[Angela]

  

“Come on, Josh,” I said, tapping my foot impatiently.

  

My nine-year-old brother kept on lacing his sneakers with agonizingly exaggerated motions. “I’m hurrying,” he said. I’m annoying you on purpose, his tone said.

  

“Remember, this is a privilege, not a right,” I reminded him. “You’re lucky I let you come. This was supposed to be Ben’s and my date.”

  

“Let me come?” Josh scoffed. “Mom made you take us, because the stupid babysitter is off in Cancún this summer. If you leave me here, you’ll get in big trouble.”

  

“If I stuff you in the closet and gag you with duct tape, she won’t have to know,” I pointed out.

  

“Puh-lease.” Josh started work on the second sneaker. “You’re way too nice to do violence to your helpless little brother.”

  

“Oh yeah?” I retorted, even though he was right. Darn it. The little twerp was too smart.

  

“Yeah. ‘Sides, I bet you’re only mad ‘cause now you and Ben won’t be able to make out without us seeing.”

  

Right again. Grrrr.

  

Finally, he tied the final knot on his shoelace. “Ready,” he said, jumping up.

  

“About time.” I opened the front door and was just about to walk out when the phone rang.

  

“Go wait in the car with Zac,” I said to Josh. His twin, Isaac, had been ready ten minutes ago. It was apparently Josh’s day to be the Evil Twin.

  

I went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Hello, Weber residence.”

  

“Angie,” said the familiar voice of my boyfriend, Ben Cheney.

  

“Ben!” I said. “I’m so sorry. It’s like pulling teeth, getting the boys out of the house today. I promise I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  

“Actually,” said Ben, and paused. I winced. Noooo, pleasepleaseplease don’t say it.

  

“I can’t come.”

  

I groaned. “I was afraid you were going to say that. How come?”

  

“My mom’s sick today,” he said. “I wanted to stay home and keep an eye on her.”

  

Awww. I could hardly be mad at him when that was his excuse. “Well, okay. Tell your mom to get better fast.” I couldn’t help adding, “Josh and Zac are going to be so disappointed that you can’t come.”

  

He laughed. “Tell them hi for me.”

  

“I will. Love you.”

  

“Love you too.” I waited until I heard the click on his end before hanging up myself.

  

Now I was faced with the ordeal of taking a pair of nine-year-olds to the Seattle Center for the day. By myself.

  

Ugh.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

“It’s only one day,” wheedled Embry. “One day. Come on, Paul. Have you even been off the rez in the past month?”

  

I glared at them. My pack was ganging up on me. Even Seth, Collin, and Brady were giving me puppy eyes. They were doing it exceptionally well because they basically were puppies.

  

“Are you kidding me?” I said, glaring. “I am NOT going. The Science Center is lame.” I’d been there once when I was a kid, and even then I hadn’t been impressed by the obviously fake dinosaurs and the silly exhibits.

  

“It’ll be fun. We can watch Lewis and Clark in IMAX,” Jacob said, grinning. “Again.” As if that was supposed to help. Has a less interesting movie ever been made? Besides, the whole thing is from the perspective of white guys.

  

“No thanks,” I said, slumping deeper into the couch. “It costs an arm and a leg anyway.”

  

“What if we pay for you?” Embry said, in a last-ditch effort.

  

I lifted an eyebrow. “You seriously would?”

  

“Sure,” he said. I could tell he was expecting me to turn him down again.

  

So I smirked and said, “Okay. I’ll go.”

  

Embry groaned. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  

Jacob and Quil laughed at him. I went to find my shoes, wondering if they realized Embry’s we included them.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

“Woooo! I’m flying!” Zac stood at the front of the ferry deck, his arms out and his shirt billowing.

  

“Dude, how many times have you watched Titanic anyway?” said Josh, snickering.

  

Zac turned around and tackled Josh, shouting in outrage. They bumped into the rail, play-fighting. I rolled my eyes. They did this every five minutes, or so it seemed. I was used to it.

 

“All right,” I said, pulling them apart, “that’s enough. Time to go back down. We’re almost to the other side anyway.”

  

“Can’t we stay up here while they dock, Angie? Pleeeease?”

  

They turned begging eyes on me, but I shook my head. “If we do, they’ll start unloading without us and somebody will run into my car. And I kinda like my car dent-free.”

  

This didn’t seem to matter all that much to them, but they followed me back inside anyway.

  

As I was pushing open the door, a group of Native American guys approached. The one in front looked kind of grouchy, and he was deep in argument with another guy. As they passed, I realized that one of the guys was Bella’s friend Jacob Black. Last I’d seen him was at Bella’s funeral, and I hadn’t paid that much attention because I was too busy crying.

  

I stopped, meaning to say something to him, and the grumpy one bumped right into me. He almost knocked me over—as it was, I had to grab Josh’s arm to stay upright. I looked back, waiting for the guy to apologize. But he didn’t even turn around. I wondered if he’d even seen me at all.

  

“What a jerk!” I muttered, rubbing my arm.

  

“Ooooh,” said Zac. “Angie just called somebody a jerk.”

  

“That doesn’t make it okay for you to do it,” I said quickly. “And sorry, Josh. Did I hurt your arm?”

  

“No,” he said, all tough-guy. “Are we gonna go downstairs or not?”

  

So we went downstairs and got in the car, and I promptly forgot about Jacob’s grouchy friend.

  

Which was, in hindsight, about the dumbest thing I ever did.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

“This is dumb,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning dramatically against the display case containing a T-Rex skull.

  

“Shut up,” said Quil, grinning in fascination as he poked the button that was supposed to make the jawbone move. “You just want to hate it, Paul.”

  

He wasn’t wrong.

  

I stomped, T-Rex style, into the next room. It was the one I remembered so well—the room of dinosaurs. Mechanically moving their long necks back and forth, emitting fake roaring noises from time to time, their plastic-looking skin grubby and dull in the lighting.

  

Little kids wandered around in awe, staring up at the dinosaurs. One of them looked up at the display of a couple of dinosaurs eating a fake-bloody carcass and burst into tears. I resisted the urge to growl at all of them. I didn’t like kids, and kids didn’t like me. It was an unspoken rule or something.

  

Lying on the floor in the middle of the exhibits was a cast of a giant footprint, supposedly made by some dinosaur or other. I watched a little girl lie down in it—she could almost fit her entire body in the space of the print.

  

“Look, Paul, they found somebody with the same size feet as you!” said Embry, coming up behind me.

  

“Nah, this IS his foot,” said Jacob. “Look, there’s a plaque on it…it says…THE FOOTPRINT OF PAUL RIVERS, A.K.A. ANGRYSAURUS.”

  

“It does not!” said Collin. “Uh, does it?”

  

Seth shoved Collin. “’Course it does, and right underneath it says GULLIBLE.”

  

“I’m going back outside,” I announced. My blood was starting to boil, which was never a good sign. This may have been an exhibit of monsters, but I doubted anyone wanted an impromptu werewolf exhibit right in the middle of all those giggling kids.

  

The cool air helped me chill out a bit. I took deep breaths and forced the wolf to quiet down. Saying a bunch of swearwords under my breath helped even further. My pack was my family, but sometimes I really hated them. I fumbled in my pocket for a pack of cigarettes—it was a stupid habit, but at least my werewolf lungs wouldn’t get cancer. I don’t think.

  

“Did you hear that? He just said a really bad word,” said a kid’s voice, hushed in awe. I looked up. There were a couple of kids staring wide-eyed at me. They seemed to be twins, if their identical heights and haircuts were any indication.

  

“Hey,” said one of them, “that’s the man you said was a jerk on the ferry, Angie!”

  

I felt a flush of anger. Jerk? I looked behind the boys, at the girl they were with—their sister, probably, because she didn’t look much older than nineteen—and froze.

