Work in Progress by araeo.pdf

Work in Progress by araeo

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4874316/1/

Chapter 1: The Meat Sweats

-w-

"Angela, I really don't think this is a good idea," I stated, trying to be firm. I

wasn't sure if it was working.

"Bella, we're really in a bind here. We're already short two Gauchos, and I don't

have anyone to call in. There's no way I'm pulling Jessica from the hostess desk.

I don't think she has enough brain cells to be handling a sharp knife," she

reasoned.

Think fast, Bella, or you're not going to get out of this one. This is SO not good.

"You know, sharp knives and my talent for tripping over air is not exactly the best

combination. I'm not graceful or remotely coordinated. I'm sure that Jessica can

manage –"

"But you serve drinks every night without any problems! I know you can do this,"

she insisted.

"I'm the bartender! I never have to come out from behind the bar. Remember the

time you had to drive me to the ER after the lime incident?" I'd almost lost the tip

of my middle finger last year in an unfortunate accident, while prepping limes for

the caipirinhas - our house drink. Very tasty. However, lime juice and a sliced

fingertip are not a good combination. "And who will cover the bar while I'm out

there trying not to injure myself or anyone else?" I pleaded.

"Come on, it's just for tonight. I'll cover the bar for you. I promise you'll be the

first one cut if it's a slow night."

That's exactly what I'm afraid of! Or worse yet, what if I accidentally skewer a

customer?

"Angela," I whined, "I'm dangerous!"

"Don't make me pull rank on you, Bella. I am your boss…" Damn! I was hoping

she wouldn't go there!

"All right, all right - I'll do it. But I'm going on the record here - I will not be held

responsible any loss of life, limbs, ears, nose or eyebrows," I said, hoping that I

sounded more firm than I had at the beginning of this conversation.

"Duly noted," she replied with a smirk.

"I hope you can keep smiling when we get sued for personal injury," I sniped. I

just prayed that that wouldn't actually happen.

-w-

"You can do this. You will not accidentally slice off any fingers. You will not trip

and skewer a diner."

Nice pep talk, Bella. Other girls would be primping before their shifts, but you,

you're standing in front of the bathroom mirror...talking to yourself.

I'd been working at a Brazilian steakhouse in Seattle for about a year and a half

now. For the last 6 months, I worked the bar. It's a pretty great job for a

graduate student – the nights weren't extremely late and the tips were

substantial. But I've never had to work as a Gaucho – usually it's only the hot

guys who walk around with the giant cuts of meat that these places are famous

for.

Have I mentioned the sharp knives used to cut said pieces of meat at every

table?

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My brown hair was twisted into a low bun

at the nape of my neck, with a few chunks of long bangs framing my face. The

hair didn't look so bad. My eyes, however, looked like I was about to walk naked

into a prison cafeteria. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to give myself a reassuring

look in the mirror. It didn't work.

"Here goes nothing," I muttered to myself.

To my unending surprise, I made it through the first two hours of dinner service

without any major faux-pas, though I did manage to send a piece of sausage into

an unfortunate woman's caipirinha. I also dropped a sliced piece of picanha in a

rather annoyed gentleman's lap. All in all, I was doing rather well so far. After my

latest skewer was empty, I made my way back to the kitchen to retrieve my next

cut of meat.

"I'm telling you, there there is some PRIME meat out there at table twenty

seven…three hot guys..." Great. Jessica was ogling the customers again. I tuned

out the rest of her babbling.

"Hey, Bella, I've got some hot beef for you over here," Mike, one of the cooks,

yelled. This comment was punctuated with an eyebrow wiggle that I'm sure he

thought was sexy. To me it just looked like he was constipated.

I rolled my eyes and said, "Keep it up, Mike, and you're going to get a couple

drops of Visine in your drink the next time you hit the bar after your shift." In

fact, I thought about doing it anyway for the hell of it. I've heard one too many

crude "hot meat" jokes from him in my eighteen months here. If I had to put up

with his verbal diarrhea, then he should at least get some real diarrhea in return.

"Come on, you know you want it. Here, come and get my Brazilian sausage," he

laughed.

Oh, yeah. He's definitely getting the Visine.

I gave him the stink eye, grabbed the skewer of sausages, and stalked off

towards the dining room. Unfortunately, since I wasn't exactly paying attention to

being careful, I neglected to check and see if there was anyone near the door

before exiting to the dining area.

