Penname: Noncanonqueen

Beta: BeautifulRainne

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Leah Clearwater/Embry Call, Sam/Emily, Jacob/Bella

Prompt: "Fuck your wedding announcement"

DISCLAIMER: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Leah is struggling to move on from her relationship with Sam, especially since he's marrying her cousin. Embry just wants to show Leah that there's someone there who cares about her. Can a wedding invitation change everything? In a good way?

Title: Worth It

Word Count: 5,633

**Note** Sorry to anyone who read this for the contest and had the formatting errors. I had line breaks between POV's and somehow they got...removed...disappeared...whatever. Thankfully as soon as I caught the error, the lovely contest people fixed the POV problem and inserted some markers to show the POV switch. I'm so so sorry for those who read it before then and were confused.

A big shoutout to my lovely beta, because without her, I would go certifiably insane!

Keep an eye out, I'm eyeing the For the Love of Jasper Contest as well as this Godfather Celebration contest. Message me if you have any plot ideas. What's something you HAVE to have in a mob story? Any who... read on. This has to be one of my favorites I've ever written. xoxo- A

TItle: Worth It

Today wasn't shaping up to be a horrible day. It was mildly good, if I was being honest with myself. I made it to work on time which in itself was a plus. I am perpetually late for everything in my life. When I got to work there was still warm coffee in the break room so I was able to enjoy more than two sips before someone was pestering me asking questions.

I'm a firm believer in having no contact with people until at least ten in the morning. Anything before 10 should be considered criminal. I often wonder if murders happen in the morning because people pester said murderers with incessant questions before they've had the chance to become fully functional for the day.

While at work, a co-worker treated me to lunch, which is also a plus - free food. We got out of work a little earlier than usual so I wasn't stuck in traffic on the way home. I even stopped at my favorite take out place for Chinese and didn't have to wait more than a few minutes for my order.

So the day was shaping up to be a win in my book. I pulled into the driveway of my house and cursed myself for forgetting to turn the porch light on before I left this morning. It's always dark when I get home and I always manage to trip on at least one tree root before making it up on the porch.

I try not to think about those roots. They could easily be removed. Honestly, they were supposed to have been removed years ago but I refuse to think about it. About HIM. Not tonight.

After getting out of the car, I went to the mailbox to collect my mail. My mom said she was sending me some of her secret recipes. I offered to let her email them to me but she said it would be better if she mailed them. I swear I didn't understand her sometimes. She lives less than thirty minutes away and could have brought them over herself. Sometimes I swear she mails me things just to remind me to check the mail. If I had it my way I would forget to check the mail for weeks on end.

Ever since she got remarried and moved out of the house I grew up in, I've been on my own. My kid brother, Seth, went with her because he's such a mama's boy. I don't blame him though, I know he truly only went for the food. He'd have starved here with me.

After collecting the massive pile of mail from the box I finally went inside, kicked off my heels (worked required) and made my way into the kitchen. I eyed the bottle of wine on the counter and scrunched my nose up at it and instead opened the fridge and find my stash of wine coolers. The mail was put onto the counter with my take out order and I popped open my drink savoring the fruity taste as it went down.

I heard my phone ding but ignored it to quench my growling stomach. I end up chowing down on some beef and broccoli and peer over at the pile of mail. Something glittery and thick stands out from the pile of junk mail, fast food coupons and the local newspapers. This time I hear my phone ringing my mother's ringtone. Ignoring it and reach for the suspicious envelope. Spotting the name on the ostentatious looking envelope, I drop my wine cooler and somewhere in the back of my mind I hear it shatter as it crashes to the floor.

His name stood out more than hers. I remember how he hated being referred to by his full name. Samuel. He hated that more than he hated the connection of his last name to his deadbeat father's. Uley. I thought for a long time that would end up being my last name too. With shaking hands I open the envelope to find an even more outrageous looking piece of card stock. It opened and kept opening like one of those pop-up story books.

Once it stopped opening there was a pop-up cake with what looked like rings on top of it. A note fell out of the monstrosity and I couldn't peel my eyes away from the words. "Samuel Uley and Emily Young are proud to announce their engagement." To make things worse, those words were followed by a "Save the Date" blurb for the exact day I had once picked to marry him. I couldn't believe the audacity of my cousin! The man stealer, the backstabber, that horrible woman I once dared to call my best friend.