  

Brown hair, cut off straight at the back, worn with a red headband. Brown eyes, wide, honest, but right now irritated. Black leather jacket, red shirt, dark blue jeans—the kind you have to wear out yourself instead of buying them already destroyed—and the sensible kind of shoes that moms wear.

  

I couldn’t blink. Could hardly breathe. This girl. This girl was everything. The entire universe revolved around her. Was she a goddess? At the very least, an angel….

  

“Um.” She shifted, turning pink at my prolonged staring. “You know, you shouldn’t swear in front of little kids.”

  

I forced myself to blink and glance away for a second before returning to my contemplation of her body, her hair, her face. And her voice! It was—

  

“Excuse me, are you ignoring me on purpose or are you mentally deficient?”

  

That snapped me back into reality. “No,” I said, sounding meaner than I meant to. I cleared my throat. “I mean, sorry.”

  

She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, guys, let’s go.” She grabbed the door handle and went to wrench it open.

  

I covered her hand with mine, pulling the heavy door open with ease.

  

She snatched her hand away, her face turning a darker shade of red, and herded her little brothers inside. I followed.

  

“Look,” she said, turning to me, “if you’re stalking me, here’s a tip—stalkers often make some attempt to be sneaky about it.”

  

“Oh.” I was a little taken aback. Usually, people didn’t snap at me in that mildly irritable tone of voice. I was the one, generally speaking, who did the snapping. “I…I just….”

  

“You just what?”

  

“I just…want to know your name.” There. A complete sentence at last.

  

She flicked her hair back, looking annoyed. “It’s Angela, if you must know. Happy?”

  

Oh, yes, I was. More than she could know.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

“My name is Paul,” he said, still with that dazed sort of look on his face. “Paul Rivers.”

  

I was having serious doubts about the guy’s mental capacity. He was clearly not all there, if you know what I mean. He was a living example of the stereotype that handsome guys are stupid jerks.

  

And, okay, he was handsome. In a major way. Tall and buff, he towered over me—I’d been nicknamed Beanpole in second grade because I was taller than everybody else, but I felt tiny compared to him. His copper skin, high cheekbones, and prominent nose reflected his Native American heritage. His eyebrows were heavy, making him look like he was permanently glowering—the only hint to his unpleasant personality.

  

But it wasn’t like I was ogling him, or anything. I mean, I had a boyfriend. If Ben had been here, he would have punched this idiot already…and then the idiot (Paul, whatever) would have probably rearranged his face, because Ben is miniscule compared to him. Right. Maybe it was a good thing Ben wasn’t here.

  

As it was, I was having enough trouble explaining away the sudden rush of warmth I felt when he touched my hand as he opened the door. Static electricity? Heat lamps hidden in the doorway?

  

Certainly not attraction. I was NOT attracted to complete strangers. And besides, I already had a boyfriend, whom I happened to love very much.

  

“Nice to meet you,” I said, not entirely truthfully. I attempted to sidle away, prodding Josh and Zac along in front of me, but—darn it!—the guy followed.

  

“What now?” I said, not amused.

  

“Can I walk with you?” he asked.

  

I sighed. Lord, give me strength. “Sorry, um, Paul, but I already have a boyfriend. He’s going to meet me here, as a matter of fact.” Well, a little white lie couldn’t hurt.

  

He looked taken aback. “A boyfriend? Who?”

  

“I doubt you’d know him,” I said acidly. Like I was going to give Ben’s name and address to some giant musclebound stalker!

  

“Oh. Can I walk with you anyway?” he asked. “Please, Angel.”

  

“It’s Angela.”

  

“Angel,” he persisted. Okay, now I was sure there was something wrong with him. Possibly he was a little deaf.

  

“Look, Angie! Dinosaurs!” said Zac enthusiastically. He and Josh had already gotten bored of the altercation between me and Paul.

  

I looked. Sure enough, there were dinosaurs. They didn’t look as realistic as I remembered. I felt a flash of nostalgia for the days when I’d clung to my dad’s pant leg, eyes wide, sure that they would step off their elevated stages at any second and come after me.

  

“Stupid, isn’t it?” said Paul, who was still following me. “Could they be more obviously fake?”

  

Grrr. What was it about this guy that grated on my nerves so much? Oh, yeah—the fact that he was a jerk and kept undressing me with his eyes. Lucky I’d worn comfortable, non-revealing clothes today. “I think they’re cool,” I said frostily, and pulled out my camera to give my hands something to do. I kept my eyes on the digital screen as I followed my brothers around. Snap—there was Josh, his arms and legs sticking up comically, in the giant footprint. Snap—Zac running around eagerly reading all the informational plaques, looking for—and failing to find—a graphic description of a dinosaur eating somebody. Snap—Josh again, playing with a big scrap-metal dinosaur, hitting buttons to make it open and close its mouth and lift its head. Snap—Zac being told off by a security guard for trying to climb onto the brontosaurus’s fenced-off, elevated stage.

  

I had to reprimand him for that last one, directing an embarrassed apology at the guard’s retreating back. “I think you guys have had enough of dinosaurs,” I said, leading them into the next room. “Look, naked mole rats.”

  

“Naked? Cool!” said Josh. They raced off. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that “naked” only meant that they didn’t have any fur.

  

“Angela?”

  

I looked up to see the rest of the guys I’d seen on the ferry. Jacob was the one who’d recognized me.

  

“Hi, Jacob,” I said. “Um. Been awhile.”

  

“Mmm-hm.” Awkward. We basically only knew each other through Bella, but neither of us wanted to talk about her.

  

“Wait. Jake, you know her?” This from my stalker.

  

“Yeah. Well. Sorta.” Jacob shoved his hands into his pockets. “She was Bella’s friend from school.” I envied him for being able to say it with such indifference.

  

“Really?” Paul looked at me in mild surprise. “So you live in Forks?”

  

I folded my arms. “Not for very much longer. I’m going away in the fall. College, you know.”

  

“Where at?”

  

“I don’t think I want to tell you,” I said. “You can only want the information for two reasons: one, to pass judgment on my intelligence based on whether or not I’m going to an Ivy League school; or two, to stalk me once I’m there.” And frankly, I suspect the latter.

  

“Oooooooh,” two of his buddies—the younger-looking ones—singsonged annoyingly. “I think you just got dissed, Paul.”

  

I rolled my eyes. Boys.

  

Then one of them that I vaguely recognized—was his name Quil? I thought I’d met him at a campfire a long time ago—got all round in the eyes and started nudging Jacob significantly and jerking his head not-so-subtly toward Paul. Jacob raised his eyebrows, then seemed to understand. “Oh,” he said, casting a meaningful glance at me. Another one of them snickered. Paul growled faintly (seriously, I heard him growl).

  

“Um,” I said, feeling kind of left out, “must have been an inside joke?” It kind of looked like they were speaking through interpretive dance or something. Whatever they were communicating, I was clearly the only one who wasn’t getting it.

  

“Yeah,” said Jacob hastily. “You had to be there to get it.” Somebody needed to work on his fibbing skills.

  

“Cool.” I pulled my jacket closer around me, feeling uncomfortable under the combined stares of the entire group. “Well, I’ve gotta go…my brothers’ll burn the place down if I don’t keep an eye on them at all times.”

  

Said brothers made their grand entrance at that point. “Angie!” Zac said loudly.

  

“Yeeees?”

  

“When can we see the movie? I’m bored.”

  

Oh crap! I’d forgotten about the IMAX film I’d gotten tickets for. It was some under-the-sea adventure, probably boring, but a lot better than Lewis and Clark. I glanced at my watch—it started in half an hour.

  

“We’d better go find seats,” I said. “Nice talking to you, Jacob.” Nice arguing with you, Paul.

  

I pulled the tickets out of my purse as I walked away. One of them fell, and with lightning speed, Paul was there, picking it up. “Here you go,” he said, glancing at the title of the film. “Secrets of the Deep? Sounds interesting.”