"Ouch!" someone yelped from the other side of the swinging door.

Uh-oh. Not good, hitting customers in the face with doors. Hey, at least I didn't

stab him... I could tell it was a man that I had just introduced to the swinging

door. It was sort of a nice sounding yelp, though, if there is such a thing.

I rounded the door, preparing my sweetest, most profuse apology. "Sir, I am so,

so sorry, I didn't see you there…" my words dried up and I blushed even harder

than I thought possible as I looked up – and up - into the bright green eyes of my

victim. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to alleviate the pain. His

face was quite possibly the most perfect male face I've ever seen. That face was

enough to make Zeus jealous! My ovaries perked up at the sight. Those perfect

features and beautiful green eyes were topped by an unruly head of shiny bronze

hair. Sex hair. Sex! My ovaries screamed. Yes, sex makes babies, and that's what

we're going to do with this man! I mentally told my ovaries to shut it. Hitting a

man in the face with a door is not exactly conducive to sexual attraction.

"… Maybe you can show me where the restroom is," he was saying. His voice was

like hot chocolate fixed just how I liked it – with a dash of cayenne pepper and

lots of whipped cream. It was smooth and velvety, with a hint of spice. Whipped

cream, my ovaries squealed, yes, let's cover him in whipped cream and lick it off!

"Huh?" I said, snapping out of my mental dialogue.

"Can you show me where the restroom is?" He asked. He'd stopped rubbing his

nose, and I noticed a sexy crooked smile tugging at the corner of his lips. I think

he was enjoying my discomposure.

"Oh, yes," I forced out, pointing towards the restroom. "Again, let me apologize.

I'll get my manager to see if there's any way I - uh, we can make it up to you," I

said.

"No need," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose again. "I think it was my pride

injured more than anything else. No harm, no foul." He treated me to more of

that crooked smirk. "Just be careful," he said, as he looked down at my name

tag, "Bella. We wouldn't want you to really hurt someone with that meat filled

weapon you have there." The smirk was a full fledged grin by this point. He

walked past me to the restroom, while I just stood there. I'm sure my mouth was

gaping open and I must have resembled a dying fish. My ovaries sighed with joy

at the way my name sounded on those beautiful lips.

Eventually, I snapped out of it and began making my way through the restaurant,

hawking my giant rack of sausage. The skewer was nearly gone as I approached

table twenty-seven. There were five diners at this table, all laughing and ribbing

each other.

"We've got to come here more often – like every week!" a loud voice boomed.

"Seriously, this is heaven. I just turn over this disc, and people keep bringing me

meat – all the meat in the world – and they can't kick me out! Sweet! It could

only be better if the dudes bringing me the meat were actually chicks in bikinis..."

This last comment earned him a smack upside the head from a gorgeous blonde

that must have been his girlfriend. The rest of the party just laughed at his crass

comments.

"Emmett, you can't keep eating all night. Remember when we brought you here

for your birthday and you had to wear your 'Thanksgiving Pants' for three days?

You kept complaining about having the 'meat sweats' and Rose swears your hair

smelled like steak for a month afterward."

Meat Sweats? I tried not to laugh. Then I realized who was speaking.

It was the voice. The voice that belonged to the smirk. And the green eyes. And

the sex hair.

"Screw the meat sweats, this is worth it," he retorted around a huge mouthful of

steak. He was a bear-like specimen of a man with ice blue eyes and closely

cropped dark hair.

I forced away my apprehension about seeing Sex Hair again and approached the

table. In addition to the big guy and the blonde, I noticed a petite girl with a

really cute black pixie cut and another man, a lanky blond. I assumed that they

were a couple, based on the bedroom eyes they were giving each other.

"Ladies, would you like to try some Brazilian sausage?" I asked.

Before either of them could answer, the big guy, Emmett – Mr. Meat Sweats -

said, "I'll take yours, Rose. You know you don't need any Brazilian sausage when

can have mine anytime you want." This earned him another slap. I tried to stifle

my laughter, noticing Sex Hair was looking at me with that crooked smirk again,

which only made it worse.

"No, thank you," said the pixie. The blonde scowled at the big guy but still

declined.

"Gentlemen, would you like to try some?" I asked.