I've known Sam, I don't call him Samuel, Uley for as long as I can remember. I always followed him around instead of playing with the other girls my age on the reservation. I knew when I was nine that I was going to marry him and I wouldn't even entertain the idea that there might be someone else out there for either of us. Sam was always trying to teach me things. Things like how to fix things or how things worked. He was really good with his hands and wanted me to never have to depend on anyone to help me, unless it was him of course. He liked helping me. He liked teaching me. He liked me.

When I was fifteen and Sam was sixteen, he asked my dad if he could take me to a movie. That was our first date. After that we were always together. My parents had to pull me away from him when it was curfew or push him towards the door if it was time for him to leave for the night.

Sam did a lot to help his mother out. After sleeping with half of the ladies on the reservation, his father had skipped town leaving his mother all alone. As a result, Sam was fiercely protective of his ladies. It was when my dad died that my best friend and my boyfriend met for the first time.

Emily and I were more than friends, we were family. Cousins. Whenever my parents made us go to the Makah reservation to see that side of the family, I spent all of my time with Emily. I bragged to her about my perfect boyfriend and rubbed it in her face because she had told me when we were younger that there was no way Sam Uley would be interested in me.

I liked to think I was a pretty girl. I was tall. Taller than most girls but lean and had long dark hair. My native blood gave me a wonderful tan. Emily always thought she was so much prettier than me but I was fairly confident in myself, especially after I had gotten the guy.

When my dad died, my whole family came, including those from Makah. Emily sniffled and cried along with me and held my hand. Sam held us both up as they performed the ritual ceremony to conclude the funeral.

"Lee-Lee, we have to go," Sam had said, pulling on my hand. I loved that nickname. It made me feel special when he gave it to me. Now, if anyone shortens my name or dares to call me that they immediately regret it.

"I can't. I can't leave him here all alone," I had blubbered. My mom and Seth had been carried away by the other family members but I just stood there, rooted in my spot, unwilling to move away.

Emily rubbed up and down my arms, "Lee-Lee, it's going to storm soon, we need to get back, everyone will be waiting on us."

They had comforted me together, loved me when I didn't think I could even take my next breath. But it was all a lie. A complete and utter lie and I'll never forgive either one of them for it.

I was pulled from my memories by a banging on the back door. I ignored it and whoever it was went to the front door and rang the doorbell over and over.

I completely blocked it out, went to my freezer and pulled out the bottle of vodka from the ice machine. It hadn't worked in years so it was the perfect place to keep my guilty pleasure drink for moments like this, when I needed it.

I took the lid off and started chugging. It wasn't a smart decision but for now it would do. I swallowed a few times and pulled the bottle away from my mouth in time to see someone walk into my kitchen.

"Lee... I didn't know," came the voice. It was a soft and caring voice, familiar but I was lost in my fog of rage.

"Get out. Don't call me that." I slammed the bottle onto the counter and began digging through the cabinets to look for shot glasses. That would make me feel better. Slamming back a shot for every reason I wanted to commit murder would hopefully keep me from doing so.

Once I collected two glasses I glared at my visitor again, "Either get out or sit down and get drunk with me."

That was the last thing I could remember before I woke up in bed with a very shirtless Embry Call wrapped around my body the next morning.

I really hate when the snobby people of Forks make their way down to the reservation to the little known garage where I work. I know Jake's girl is the one doing all the promoting and the business is doing great, but when some of these girls come in just to check out the guys working, it makes it very difficult to leave on time.

I had plans tonight. I had something to do, but instead of getting where I needed to be on time, I was trying to explain to one Jessica Stanley-Newton that there was no such thing as blinker fluid. I even had to pinkie promise that it wouldn't hurt her car to not have the imaginary substance. She rubbed her hand down my chest and said she'd see me soon. I took it as a threat and wanted to take a shower to wash off the skeeviness I felt from her.

"J, I gotta get out of here, I gotta stop by Lee's," I give my boss and best friend the begging eyes.

"Get out of here Bry. I'll help Mrs. Newton finish up." I let out a sigh of relief and made my way towards the exit. "He's gotta go check on his girlfriend or something, maybe he'll finally ask her out on a date." Jake teases to Mrs. Newton and her face scrunches up unhappily.