  

“Yeah,” I said. “Lots of cute little fishies. I’m sure you’d love it.” I took the ticket and hurried to catch up with Josh and Zac. Was it just me, or was this guy having trouble taking a hint?

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

“Think they’re still selling tickets for Secrets of the Deep?” I said to Jacob.

  

“What, are you going to stalk the girl?” he answered. “Look, Paul, I know you imprinted on her—I mean, it’s a little obvious—but you can’t just force her to like you. Anyway, Angela’s going out with some guy from Forks, last I heard.”

  

“So she said. Who is he and when can I kick the crap out of his skinny butt?”

  

“Paul!” said Embry loudly. “Do the words abuse of power mean anything to you?”

  

“No.” I stomped off. “I’m going to find out if I can get tickets for this stupid fish movie at the last minute. You guys coming?”

  

“Whatever. We’ll try to keep you from making a fool of yourself,” said Jacob. I could tell he was thinking, If it’s not already too late.

  

We ended up only getting tickets for three of us—so me, Embry, and Jake went into the theater while the four others wandered back to look at the exhibits.

  

I saw her right away. Her little brothers were trying to start a popcorn fight, and she was trying to stop them. I climbed the stairs, keeping my eyes on her.

  

“Zac,” she was saying loudly. “Josh! Both of you, STOP. Or I’m taking you two home, and you can weed the garden all day.”

  

They stopped. She made them move so she was sitting in between them, probably thinking this would keep them from making mischief. But it didn’t; the one on her left reached into the popcorn bucket, aimed for his mouth, then suddenly changed direction and slipped the kernel down the back of her shirt.

  

She slapped his hand away and did a wriggling dance, trying to shake the popcorn out of her shirt. I laughed to myself. I couldn’t help it. It was funny.

  

She heard. Her head snapped up and she glared at me. “You again?” Obviously she wasn’t pleased.

  

I climbed over some people’s feet and walked down the row of seats toward her. “You need help keeping these guys in line?” I asked.

  

“No,” she said testily. “I don’t. They’re going to behave now, right, you two?”

  

The twins nodded rather insincerely.

  

Just then, the lights dimmed. I quickly took the seat next to one of her brothers. Jacob and Embry were a row behind us.

  

I stole some of the kid’s popcorn. He glared at me. I glared back. He offered me the carton again, eyes wide. Hey, who said I didn’t get along fine with kids?

  

The movie started playing. It was really boring—but then, I wasn’t all that surprised. As Angela had put it, there were a lot of cute little fishies, and some pretty ugly ones too. None of them were particularly interesting. My attention was on the angel sitting two seats away from me.

  

I could smell her, even through the sticky, popcorn smell of her brother between us. She was wearing some kind of floral perfume and had recently washed her hair.

  

I really wanted to touch her. It was almost painful not to. I kept imagining the ways I could reach out, lay my arm across her brother’s chair, and brush her shoulder or hair or cheek with my fingers. Or maybe she would reach into the brother’s popcorn carton and I could grab her hand, and we could hold hands across her brother’s lap—

  

But I couldn’t. She had a boyfriend, damn him, who probably didn’t even appreciate what a lucky man he was. And she also seemed to think I was a retard.

  

Except I bet she would be nice to retards. She was the kind of girl who’s nice to everybody. But not me. I was the one exception to her niceness. I wasn’t sure if that should make me feel special or really, really unlucky. Maybe both.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

I can’t believe he sat by us. Does this guy even know the meaning of the word subtlety? Why can’t he just leave me alone?

 

Oh, lord, he’s staring at me. Stop it stop it stop it! Gah! I can’t concentrate on this movie. What’s going on anyway? Some scuba divers…fish…more fish…he’s picturing me naked, isn’t he? I just know he is. Jerk. Really, really hot jerk…oh no. Did I just picture HIM naked? Not a good sign.

  

I need to get out of here NOW. How much longer does this stupid film last? Oh nooooo…forty-five more minutes…and I can’t just leave, Zac and Josh will wreak havoc if I let them out of my sight…but they’ll make a big scene if I take them with me. God help me, I think I’m going insane. I will never watch another fish movie in my entire life…

 

As soon as the movie was over, I hustled my brothers out as fast as we could. Then I told them we were going home and practically ran for the parking lot.

 

 

[Angela]

  

I was able to cool off a little bit on the ferry. I sat in the lounge area of the deck, my knees hugged to my chest as I looked out the window, and decided I had overreacted. Paul hadn’t been doing anything in the theater—just looking at me a lot. For some reason, that had rubbed me the wrong way. But I kind of felt bad that my brothers hadn’t gotten their day at the Science Center.

  

Not like they were horribly sad or anything. I glanced over at them. I’d given them some money for the vending machines and now they were arguing vociferously over whether to buy Twizzlers or a bag of chips.

  

I rolled my eyes and left them to it.

  

At least I would never see Paul again. I hoped as much, anyway. All he knew about me was that I lived in Forks, and I wouldn’t be living there for much longer; I was headed to Western Washington University in a couple of months. And hopefully by the time I came back to Forks with my teaching degree, he would have forgotten about me.

  

My thoughts turned to Ben. I wished he could have been there—having him for moral support would have made the whole fiasco a lot easier. I wondered if his mother was still feeling sick.

  

Once we disembarked, I drove on impulse to a nearby Safeway and bought some soup. Maybe I’d stop by Ben’s and bring it to his mom. I’d tell him about Paul and we’d laugh and he’d kiss me and make it better.

  

An hour later, I pulled into his family’s driveway. The soup was lukewarm now, but I decided I’d warm it up really quick in his kitchen.

  

I knocked on the door, but nobody answered. Probably he was with his mom upstairs and couldn’t hear. The Cheneys never locked their door, so I let myself in. “Stay here,” I told the boys, leaving them in the entryway. I walked down the hall into the kitchen, the carton of soup in my hand.

  

Then I stopped dead.

  

Ben was standing in the kitchen. But he wasn’t alone. A girl was with him. A pretty Asian girl with long black hair, leaning against the counter. And he was leaning toward her, arms on either side of her, and then he was

  

kissing her.

  

My mouth dropped open. The only sound I could make was a sort of squeaky noise.

  

Ben heard. He pulled back from the girl and spun around, shock written all across his face. “Angie! What are you doing here?”

  

I felt tears filling to my eyes. “I brought your mom some soup,” I said, holding up the carton. My voice rasped.

  

Ben put a hand to his forehead. “Angie, it’s not what you think. I—I mean, it is, but….”

  

I set the soup down on the table and backed away. “Obviously I interrupted something,” I said quietly, feeling the tears spill over. “I’ll just go.”

  

“Wait! Angie! Let me explain!”

  

I didn’t even want to know. I didn’t want to know the girl’s name, or what she was doing in Ben’s house, or why she was so important to him that he would lie to me about his mother being sick. I didn’t want to know his excuse for kissing her.

  

I bolted for the front door, dragging my brothers with me. They asked a lot of questions that I didn’t pay attention to. I just put them in the car and slid into the driver’s seat, my eyes so blurry I could hardly see as I backed out.

  

I looked back once. Ben was standing in the doorway, the girl behind him. She was saying something. He shook his head at her, looking sad.

  

I hit the gas.

  

It was lucky I knew the way home so well. I cried the entire way and probably would have hit something if I hadn’t gone the same way a million times. Zac and Josh stayed quiet in the backseat—I think they’d realized something bad had happened and that I needed to be left alone.

  

When we got home, I handed them the house key and muttered that they could let themselves in. Then I collapsed on the steering wheel and let myself cry.

  

Ben. My boyfriend, my best friend. Sweet, funny, caring, adorable. How could he? He had…cheated on me. I’d always hated that term when other girls used it. It made relationships sound like a deck of cards. But now I understood it. Cheating meant injustice. Cheating was unfair to the other players and only served to hurt you if you were caught.

