & Last Call, my plate is overflowing.

Not many people can say that they get to live their dream, but that's what I do every single day. From the moment I started that hideous summer job in Ocean City when I was fifteen years old, I knew that I wanted to run my own restaurant. The fact that the job also gave me training in hotel operations didn't hurt either, now that I co-own the Surf City Hotel and Last Call Bar & Grill and the catering business with my little brother, James.

The hotel has been doing really well ever since we bought the building eighteen months ago, but it's an enormous undertaking. Granted, it's only twelve rooms, but it includes the restaurant and bar and James and I are the only ones involved in the day to day operations of both facilities. We only employ a staff of about twenty-five people, and that's during the summer, which is our busy season. It's a huge ordeal that keeps us insanely busy from sun up 'til sun down, 24/7 for three straight months…but I live for it. I've wanted to do this for as long as I can remember. During the off-season from Labor Day to Memorial Day, we trim the staff down to about a dozen, but both the hotel as well as the restaurant and bar are open year-round.

Too bad the Flanders Hotel, as I remember it, is defunct nowadays. I heard the management turned it into condos. I spent five summers there in Ocean City hustling my ass off for my boss but even more for the clients. I started out as a floater; part-time busboy in the restaurant and part-time attendant at the pool. I only had to do that for one summer, though, because the following year I was given the chance to work the cabanas and I jumped at it.

The cabanas at the Flanders Hotel were where the wealthiest families spent their time. There were fifteen cabanas available to be rented and only three of us got the gig. They were almost always full, so that meant that the three of us had five cabanas each and we'd make a killing. They were either rented by the weekend, the week, or in a couple of cases, the full summer. As cabana boys, our job was to literally do whatever we needed to make the lives of the clients happy.

Ocean City was and still is a dry town, so we didn't have a bar that we were running back and forth to, but that didn't stop some families from slipping us huge amounts of cash to be able to make drinks for them from the stash that they would provide for themselves. Hell, that's where I got all my bartender training; learning to make the perfect Manhattan or Mojito at the ripe, young age of sixteen.

Mike, Tyler, and I were the cabana boys for the remaining four years I worked there because it was just too sweet a deal to walk away from. High society from Philly, Cherry Hill, Moorestown, and sometimes even all the way from New York City would spend their summer vacations at the Flanders and, more often than not, these were the same families that rented cabanas. 18' x18' outdoor rooms outfitted with a partial kitchen, small bistro table and chairs, sectional sofa, a television, two ceiling fans to circulate the hot and humid summer air, and an attached private bathroom with vanity, toilet and shower stall. There was a three-wall permanent enclosure and the front of the cabana could be tied off on either side like a shower curtain or it could be in the closed position where there was an actual front door. Nine times out of ten, people kept them open to enjoy the weather, our Olympic sized pool, the boardwalk, and of course, the beach. It was a really fantastic view and the people in the cabanas had it made.

Too bad some of them were so goddamn stuck up that it made them practically impossible to work for…practically impossible though, not totally. Like I said before, huge, HUGE amounts of cash were offered for being at their beck and call. And sometimes, you just can't say no.

I still can't believe that Swan showed up at the pub on Friday night. I haven't seen her in, what, five years maybe?

And what the hell is she even doing slumming it in Surf City? Granted, Ocean City wasn't ever the ultimate foundation of the upper crust, but I would have thought that now that the Flanders was out of business, they'd take their snooty asses down to Cape May, Stone Harbor, Avalon, hell even…ho- , oh my God what if her family discovered this island?

Fuck. Me.

Like, here but further north in Harvey Cedars or Loveladies? Crap.

Ugh. Please God do NOT make me have to deal with her more this summer. One random encounter this past weekend was plenty for me. Hell, the four years I spent being her family's cabana boy was plenty enough to last me well into the next century.

The Swan Family. Her dad Charles was okay, that much I remember. But her mother, Renee, and she were horrific. Such raging, snobby bitches...it was disgusting to witness. Isabella was stunning to look at, but that lost its luster almost instantly after she opened her mouth to speak in such a vile way to me, her friends, her mother, everyone. She was born with a silver fucking spoon in her mouth and she knew it. I watched her. I watched her all summer long through four long-ass summers. Ugh. Just remembering my time back then gets me aggravated as hell.

"Ehhhhhhhdwaaaaaaard! Ehhdwaaard, where are you? I need more towels! Helloooooooo?"