"J! Come by after you close up, I might need back up." He gives me a nod and waves me away.

When I get to Leah's house I let out a curse seeing her car already sitting in the driveway. I hope with everything in me that she didn't check her mail. She sometimes goes weeks at a time without checking it. When I find the box empty I let out a string of curses and kick at the stake holding the mailbox up.

Leah Clearwater has been my crush for longer than I am willing to admit. Jake teases me and so do the rest of the guys. They call her a man-eater or an ice queen or a million other things. I liked to think of Leah as jaded. She got screwed and her life has been anything but fair.

What made it worse was the person who ruined her life was my brother. Sam and I share a dad and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if we had more siblings running around. My mom finally came clean after years and years of begging from me. When I learned Sam was my brother I hoped he would treat me as such and he has, whenever he's not with Emily.

It may have something to do with my closeness with Leah but I can't look at Emily and not see someone who stole her cousin's boyfriend. I believe my brother is a dog for doing it but she just seems vindictive. They claim Leah broke up with Sam and Emily comforted him. But, Leah claims she caught them together and that's when she officially ended things.

Now, they're getting married and Emily had the gall to send Leah an invitation.

"She's my family, Embry, of course she'll come," Emily had argued when I suggested she not send Leah anything about the wedding.

I looked at Sam for help and he just shrugged and told Emily to do whatever she wanted.

"Just think about it Emily. Please. Don't send those out until you think about it," I begged her knowing it would break Leah's already fragile heart.

"Fine, I will take a few days and think it over and maybe talk to my mother," that was not reassuring but it gave me some stall time.

In the end, she had sent them out that night without even thinking about Leah's feelings. I had learned from my brother that Emily and Leah had always been close but competitive at the same time. I sensed that the competitiveness had something to do with the way Emily treated Leah's feelings on the matter.

Which brings me to the whole reason I was trying to beat Leah home. I found out the invitations had been mailed and everyone around the reservation was talking about it. It wasn't something Leah could avoid but if I could stop it from being shoved in her face I would.

I started with the backdoor of Leah's house because I just knew she'd be in the kitchen stuffing her face. That was something I loved - I mean LIKED about that girl, she wasn't afraid to eat. I knocked and knocked hoping she would answer. When no answer came, I moved back to the front of the house and pushed on the doorbell figuring Leah was in the shower, wet and naked … I mean, cleaning off her day in the office.

In the end, she took too long for my patience and I let myself into her house. It wasn't like the door was locked or anything. No one in La Push would dare break into Leah Clearwater's house or actually any house around here. I let myself in and went to call for her but stopped short when I saw her standing in the kitchen. She was chugging from a bottle and I could practically taste the vodka from it's scent in the air. It was then that I saw the broken bottle and the puddle on the floor. I wasn't sure whether she dropped something or threw it at this point.

"Lee...I didn't know," I set forth as an explanation. It was kind of a lie but not really. I didn't know they had completely decided to send her an invitation.

"Get out and don't call me that," she nearly growled at me as she slammed her bottle down and pulled out shot glasses and then spoke again. "Either get out or sit down and get drunk with me."

I wasn't going to leave her like this, drunk and heart broken, so I sat down dutifully and hoped Jake would be joining me soon. Me, alone with a drunk Leah could lead to some confessional type shit and I was not ready to let Leah know about my little crush on her.

She poured us each a shot and threw hers back and I slowly did the same. "Did you know that October 20th was the day I picked for our wedding? I told Emily that when I was twelve."

I knew. Of course I knew. Leah poured another shot and threw it back. "And that invi-invi-that that thing," she hiccuped trying to get the word invitation out of her mouth, "SAMUEL Uley, when have you ever heard Sam called his full name? He hates it."

I had to agree with her and just nodded letting her blow off steam. Leah was right about Sam, he hated his full name to be spoken. He used to correct Emily but now she's the only one that calls him that.

"And that thing, who the hell sends a pop up book out to people. Is this a fairy-tale? Do they think they'll live happily ever after," Leah snorts into another shot and I reach to take the bottle from her.

"Pace yourself Lee, at this rate you'll be passed out in twenty minutes," I chuckled and poured myself a shot.