  

I really hoped Ben was hurting as much as I was.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

I got home late that evening. We’d spent the entire day in Seattle, but after the movie I hadn’t seen Angela again. Quil said he’d seen her heading toward the parking lot. “Guess you scared her away,” he said, nudging me.

  

I growled because he was right.

  

As I parked my old pickup in the driveway, I noticed a little red car sitting next to my parents’ truck. This could only mean one thing: my older sister, Ginny, had come to visit from Pullman.

  

Ginny went to Wazzu—Washington State University—which was on the other side of the state. She hardly ever came back to visit, probably because she was having so much fun with her friends over there, partying or whatever. She had gotten all the niceness genes in the family and was pretty popular. We were only a year apart in age, but we couldn’t be more different.

  

Mom’s greeting when I came in the door—“Hey Paul, Virginia’s here!”—confirmed it. Knowing I’d have to talk to her sometime, I sighed and said, “Okay, where is she?”

  

“You make it sound like a death sentence, brother dear,” said my sister from the kitchen. “And Mom, don’t call me Virginia.”

  

I sighed and went to face her.

  

Ginny was sitting at the table, eating an omelette. “Just got in,” she explained, gesturing with her fork. “Been driving all day—I was really hungry. And buttsore.”

  

I got a glass of water and sat across from her. Ginny was the same as always—her dark hair cut in a short bob, her brown eyes magnified by quirky tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. She was wearing a yellow shirt covered in smiley faces.

  

“You look grumpy,” she observed. “Guess some things never change.”

  

“You look too happy,” I retorted. “Guess some things never—”

  

“Oh, shut up,” said Ginny lazily. “So. What’s new here? Anything happen in this boring old place since I left it?”

  

I was really tempted to tell her about me being a werewolf and chasing around vampires all day, but she wasn’t supposed to know that. So I said, “Not really. Most exciting thing that happened was Jacob’s girlfriend dying a month ago.” It was sort of true. The girl was dead now. But presumably she was still walking and talking.

  

And although Ginny didn’t know it, the death had been the biggest source of pack drama since Leah phased.

  

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Ginny put down her fork. “What happened?”

  

“Car accident.” It was what the newspapers had reported. The vamps actually had crashed Bella’s ugly old truck, making sure the wreckage was consumed with flames so that there would be no recognizable bodies—because, of course, there would be no bodies at all.

  

“That’s sad.” Ginny contemplated the cheesy concoction on her plate before stabbing it again. “Speaking of girlfriends, you got one yet? Handsome young man like you….” She grinned.

  

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  

But she heard the hesitation in my voice. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?” She leaned forward in acute interest. “Come on, Paul, spill. You like someone, huh? Who is she?”

  

I shrugged. “Someone I met today. But she has a boyfriend already.”

  

Ginny raised her eyebrows. “Ooooh. Do tell, Paul. What’s she like? Did you kiss her? I wouldn’t put it past you, even though she’s taken….”

  

“Shut up!” I snapped.

  

She laughed. “Really got it bad, haven’t you? So. What’s her name?”

  

“Angela.” Her name was like music on my tongue. I missed her presence acutely. If only I knew where to find her….

  

“And?” Ginny prompted.

  

I shrugged again. “She’s pretty, I guess.”

  

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, Paul.”

  

Then, I don’t know why, I was telling her everything. All my little grievances about the day.

  

“…and she didn’t even like me, seriously, she asked if I was retarded, like it was my fault I couldn’t stop staring at her! And she’s not even that hot. I mean, she was wearing mom shoes, Ginny. MOM SHOES. What kind of person even wears those?”

  

“Moms?” Ginny suggested. I ignored her.

  

“And she’s like this super-prissy smarty-pants little nerdy girl, the kind I made fun of in middle school, and all I wanted to do was touch her! It was so embarrassing. If I hadn’t imprinted on her, I don’t think I would even like her….”

  

“Imprinted?” Ginny asked, eyebrows raised.

  

I backpedaled. “Uh, it’s Sam’s slang for love at first sight. Stupid, huh? I’m frickin’ in love with some pain-in-the-butt little….” I put my face in my hands. “God, I love her. I think she’s beautiful and perfect and I want her to like me so bad. And she already has a boyfriend! Probably some skinny geek who sits around playing Halo all day and doesn’t appreciate her. What am I gonna do? I can’t stand it! I want to be around her all the time and I’ll probably never see her again!”

  

Ginny reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Paul. Calm down, okay? It’ll all work out in the end. If you’re meant to be together, it’ll happen. Fate works in funny ways.”

  

“Fate?” I laughed shortly, humorlessly. “That’s such crap.”

  

She shrugged and ate the last bite of her omelette. “Have it your way.” She got up and went to the sink, washing melted cheese off the plate.

  

I rested my chin on my folded arms, feeling sulky. My wolf side was itching with annoyance, wanting to be let out.

  

“You know what?” I said. “I think I’m going to go running. Maybe it’ll clear my head.” At the very least, thinking like a wolf always made everything seem simpler.

  

“’Kay.” Ginny dried her hands off. “Hope you don’t want me to come with you. I’m gonna watch TV with Mom—that’s my kind of exercise.”

  

“Have fun,” I said dryly. I went upstairs and changed into my sweatpants, then headed outside. Soon as I was far enough away from the house, I stripped and tied the pants to my leg.

  

Then I let the frustration and anger take over. The wolf surged forward and took me over, and then I was free.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

Beep. “Angie, please talk to me. I know you’re mad, and you have every right, but please let’s talk about this. Call me.”

  

BCheney523: angie. u there

 

Automated away message from Angelgirl017: I am away from my computer right now.

 

BCheney523: plz angie. don’t do this

 

BCheney523: i luv u still

 

BCheney523: i know ur there, angie

 

BCheney523: say something

 

BCheney523: plz?

  

I turned off my cell phone and threw it under my bed. Then I shut down my computer.

  

I sat down on my pink-and-white checked bedspread. I hadn’t redecorated since I was six, except to remove the Sesame Street stuff and put up some cat posters when I was thirteen, and then replace the cats with landscapes and paint one wall pale green when I was sixteen. The result? My room was embarrassingly girly and little-kiddish. Ben, who had been inside a couple of times (with the door open, though), had thought it was endearing. But now anything that Ben liked was automatically painful.

  

How could he do this?

  

I looked at my reflection in the white vanity table mirror across the room. My eyes were red. My nose had gone all blotchy. My hair was starting to frizz out. I was wearing comfort clothes: giant gray t-shirt, baggy sweatpants.

  

I looked awful.

  

Somebody knocked on the door. “Angie, honey?” Mom.

  

“Go away,” I said. My voice was all croaky.

  

“I brought you some cocoa.”

  

Bribery. “All right, fine, come in.”

  

She opened the door and gave me a warm mug, the top smothered in whipped cream. I couldn’t resist hot chocolate even when I was drowning in the depths of misery. I drank it, getting whipped cream on my nose.

  

“Look, honey, what Ben did was wrong,” she said softly. “But give him a chance to talk to you, okay? He’s called at least three times in the past hour.”

  

“I know,” I muttered, glaring into the mug. “He called my phone twice and IMed me like ten million times. I just don’t want to talk yet.”

  

“Just consider it,” Mom said.

  

I looked up, suddenly suspicious. “Why?” I asked accusingly.

  

She sighed. “Because he’s downstairs in the living room looking all mopey.”

  

“Mom! You let him in?”

  

“Well, what was I supposed to do? Leave him standing on our doorstep in the dark?”

  

“Yes,” I grumbled. I didn’t really mean it. Well, a part of me did. But the part of me that had loved Ben for the past year wanted to run downstairs and beg him to tell me it was all a mistake, a misunderstanding.

  

In the end, that side won out.