Good God, I can hear her all the way in this fucking stairwell. Kill me now, wouldja? She's been worse this summer, and I didn't think that was humanly possible since last summer, I thought her demon fucking head was going to spin right the hell around on top of her body and then spit out green vomit on my white board shorts. I can't believe it's only the middle of July. I don't think I'm gonna make it six more weeks. Fuck that. I don't think SHE'S gonna make it six more weeks 'cause I'm gonna strangle her perfect little princess neck right off her perfect little princess body.

"Jesus! Finally! Where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry, I had to run back in and restock the pavilion. It took me a few minutes to run up the stairs to housekeeping and then back down again," I huffed out my explanation through gasping breaths.

"Okay, whatever. I didn't ask you for a dissertation, I just needed a freaking towel. My suede bathing suit is going to get permanent water marks."

Bella's 'barely-there' suede bikini

HA! Permanent water marks. What-thefuck-ever. If she keeps waltzing around here looking like that she's gonna have permanent cum stains all over her. Every, and I mean EVERY single guy is falling all over himself to get a glimpse of her in the cabana today. And I know that if her parents were here this weekend, her father would have a fucking seizure at the skimpiness of her bathing suit. She's totally asking for it.

I mean, yeah, she's hot as hell. Chocolate brown hair that dangles to her shoulder blades, flawless skin that's been tanned to perfection in the past six weeks of summer sunbathing. Long delicate neck, graceful arms, impeccably sculpted tits, trim and toned stomach with the slightest feminine curves and long, thin legs that go on for fucking DAYS. It's painful to see just how spectacular she is…but to know her personality just completely undoes all the beauty for me.

Some guys couldn't care less about her personality. I've heard them talking. If they can get close enough to her for a hookup, what she says doesn't mean shit to them. But I can't be that way. I never have been, and I don't think I ever will be able to overlook a vicious personality. Even if it is in lieu of a fantastic body that screams the ability to dole out unhinging orgasms that last for days and days until you can't remember your name.

I suppose I sound bitter. I can't help it. Rejection will do that to a guy. Not even rejection…more like ungrateful bitchiness that boggles the mind!

"ARGH!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

Why am I even giving this girl a second thought? This shit happened years ago and I vowed I would never let myself think about her again. She made herself abundantly clear that final summer that I was nothing more than a peon to her.

Even after helping her, Christ, SAVING her that one night…the look she gave me was hollow, completely indifferent. As if my existence really didn't matter at all to her.

I thought I let this go years ago, but seeing her the other night has brought back all these ridiculous memories. I'm trying like hell to shake them, but her face on Friday night seemed so confused. The fact that she didn't remember me lines up with the personality she always had back then. She was so self-involved that she never, EVER cared to look out from her perfect princess world. She interacted with her parents, her friends du jour, and that was about it. Any of the staff at the hotel, me included, were superfluous beings that she had no interest in unless they served a purpose for her.

But this time, this time it was a different look in her eyes. Completely out of character for who she was all those years ago. Back then, she wouldn't have even looked up from her menu or her conversation to place her order. On Friday, however, there was something in her eyes that exuded a quiet temperament, a self-conscious demeanor and an innocence that I couldn't even associate with the girl I had known all those years ago. It was almost as if I detected some hope in her confusion. Like she was desperate for me to elaborate on how I knew her and why I knew that when she wasn't drinking alcohol, her drink of choice was a Shirley Temple with three extra cherries. To say that she was stunned into silence is putting it mildly. Again, the old Isabella Swan would have never stayed quiet. She would have been right there with a snarky, bitchy comment about how I was probably stalking her or pining away for her and that's how I knew her drink order.

"ARGHHHH!"

Why the FUCK do I even care?

I don't!

I don't care that I was basically her servant for four years.

I don't care that I saved her that night and she gaffed me off like she would've been fine without me.

I don't care that she showed up in my pub out of the blue this past Friday night looking better than the day I last saw her.

I don't care that she didn't remember me again and I definitely don't care that my four-year-long unrequited crush on her which has been off the grid for almost five years suddenly feels like it only ended about forty-five minutes ago.

And I certainly don't care that when I was talking to my fianceé on the phone a few minutes ago, a certain brunette in a certain suede bathing suit unwelcomely crossed my mind more than once.

I really, REALLY don't fucking care.

But I sorta think I do.

"ARGHHHHHHHHH!"