"I hope he cheats on her with his secretary," Leah lets out a very unladylike burp and then a very girlish giggle.

"Tell me about your day," I urge her trying to distract from the Emily and Sam debacle.

"Bry, do you know why I work as an accountant?" She doesn't let me answer before she continues, "cause, numbers, numbers make sense. They either add up or they don't. There's no way they can be wrong or screw up. And if it's wrong, you have to find the problem. It's not like life where it screws you around every turn."

Leah stands from the table abandoning her shot glass and exits the kitchen. I take one more shot for bravery, and make my way to follow her. It's when I'm standing behind her I realize what she's wearing. Leah is gorgeous and I can't take my eyes away from the shapely legs covered by panty hose and the pencil skirt that hugs her hips and thighs so tightly. She begins unbuttoning her blazer and tosses it on the couch before shimmying out of her skirt. I turn away as she cascades up the stairs leaving a trail of clothing in her wake.

I, Embry Call, am an idiot. I long to follow her up those steps and into her room. I could make a move, I'm buzzed enough to not be afraid. But that's fucked up and I'm not like that.

I'm knocked out of my debate with myself by a knock on the door and I sag in relief when I see Jake and his girl standing on Leah's porch.

"She's sloshed. Majorly. Do you think you can go check on her?" I ask Jake's girl and she gives Jake a kiss on the cheek and follows the trail of clothes upstairs. Before long you hear Leah's voice calling her names and letting her know that she can in-fact dress herself.

I fall onto the couch and bite into my fist at the thought of Leah naked upstairs. Jake grabs my shoulder and I try to clear my head from it's buzzed state.

"So I guess you didn't get the invite before she did?" Jake teases with his barking laugh.

"How'd you guess?" I nearly snarl in his direction.

Grabbing one of the pillows on `the couch I bury my face in it and scream. It makes me feel better slightly. When I re-emerge from the pillow, Jake is sitting there with a glass of water in front of me.

"Drink this, you'll feel better." He's also eating Leah's would-be dinner I can assume from the Chinese food container in his hand. "Leah always adds too much soy sauce to her rice,"

Before long, Leah and Jake's girl come back downstairs. She goes straight for Jake and I move to stand in front of a redressed Leah in comfy looking sweatpants and a Black's Auto shirt.

"Lee?" I ask quietly.

"M'fine. It's fine. I'm just gonna write them a very well written letter and send my regards and apologies for not being able to make it," Leah's words are slurred and I doubt she has the ability to hold a pen long enough to write anything at the moment. "Give me my food Black. Maybe I'll sober up some." She lets out a laugh and snatches the box from his hands.

Leah plops down in what should not have been an elegant way but looked so graceful and Jake's girl comes back with a piece of paper and the invitation.

"Um Leah," her bell like voice breaks the silence, "I um, found this in the envelope."

She hands Leah a smaller piece of the thick paper the invitation is printed on. She reads over it and throws her head back and laughs. "Balls of steel that one, I swear to God."

Leah throws it on the table and shakes her head mumbling, "Be a bridesmaid please. It will mean the world to us!" I hear her mocking Emily's nasally voice and roll my lips together to stop from laughing.

"Cause every girl should watch her cousin marry her first love, right? Isn't that how it goes?" Leah rolls her eyes and stuffs more food in her mouth.

"You know, this one was supposed to get married once." Jake points at his girl and she blushes a color I'd never seen on someone's skin before. "The fiance sent me an invite, knowing I was in love with her and that she loved me too."

"That is so fucked up." Leah belches again, "Why would you let him do that to our boy Jakey here?" She points her chopstick in the girl's direction.

"I didn't know. But that moment was when I knew I couldn't marry him. When Jake showed up that day, well, I climbed on his motorcycle and never looked back." They give each other the gooey eyes, and I almost want to vomit.

"So you're saying if I crash the wedding, Sam will realize what a stuck up bitch my cousin is and run off with me?" Leah snorts, "I don't want his ass back. She can keep him. Good riddance."

"I think, um, I think you deserve better than him Leah, I think you need to move on." Jake's girl is smart, really smart. I like the way she's thinking. "Maybe with someone right under your nose," she gives me a wink and I mouth a silent "thank you" in her direction.