  

I drank the rest of my cocoa, washed my face with cold water, and got dressed in something at least semi-presentable. Then I spent a couple of minutes hovering at the top of the stairs building up my courage to go down there.

  

Finally, I just went, before I could chicken out.

  

Ben was sitting on the couch, staring at the blank TV screen. When I skulked in, he jumped to his feet, made an awkward movement in my general direction, and then sat back down.

  

I went and sat on the other side of the couch, leaving a whole cushion between us.

  

“Angie.”

  

“Explain,” I said quietly. It came out sounding harsher than I meant it to.

  

He exhaled. “Her name’s Lisa. She’s Lee’s sister.” Lee was his new roommate. They’d be rooming together at Central Washington University in the fall. “I met her three weeks ago when we went out to lunch and he brought her along. I went out with her a couple times after that. She didn’t know about you, so please don’t blame her. It’s my fault.” He kneaded his forehead with his knuckles, unable to look me in the eyes. It must have been killing him to tell me this, without excuses or rationalizations. But Ben had always been the straight-up type. “I know I was a jerk to cancel on you so I could go out with her. Trust me, I felt guilty the whole time. But she said she ‘just happened’ to be on this side of the Sound and I couldn’t say no without telling her about you and….” He trailed off, sounding defeated. “I lost track of my priorities,” he finished lamely, glancing up at me.

  

I could feel my eyes swelling with tears again. “Why?” I asked, my voice strangled.

  

“Because I—” He took a deep breath. “Because I knew we were going to break up, and I guess I got to the rebound stage a little early.”

  

“You knew—?” But before I’d even finished asking, I knew what he meant. I was going to Western. He was going to Central. We’d be half a state apart, with no time to visit. The separation was going to break us up eventually, no matter how much I wanted to avoid that fact.

  

And I had been avoiding it. I’d been determinedly pretending summer wasn’t going to end—that it’d always be like this, weekends spent together, weekdays mostly apart. He worked at the café as a waiter. I babysat and helped one of the neighbors when she got too overwhelmed with her home-operated daycare service.

  

Apparently Ben had been dealing with it the exact opposite way: he’d faced it and gotten over it already, without it even happening first.

  

“I’m so sorry, Angie. I didn’t want it to end this way.”

  

“No,” I said, sniffling bravely, “I think it’s for the best. It would almost be worse not seeing you and wondering about you all the time as the relationship just kind of trailed off….”

  

“You’re right,” he said. “But it’s sure not any easier this way.”

  

I couldn’t stay mad at him. I just couldn’t. “I love you, Ben,” I said. Cue gush of tears. “I wish….”

  

I wish what? That I could have gone to Central with him? But no, I hadn’t liked Central. Eastern Washington was dry and tree-less, except for winter, when it was snowing heavily. I liked Forks, with its perpetual cold drizzle and dense growth of evergreens and moss. But Ben disliked Forks for the same reason and thought Central was the paradise of colleges.

  

Maybe I wished we could stay young forever and not go to college. But immortality wasn’t an option.

  

So I let the sentence hang and just hugged him. It wasn’t so much an “I’m sorry” hug as a “goodbye” hug. And it was far from comforting.

 

 

[Paul]

 

I ran, savoring the power of my lupine muscles. There were damn few perks to being a werewolf, but this was one of them: the feeling that nothing in the world could bring you down.

 

The pack wasn’t out tonight, which was a relief. Running with them was great, too—together, we were just about unstoppable—but there was that annoying side effect of having to listen to each other’s thoughts. Alone, I had time to think over what had happened today.

  

My life had changed, there was no doubt about that. The second I laid eyes on Angela, my future—my “fate,” as Ginny would say—and every aspect of my happiness had begun to revolve around her. I didn’t fully understand what it all meant, to tell the truth; I’d seen it happen to Sam and Emily, Kim and Jared, Quil and Claire, even Jacob and that weirdo blonde girl Lauren (though she was currently keeping him at arm’s length since finding out he was a werewolf). But feeling it myself and not secondhand through the pack’s memories was entirely different. Much more personal and invasive.

  

It was laughable, really. The few girls I’d dated in high school had ended up dumping me because I was always snappy and unfriendly. I guess they’d initially thought my dark exterior was hiding a poetic soul waiting to be unleashed, or some stupid crap like that. Whatever. I wasn’t romantic at all. And yet here I was, wrapped around the finger of some girl I barely knew. It was irony, that’s what it was.

  

I knew, then, where my feet—paws?—were taking me. Where else? I’d crossed the line out of the reservation a long time ago. I was headed to Forks. I was going to find her.

  

There was a part of me that knew I should stop following her around—that stalking wasn’t the best way to get a girl to like you. But that part got squashed by the much bigger part of me that couldn’t stand not being near her. I kept having this horrible panicky feeling like I’d never see her again. She mentioned college—what if she went away to another state, like… like…Massachusetts? Or Florida? Or even Hawaii? She might as well be in another universe. Worse yet, what if she went out of the country? I’d never find her. She might get married, and I’d live my whole life wondering where she was….

  

No, dammit. That wasn’t going to happen. Not if I had anything to say about it.

  

I emerged from the trees, close to the local high school. I thought I could smell her scent, very faintly, but close. She was here. Now all I had to do was find her.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

I opened my second-story bedroom window, popped out the screen, and climbed out onto the roof.

  

It had been a (relatively) warm day, overcast but humid, and the night air was pleasantly cool. I wore only a light jacket over my pajamas, and kept my feet bare to guard against slipping. I knew I was flirting with danger, sitting out on the roof like this, but at the moment I didn’t particularly care. I was only trying to distract myself from the tears that kept welling up just when I thought I was done crying.

  

Losing Ben still felt like a punch in the gut. We’d been going out for almost two years, and I could hardly remember life without him. Now I was going to have to get used to it again.

  

I perched carefully on the roof, taking deep breaths of the night air. It was cool on my reddened eyes.

 

“This sucks,” I said aloud, staring at the ground a floor below me.

  

And then I saw the wolf.

  

It was huge. Not like a big dog so much as a small bear, with silver fur that showed up easily against the dark backdrop of the trees. It loped into my backyard with easy, predatory grace, its nose to the ground. Maybe it was smelling Chiquita, my brothers’ pet Chihuahua. I hoped they’d already put Chiquita to bed—she was nothing but a mouthful to this hulking creature.

  

Seeing it, I gasped and involuntarily scooted further back up the roof. It heard me and paused to look up. I met its eyes.

  

A chill swept down my spine. It knew me. I didn’t understand how, or why, but its eyes were familiar and understanding.

  

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said to it. My voice was shaking—I hadn’t realized how afraid I was. “There aren’t any wolves on the Olympic Peninsula anymore.”

  

It cocked its head to the side, as if to say, Is that so? Nobody sent me the memo.

  

“What do you want with me?” I asked after a pause, because it was sitting there looking expectant.

  

It just stared.

  

“Listen, I’ve had a very bad day,” I told it, trying to inject a measure of bravado into my tone. “I had to take my brothers to the Science Center by myself, when Ben and I had been planning it as a date for weeks, and there was this guy that kept following me around, and then when I got home I found out that Ben cancelled on me so that he could make out with another girl, and now I’m crying again, darn it.” I swiped the back of my hand across my face. “So I really don’t need you on top of everything.” It was a very convincing speech, I thought. Until I ruined it by sniffing pathetically.

  

The wolf made a sound deep in its throat, a cross between a growl and a whine. Did it feel sorry for me?

  

Nah. More likely it thought I looked tasty. And it could eat me if it wanted to—I had no doubts about that. Lucky for me, I was out of reach at the moment.

  

“Go away,” I commanded, pretending I wasn’t terrified.

  

It stayed there, looking up at me.

  

“Grrrr,” I growled at it.

  

It bared its fangs. They were white and very, very sharp. Grrrrr, it growled back.