Meat Sweats was the first to speak up again. "Those two don't want any. I,

however, am very confident in my sexuality and have no problem eating gigantic

amounts of sausage." He then grabbed the skewer out of my hand, slid the rest

of the sausage onto his plate, and handed me the empty skewer. The rest of the

table burst out laughing. I wasn't sure if it was due to the shocked look on my

face or Emmett's actions.

"Well," I stammered, "Excuse me; enjoy the rest of your dinner."

"Wait! Miss –" It was Sex Hair again.

"Yes, what can I do t-for you?" Oh, crap that was close!

"Can I request more of the picanha? It was wonderful," he said. The smirk was

bigger now. I don't think he missed my almost Freudian slip.

"Um, sure. I'll see what I can do about that," I managed. Wow, Bella – way to be

articulate. I gave the table and Sex Hair a sheepish smile and turned toward the

kitchen. He's so pretty, I thought dazedly. We want to touch the Sex Hair, my

ovaries sang. Somehow, I made it to the kitchen mishap-free, which was

surprising, considering that most of my wits were left back at the table with Sex

Hair. Angela met me at the kitchen door.

"Bella – how is it going? I didn't hear any screams or giant crashes while I was at

the bar," she teased. "Anyway, I have good news! The night's a little slow, so you

can go back to manning the bar."

Oh, thank you, Lord!

But what about Sex Hair? whined my ovaries. We need to bring him more meat!

If we don't see him again, how can we make babies?

Ignoring my pouting nether regions, I smiled at Angela. "I wouldn't say nothing

happened. I did kind of, um, ," I rushed out, hoping she wouldn't be as mad if I

just got it over with.

"What? When? Are they okay?" she asked.

"He's fine. I did warn you that I was dangerous." I hedged. "He said I injured his

pride more than his nose, which is a really good thing, because it's a very nice

nose... and eyes... and sex hair..." I trailed off. What the hell happened to my

mental filter?

"So he was hot, huh?" Angela smirked. "So, which table is it, so I can go try to

smooth things over?" she asked.

"Table twenty-seven," I replied. There was the damn blush again.

"Wow, look at those cheeks, Bella! He must be really hot!"

"Shut it, Angela," I growled, only half-kidding. "If you're done teasing me, I'll get

back to my bar now. Oh, and Sex Hair's table requested that we bring by more

picanha. You might want to send more than one skewer. I'm not sure if there will

be enough for the rest of the table if the big guy gets it first."

"Will do, Bella. Why don't you make up a round of caipirinhas for the table? To

make up for the damaged pride," she suggested.

I curled my lip at her and headed for the bar, but I did as she asked. It would be

good to take out my frustration on some unsuspecting limes. I gathered the

ingredients and began aggresively mashing limes and sugar in the bottom of a

pitcher. After the mixture was sufficiently pulverized, I added the cachaca and a

splash of soda. Angela came up to the bar as I was pouring the drinks into

glasses. She had a very strange expression on her face.

"I've never seen someone eat so much meat in my entire life. Not even that time

we had that Sumo wrestling team in here... I don't know whether to be amazed

or repulsed," she laughed. "He looks like he's in pain, but he keeps asking for

more meat! I think the rest of his party is planning an intervention."

"I told you that guy could eat," I replied as I placed the drinks on a tray and

handed it to her. "Please tell him again how sorry I am for hitting him with the

door," I said.

"Are you sure you don't want to deliver them to Mr. 'Sex Hair' yourself?" Angela

asked. She had that damn teasing look again. I gave her a self-deprecating smile.

"No, I think I've used up my daily quota of coordination. I wouldn't want to tempt

fate any more than I already have tonight by carrying that tray any amount of

distance."

"All right, suit yourself, Bella...chicken," I heard her mutter as she walked away,

shaking her head. So what if I was a chicken. Men that beautiful were either gay

or wanted someone equally spectacular. I had a healthy amount of self esteem,

but that man was off-the-charts on Bella's Scale of Man-Candy. Better than

Smarties. Even better than the god of all candies, Russell Stover Pectin

Jellybeans.

Shaking my head, I began to clean up the mess from the lime massacre and kept

an eye on the television behind the bar, absently noting that the Mariners were

losing again. I bet Charlie was mad. My dad was a rabid baseball fan, and he had

a love-hate relationship with the Mariners. He loved the team, he just hated that

most of the players seemed to suck. I was wiping down the shiny walnut bar

when someone stepped up in front of me, making the hairs on the back of my

neck stand at attention.

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