Unfortunately, I don't think Leah is listening. She's face deep in a plain piece of paper with a pen in her hand, writing feverishly. The words are hard to read but the gist of the whole letter becomes clear when she fold it up and writes on the outside "Fuck your wedding announcement."

"Um, Leah? This isn't an announcement. That comes after they get married," Jake receives an elbow from his girl but Leah isn't phased.

"I have an envelope here somewhere." She searched through a small desk in the corner of her living room that holds her laptop and such. "Better yet, I'll take it there personally, who wants to come with me?"

"Distract her," Jake's girl hisses out at me.

"Lee? Fuck, um do you uh," I look at Jake and he shrugs his shoulders, "How about we get totally fucked up and say every bad thing we know about Sam and Emily?"

I was desperate to keep her in the house but I wasn't sure how long I could actually do that especially without alcohol involved. Leah looks skeptical and looks at Jake and his girl then back to me.

I shove my hands in my pockets and rock on the heels of my feet, ready to potentially tackle her if she tries to leave the house.

"Yeahhhh, shots!" Jake's girl surprises the hell out of me holding shot glasses and the vodka from the kitchen. This distracts Leah and she joins in.

"Okay, I'll go first, there was this one time when Emily stole my mom's muffin recipe and told everyone how she made it up experimenting and won first prize in the bake off," Leah lets out a laugh as she pours shots for everyone.

Jake looks at me with a 'what the fuck look' but his girl pipes in before we can try and divert the attention again.

"Once, Sam tried to keep Jake away from me and made him break up with me and he did it because he was like fifteen. But, I still remember how it broke my heart," she slams the shot back and then the glass onto the coffee table in the living room. "Fuck Sam!"

"Um yeah, fuck Sam" I mutter and grab my designated glass trying to keep up with the girls. They go several rounds where Leah remembers horrible things they did to her and Jake's girl tries to keep up by spewing out things she obviously never told Jake because his grip on the couch looked tight enough to break the thing in half.

The girl's get wasted and Jake and I watch them carefully. "I'm going to pummel him you know." Jake grumbles where the girl's can't hear.

"We'll take turns holding him down," I hold out a fist for a bump and get one eagrily in return.

"Bry, you're turn," Leah looks at me, holding out a shot glass.

"Uh, there was this one time, Sam moved in on the girl he knew I liked and then totally ruined her life." Leah's eyes got wide and then I felt my eyebrows move into my hairline and I couldn't believe I said that.

"There's another girl whose life he ruined? Is there like an Anti-Sam Fan Club?" Jake's girl is so drunk she giggles but has climbed into Jake's lap and is half asleep.

Leah says nothing, just stares at me and takes two shots back to back. "I'm going to bed. And you're coming with me." She grabs my hand and drags me upstairs to her room.

Jake's barking laugh echoes through the living room and I really must be drunk because this could only happen in my wildest dream.

Only, it can't be a dream because when I wake up, I'm wrapped completely around Leah Clearwater and I'm missing most of my clothes.

When the light came into my room that morning. I cursed it and I wasn't sure it was just in my head. It felt like a troop of buffalo had run rampant on my whole body and I struggled to remember exactly what went on the night before.

I woke up with my face on the very bare chest of Embry Call. It's smooth and sculpted. I had seen him shirtless for years, the La Push boys hardly wore shirts in the summertime. But this was different. I was face first in this chest and Bry, while smelling of vodka had these natural undertones that just smelled so good. Instead of questioning it too much I nuzzled him for just a moment and nodded back off to sleep.

When I wake up Bry is gone. I wake up alone and I'm grateful for not having to deal with whatever happened the night before but at the same time, it was really nice to wake up to someone.

On my nightstand there's a bottle of water and two aspirin with a note that says "Take me" in Bry's scratchy handwriting. I take it without thinking and then look under the sheet to find myself to be partially clothed. My pants are gone but I have on underwear.

Did I sleep with Bry? Like have sex with him? I rub my thighs together experimentally and let out a relieved sigh. I would know if I had slept with Embry Call. The few girls he had been with that I knew of had not been quiet about the heat he was packing.

It's strange because I remember throwing a shirt at him and standing there - bare chest to bare chest - asking if he wanted me.