  

“Your mom,” I retorted. Good Lord, my brothers were rubbing off on me.

  

Grrr.

  

Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation hit me. I was sitting on the roof having a growling contest with a gigantic wolf in my backyard. A giggle bubbled up in my chest and burst out before I could stifle it.

  

The wolf lay down and put its head on its paws, looking up at me still. It seemed to say, Right, Angela, now you’re just being silly.

  

“I am being silly,” I said aloud. “I should go to bed and pretend this was a dream.”

  

The wolf lifted its head, looking anxious.

  

“Yes, even you.” I glared at it. “I don’t usually talk to wild animals, and even when I do, they don’t listen. So I’m going to pretend I imagined you.”

  

The wolf whined like a dog, thumping its tail on the grass and giving me sorrowful eyes.

  

“Yeah, you’re cute,” I said dryly. “But I’m going to bed now. Thanks for listening to me babble. It was nice of you, even if you wanted to eat me.”

  

I carefully stood up and walked back to the window, arms out, before climbing through. As I picked up the screen, I looked back at where the wolf had been, but it was already disappearing into the brush and all I could see was its tail.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

I practically bounced the entire way home.

  

Okay, so it was rotten of me to be happy that her boyfriend had cheated on her. She’d been crying, which was obviously not good. But it meant I had a chance now!

  

Not to mention she’d talked to me. Actually talked, not snapped or called me a stalker. She was almost likeable, I thought, sitting on her roof in goofy moon-and-stars pajamas and a jacket, talking conversationally, crying a little, laughing a little…it was almost like she was a real person, not an ethereal, out-of-reach angel who was too good for me.

  

I only wished that she would talk to me like that when I was human.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

The following day was Sunday. Since my dad was a minister, we always went to church—and today was no exception, even though I felt like lying in bed staring at the ceiling and listening to sad songs on the radio. Dressed in a black-and-white patterned skirt, a white V-neck shirt, and heels, I slid into the backseat of my dad’s SUV, with my brothers on either side. They tried to start the usual fight, but Mom’s exasperated reproof—“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, boys, it’s Sunday”—subdued them.

  

During the service, I only half-listened as Dad spoke of Jesus and forgiveness and mercy. Yesterday’s events felt like heavy weights on my back, making my movements sluggish and my brain dull. I clasped my hands in my lap, letting my eyes slide out of focus until the black-and-white of my skirt blurred into gray.

  

Gray was how I felt. It seemed to be everywhere today—the sky, the boring carpet under my feet, my soul. Melodramatic, but true. I felt like somebody had sucked all the color out of me.

  

Something warm and wet hit my knuckle. I realized I was crying. Again. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to look pious. Hopefully if anyone saw me, they’d think I was overcome with spiritual emotion.

  

Just so it was realistic, I did say a quick prayer. Please God, help me to find peace and joy… even if it has to be without Ben.

  

“…yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me.” My dad was reading a verse from the Bible, one I knew and loved. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

  

And strangely enough, for a moment I really did feel comforted. It was as if someone had whispered into my mind, Don’t worry, Angela. Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

  

As I thought this, I remembered the silver wolf from last night. Maybe it had been an omen. A good one? I really hoped so.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

“I love Kim Possible,” said Ginny cheerfully, eating dry Cheerios out of a bowl.

  

I slumped into the couch cushions, trying to pretend to be grumpy—although, since seeing Angela again last night, I actually felt pretty good. “She’s annoying.”

  

“Duh,” Ginny said, crunching. “That’s the point of cartoons. Want some Cheerios?”

  

I reached into the box and pulled out a handful of cereal. Examining it, I said, “Ever notice how gross these things are? They’re like little dried rings of wheat paste.”

  

“And they taste good, too.” Ginny grinned.

  

I shrugged and ate them. I was hungry.

  

“So what do you want to do today?” Ginny asked, after a long pause during which we watched Kim Possible execute a few of her trademark daring, improbable maneuvers. “Besides watch cartoons, I mean.”

  

“The pack—uh, that is, Quil, Jacob, Embry, and them—wanted me to hang out with them some more.”

  

“I could deal with that,” said Ginny. “Your friends really grew up since last time I visited.” She waggled an eyebrow suggestively.

  

I rolled my eyes, disgusted. “Most of them are at least three years younger than you, Ginny.”

  

“So? They look older than me.” She caught my grossed-out expression. “Okay, okay, I’ll stay away from your friends. Sheesh. Hey, is Leah Clearwater still around?”

  

“Yeah.” I grimaced. “She’s a bitch.” In more ways than one.

  

“That’s not very nice.”

  

“Well, she is! She’s always following us around, saying mean stuff. Nobody really likes her.”

  

“Really? Weird.” Ginny looked thoughtful. “She was always really nice to me. Remember, we were really good friends in high school?”

  

“It’s sorta Sam’s fault. He dumped her for Emily Young, and then her dad died, and now her life sucks,” I explained. “But she should really be over it by now. So I don’t feel all that bad for her.”

  

Ginny made a sympathetic noise—clearly she felt bad for Leah—and turned back to the TV screen, looking sad. But when a commercial came on, she turned to me, her expression bright again. “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you take me to a movie this afternoon in good ol’ P.A.?”

  

“Do I have a choice?” I asked.

  

“Not really. But hey, it’s something to do, right? And there are a few good ones I’ve been wanting to see. Besides, don’t you want to be seen in public with your gorgeous sister on your arm?” She leaned over to put her head on my shoulder and grinned (kind of evilly) up at me.

  

“Well, when you put it that way….” I knew I’d lost already. “All right, fine. Port Angeles it is.”

  

“Awesome.” Ginny stole the Cheerios box back and shook more into her bowl.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

“Angie, you look sad,” Dad observed, looking over his newspaper at me. It was Sunday Family Time in the Weber house; my mom and dad were sharing the Seattle Times in their matching recliners, my brothers were playing Go Fish on the floor (or maybe Fifty-Two Pickup—it was hard to tell) and I was curled into a ball on the couch, hugging a cushion and staring vacantly at a page in my book without reading a word of it.

  

“Carl,” my mom said, glaring at him. I could tell she was thinking something like, Men are so insensitive.

  

“I’m fine,” I lied dully.

  

“Is it because of Ben?” Dad asked, earning a further glare from Mom. “Because, honey, if he doesn’t appreciate you, he doesn’t deserve you….”

  

I closed my book and sat up. “Can I go to my room?”

  

Mom sighed. “Isn’t there anything we can do to cheer you up, sweetheart?”

  

“Stop talking about it, maybe.” I could feel my face reddening, as it always did right before I started crying.

  

“How about we take you out for dinner in Port Angeles?” Dad suggested. “They have that one seafood place you like, right?”

  

“I really just want to stay home,” I said. Although truthfully, seafood sounded really good. I hadn’t eaten much at lunchtime because I’d been too busy moping.

  

“But you can’t just wallow in misery. It’s not good for you. C’mon, Angie. It’ll do you good to get out.”

  

“And you know we’re always here to support you,” Mom said encouragingly.

  

“Whatever.” I opened the book again, knowing I was going to end up losing the argument. “Fine. If you say so, Dad.”

  

“That’s my girl,” said Dad embarrassingly, and went back to the newspaper.

 

 

[Paul]

  

The movie Ginny forced me to watch was a romantic comedy. It was stupid and clichéd and overly sappy. Weirdly enough, I didn’t hate it.

  

That was because, in my mind, the heroine was Angela and the hero was me. And, okay, the heroine was annoying and girly and the hero was highly unrealistic and idealized (and white), but I didn’t really care. I wanted that happy ending more than anything, and when it inevitably happened, I let out a quiet sigh of relief. Or maybe longing—I couldn’t tell the difference.

  

The credits rolled, and Ginny stood up, linking her arm through mine. “Wasn’t that a sweet movie?” she sighed happily.

  

I kept my mouth shut.

  

After we left the theater, Ginny drove us to some seafood place for dinner. “You took me out to the movies, now I get to take you out to dinner,” she informed me. Except she didn’t let me pick the restaurant. She probably figured (correctly) that if she did, I would pick fast food. And she didn’t have my advantage of being able to eat a ton of saturated fats while not gaining a pound.

  

The waiter showed us to a table and handed us menus. I shifted in my seat, feeling underdressed in my ripped jeans and beat-up white tank top. I hated sit-down restaurants.

  

Ginny leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Don’t look now, bro, but that girl over there? She’s totally checking you out.”

  

I looked. And felt like I’d stuck my finger in an electrical outlet, like I did when I was four. I think I even stopped breathing for a second.

  

Angela. With her brothers Tweedledee and Tweedledum, as well as two older people who must’ve been her parents.

  

Her eyes met mine, and I saw her mouth move to form the words, Oh no.

  

“That’s her,” I said to Ginny, or rather in Ginny’s general direction because I was still staring at Angela. “That’s the girl I told you about.”

  

“Really?” said Ginny in interest. “Hmm. You could do worse, I guess. She’s pretty cute.”

  

“She’s beautiful,” I said vaguely, lost in Angela’s profile as she muttered something to her family. Then I snapped back to myself. “Huh, what?”

  

“Oh, Paul.” Ginny shook her head. “You poor kid. You weren’t kidding about being in love with her, were you?”

  

“No,” I said, forcing myself to stare at my water glass and not turn around to look at her again. “I really wasn’t.”

  

“We should go and say hi,” Ginny suggested.

  

“Ginny, no! She’s probably telling her family what a stalker I am right now. Anyway, I can’t talk right when I’m around her. It’s awful. No wonder she thinks I’m retarded.”

  

“Well, now she’s coming over here,” said Ginny, “so you’d better formulate your sentences while you still can.”

  

“She’s what?”

  

For the second time in an unhealthily short space of time, I stopped breathing.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

This is unbelievable.

  

“I’m going to talk to him,” I said to Dad. “Let him know that his stalking is not appreciated.”

  

“Honey, maybe you shouldn’t….”

  

But I had already gotten up and begun a resolute march over to his table.

  

He pretended he didn’t notice me—oh, way to be subtle—but the girl he was with smiled at me. “Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Ginny Rivers, Paul’s sister. You must be this Angela he’s been talking ab—”

  

“Ginny,” said Paul, sounding strangled.

  

“Oh. Was I supposed to play clueless that time? My bad,” the girl, Ginny, said unapologetically. “Why don’t you sit down for a second, Angela?”

  

I said, a little too quickly, “Can’t. I’m with my family.”

  

“Oh. Okay. Hey, I like your skirt, by the way.” Ginny smiled again.

  

“Thank you.” Paul may have been irritating, but his sister actually seemed pretty nice.

  

“So,” I said, rounding on him, “another attempt at stalking me? Should I be flattered?”

  

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, more nastily than he needed to. “Ginny and I just went to the movies. Where’d you come from, church?”

  

“Yeah, actually,” I said coolly, not liking his judgmental tone. “My dad’s a pastor.”

  

“Oh.” He finally looked up at me, and his expression was so intense that I actually swayed on the spot, my knees weakening. Whoa.

  

He had, I tried not to notice, eyes that you could literally get lost in.

  

“Well, uh, I’d better get back,” I said awkwardly. “Nice to meet you, Ginny.”

  

“You too, Angela.”

  

As I walked away, I heard Paul grumble, “I hope they hurry up with the food. I’m hungry as a wolf.”

  

I glanced back sharply. He was smirking to himself, like he’d just told a private joke. Ginny hadn’t noticed.

  

It must have been coincidence, a slip of the tongue. It had to be. But that didn’t explain the sudden rush of déjà vu as I realized I’d seen those eyes before.

  

On a wolf.

  

*******

  

I was on the roof waiting for him when he stepped out of the trees into my backyard that night.

  

I was again struck by the sheer size of him. Wolves just didn’t get that big in the wild—another point in favor of the crazy theory I was developing in the darkest recesses of my mind.

  

“So you’re back,” I said in resignation. “I really had hoped I dreamed you.”

  

The wolf sat down and looked up at me, almost smugly.

  

“So what is it you want this time?” I shivered; the feel and smell of rain was in the air. A cool drop hit my cheek. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was going to be pouring in a few minutes.

  

He just stared at me, tongue hanging out like a way oversized dog.

  

“Okay, I’ll just tell you about my day again,” I said, with calculated nonchalance. “So this morning, I went to church. Dad’s sermon was about forgiveness. It was nice, I think. I was sorta feeling sorry for myself, and it was hard to do that and pay attention at the same time.”

  

The wolf whined and thumped its tail, looking sorry. Yup. He definitely understood me. Crazy theory 2, probable reality 0.

  

“Dad noticed me moping around and thought it’d be a good idea to take me out to eat. So we went to Port Angeles. While we were there, I saw that one guy again. The stalker.”

  

The wolf’s ears pricked up. Hmm.

  

“His sister was really nice. I liked her,” I said. “But he was a jerk. Big surprise. Except…well….” I couldn’t believe I was about to tell this to anyone, wolf or human. Especially when I suspected what I did about this particular wolf. “There was this one time when he looked at me a certain way, and I felt like I was going to faint. It was like…I don’t know how to describe it…well, on a certain level, it was like he was thinking about me naked or something. But there was more to it than that. It was vulnerable at the same time. Like I was the only thing keeping him alive. It was scary. And it kind of made me want to kiss him.” Then I blushed. I had said way more than I meant to.

  

Then the wolf did something strange. He got up and started running in a circle, like he was chasing his own tail. At the same time, he let out little happy-barks. It kind of looked like what Chiquita did when she was hyper (i.e. all the time).

  

Then I was sure. I just knew. My crazy theory was true. It had to be.

  

The wolf wasn’t just a wolf, the same way Paul wasn’t just a hot guy with an attitude problem.

  

They were one and the same. And he was a—

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

“—complete moron,” I moaned.

  

Embry laughed. “I bet she didn’t think so.”

  

“No, but seriously, dude! She was standing there wanting to kiss me, and I was staring at the table not letting her!”

  

“Paul,” said Jacob, “you were in the middle of a restaurant. It’s not like she was actually going to grab you and—”

  

“Stop right there,” I said, glaring. “I knew telling you guys about this was a mistake.”

  

“Like you could help it,” Quil said, laughing. “Werewolf? Telepathy? Ring a bell? Sam, Jared, and I were out last night and heard everything.”

  

“Including the part where you chased your tail in front of her,” said Embry with an evil grin. Obviously Quil had wasted no time telling him all the gory details.

  

I covered my face with my hands. “Oh, God. Don’t remind me.”

  

“I don’t think even I acted that dumb when I imprinted,” said Jacob thoughtfully. “I called her up and asked her out like a normal guy.”

  

“Yeah, and it all went downhill from there,” I said. There was no way I was going to let Mr. Heartbreak Hotel pretend he was luckier in love than me.

  

“Aw, shut it.”

  

We continued walking down the beach. It was raining—had been ever since the night before. Today it was a kind of misty drizzle, with drops close together that gathered on my skin to roll down my face and made my hair stick to my head. But even that couldn’t dampen my spirits. Okay, so I’d acted like a neurotic puppy last night, but Angela liked me! Well, she thought I was a jerk, but at least she wanted to kiss me. That was a start.

  

I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist going to her house again tonight. It wasn’t the best way to get to know a girl—I mean, I couldn’t even talk back to her—but I was kinda desperate. And maybe tonight she’d tell me more secrets about her innermost feelings. Or better yet, her phone number.

  

“Why would she give a wolf her phone number?” demanded Quil, and I realized I’d been muttering to myself. Oh hell.