"Don't you want me? I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking," I'd rubbed my hand through his hair and settled on the nape of his neck.

"Lee-Lee, please," Bry had begged for me to stop but I remember wanting to feel something, anything besides the complete self loathing I had been feeling.

I wasn't even mad that Bry called me that nickname. When he said it, it reminded me that there could still be good things from my relationship with Sam. Not everything related to him needed to be negative.

I was a horrible person. All Bry wanted to do was take care of me. He wanted to help get me through this whole debacle and I tried to sleep with him …. and probably had screwed with both our heads in the process.

A few days later, I ended up having lunch with Jake's girl and we caught up. She told me about how she had been in love with Jake forever but then she met this other guy when they were broken up, due to Sam. The guy was controlling and tried to change her and when she realized all that, she went back to Jake and never looked back.

"I don't think you need to go back to Sam, Leah," Bella spoke while she sipped on her coffee. "I think you know there's someone waiting to take you out, he's just waiting until you're ready."

"What if I'm never ready?" I ask truly feeling this way.

"I think you're more ready than you think you are." She gives me a knowing smile and pushes my phone that's sitting on the table closer to me.

"Would it kill you to hang out? Go to a movie? We all know you and Bry binge watch those Netflix shows together. Do some Netflix and Chill." Bella seems proud of herself, giving me two thumbs up.

"Ugh I feel like such a jackass. I haven't talked to him since the other night," I pick up the phone and open up Bry's message thread but end up putting the phone down before typing anything out.

"He knew that was going to be hard for you, that's why he was there, Lee. Cause he cares about you," Bella seems like a cool chick, like someone I could hang out with.

"I just had the weirdest thought about us going on a double date with the guys," I say out loud before I can take it back.

Bella looks really excited and types away on her phone and I wonder what exactly I've just gotten myself into.

Work was my salvation. I tried to keep as busy as possible to keep from going back over to Leah's house before she was ready.

I cuddled with Leah Clearwater. And I liked it. And I'm pretty sure she liked it too.

I talked about it for two days and Jake and our buddy Quil laughed at me and tormented me for sneaking out and pulling a walk of shame, even though I didn't get lucky.

I didn't want to get lucky with Leah that night. She was so wasted and so was I. I remember begging her to stop. We ended up in bed together but all we ended up doing was cuddling.

I'll never forget cuddling with Leah.

I woke up before she did that morning. I left her some water and medicine for her hangover. Before I left I made sure to snatch up the note Leah had written to Sam and Emily as well as the invitation. I even cleaned up the mess from our drunken game.

Jake told me his girl Bella had been talking to Leah and was going to put a good word in for me. I wasn't worried about it. Leah would come to me when she was ready and if she didn't we were still really good friends.

Mrs. Newton was back in the shop today. She claimed there was a noise coming from her engine but when we started it up, it purred like any other Honda Accord would. I didn't understand this woman's obsession with coming down to Black's Auto.

I heard Jake's notorious laughter reverberating through the garage and stepped away from the Honda to find out what he was laughing about. He was hunched over his phone holding his stomach from laughing so hard.

"What's so funny?" I inquire from my friend.

"Bella. Leah. Double date." He pants out between laughs.

"What?" I reach for his phone but he holds it out of my reach. "Let me see that?"

He holds up the screen and clear as day it says "Leah+Bry+You+Me=double date" then it's followed by. "Her idea. Not mine"

"Is this for real?" Just then my phone pings the sound of a message and I open it and can't stop staring at the words on the screen.

"Bry, wanna go putt-putting with Jake and Bella?" It's clear as day. So I send back "like a date?"

The response is immediate and I screw my eyes shut in fear of seeing something I don't want to.

"Exactly like a date" and there's even a winking emoji.

I let out a loud whooping noise, fist bumping the air and jump up on the workbench yelling out, "I'm going on a date with Leah Clearwater!"

That was the beginning of our relationship. Then on October nineteenth I get a text from my girl, "You doing anything important tomorrow? Netflix and chill?" and I have to let out a laugh, my girl the smart ass. We end up skipping the wedding, where I was supposed to be a groomsman and spend the day in bed. We become wide spread gossip on our small reservation but it's worth it. It's all worth it when it comes to Leah Clearwater.