  

“I need a smoke,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  

“Tarring up your lungs again?” Embry commented. “You know those things aren’t good for you, dude.”

  

I ignored him.

  

“You know,” said Jacob thoughtfully, “a lot of girls don’t like guys who smoke.”

  

I thought of Angela’s big house with its immaculate lawn and perfect landscaping. I thought of her boring, stern pastor dad, and the way he’d looked at me, like I was a father’s worst nightmare. I looked at the pack of cigarettes in my hand.

  

Then I chucked them into the Pacific.

  

Jacob grinned, elbowing me. “Good idea. Piece of gum?”

  

“Thanks,” I said darkly. This was probably only the first thing I’d have to give up to impress Angela and her dad. I betted tattoos and piercings were also off-limits, and that I might have to find that old suit I wore to my cousin’s wedding ages ago—and worse yet, actually wear it, possibly to church.

  

This was going to suck. The girl had better be worth it.

  

“Oh, and by the way,” said Jacob, “if you want to impress her without phasing back, I have an idea.”

  

I was all ears.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

I closed the back door, careful not to make a sound, and stood in the backyard, fully dressed this time.

  

It had been a long day. I’d helped Ms. Charleston with her daycare for four hours straight, and for some reason, the kids had been exceptionally crazy that day. Little Skyler and her baby brother Dylan had colds, and although the mom had insisted they weren’t contagious, I’d tried to keep them away from the other kids. And when Zac had brought over Chiquita, who was a favorite toy among the kids, four-year-old Montana had picked her up by the tail, which of course had made Chiquita bite her.

  

I really liked little kids, which was why I wanted to be a teacher. But, in my current state of heartbreak, their boisterousness had worn me out more than usual.

  

Which was part of why I was standing here in the dark, waiting for the silver wolf to take my mind off things.

  

I had no idea why I was being so reckless. I mean, I had no real proof that what I suspected about the wolf was true. What if he really did want to eat me? But I was feeling so desperately unhappy that I almost wouldn’t have cared if he attacked me. At least it would distract me from thinking about Ben twenty-four seven.

  

It had just recently stopped raining. The ground was wet and squishy under my sneakers, and the air smelled fresh. The back porch was lit up by motion-sensor security lights—my parents were a little paranoid about robberies, even in our tiny town.

  

I stood as still as I could, to see if they would turn off. But before they could, he showed up.

  

I hugged myself, shivers of fear zipping through me. I wanted to turn and bolt for the back door. This was a huge mistake.

  

The silver wolf noticed me and stopped. His dark eyes met mine.

  

I shivered again. Those were people eyes. My doubt began to fade.

  

“Um. Hi,” I said. My voice was tiny and scared. “I…thought that…um, that sitting on the roof was too dangerous…so I came down here instead….”

  

The wolf dipped his head. A nod?

  

He lay down, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. Then, slowly, he rolled to one side and exposed his belly.

  

I knew what that meant. Submission. He was telling me he wasn’t dangerous.

  

I took a step forward. Then another. My legs trembled. Did I dare?

  

“Come on, Angie,” I whispered to myself. “What are you afraid of?”

  

Okay, stupid question.

  

I reached out a hand. The wolf didn’t move a muscle, just looked at me with those weirdly sentient eyes.

  

Touching his belly felt too intimate. I put my hand on the pad of his paw. The image was so ridiculous, I wished I had a camera to capture it—his gigantic paw dwarfing my ridiculously small-looking hand.

  

The wolf made a noise deep in his throat. I started and snatched my hand back.

  

He rolled upright, and I backed away several steps without even meaning to. He whined a little, looking mournful.

  

I approached again, feeling silly. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I mean, you’re a wolf. Y’know?”

  

He nodded again.

  

This time, I put my hand on his back. His fur was softer than I’d expected, and he was very warm.

  

“You’re hot,” I observed, without thinking about what I was saying.

  

He let his tongue loll out, panting. I took this to mean that he was teasing me.

  

“I meant temperature-wise, you egomaniac.” I laughed a little, despite myself.

  

Stroking his fur (and mentally marveling at the extremely weird circumstances that had led to me petting a wolf), I found I was already feeling more comfortable with him. It was easier if I forgot he was a huge wild animal and pretended he was just an overlarge dog (sort of like the Newfoundland my grandma had, but on steroids).

  Then I happened to glance back to where his tail was thumping the ground and noticed something odd. 

There were a pair of sweatpants tied to his hind leg.

  

I kept my mouth shut, but thought to myself, Crazy theory 100, probable reality 0.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

She was touching me.

  

She was TOUCHING me.

  

Okay, she was petting me. Like a frickin’ dog. But who really cared? Her skin was in contact with my fur. And she wasn’t running away, even though she looked like she wanted to when I first got there.

  

I thought about what Jacob had suggested. I didn’t know how well it would go down with her. But it couldn’t hurt to try.

  

I nudged her with my head.

  

She jumped. “Oh!”

  

I nudged again, harder, and she sort of fell across my back. I stood up.

  

“Hey!” she complained, slipping off. Luckily the ground was soft, and she didn’t get hurt—but I licked her arm anyway. I got a mouthful of muddy-tasting sweater.

  

“What are you doing, trying to kidnap me?” she demanded, folding her arms. “Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you’re actually a pooka.”

  

A what?

  

“It’s an Irish spirit that catches people walking at night, tricks them into getting on its back, and then takes them on a wild ride all around the countryside before dumping them in a ditch,” she explained. “I don’t feel like ditch-diving tonight, if it’s all the same to you.”

  

This wasn’t working out as romantically as Jacob had said it would. Maybe because when he tried it, he had already explained to the girl what he was going to do.

  

I lay down again, looking as mournful as I could. And amazingly enough, it worked. “Well, okay, whatever,” she said suspiciously. “If you really wanted me to get on your back, you could have just said so.”

  

She straddled my back, gripping handfuls of my fur. I stood up, carefully this time so she wouldn’t fall. She wobbled a little, but held on tightly with her legs. I hoped I would still be able to breathe after this.

  

I looked over my shoulder. She looked scared, but determined.

  

Hold on tight, Angel, I thought.

 

And then I ran.

 

[Angela]

  

My fingers were numb and aching from gripping silver fur, but I held on all the tighter. Branches whipped past; wet leaves and blackberry branches slapped my legs. It was a good thing I hadn’t worn my pajamas, or they would have been shredded.

  

I gripped the wolf’s back with my whole body, feeling terrified and high as a kite at the same time. This was unlike anything I’d ever done—it made riding the triple-loop rollercoaster at the fair seem boring.

  

The feeling of pressing myself to the wolf’s warm fur as cold wind whipped past was incredible. I could feel his strength and speed almost as if I were part of him. I molded myself into him, relaxing into his loping gait.

  

Then, quite suddenly, it was over. The wolf halted in a sort of clearing. The underbrush was thinner, but the evergreens still grew close and created a ceiling of branches.

  

I slid off his back and immediately collapsed. My entire body was shaking, and I was breathing in gasps, but I’d never felt so alive. (That was probably because I was more adrenaline-high than I’d ever been in my life.)

  

The wolf lay down next to me, tongue hanging out, looking rather pleased with himself.

  

“Congratulations,” I said, when I could talk again. “You’ve lured me out of my house and separated me from my family. Now what? Are you going to eat me? Or ditch me here and let me walk home?”

  

I could swear he smirked.

  

Grr. He wasn’t allowed to be smug. I folded my arms, tucking away my shaking hands, and asked, “So. Now that we’re all on our own, mind telling me why you have pants tied to your leg?”

  

He tensed up right away, shifting, looking away from me.

  

“How dumb do you think I am?” I asked. “Really. I figured out you weren’t a real wolf a long time ago. Real wolves don’t understand or respond to human speech. Real wolves aren’t the size of a pony. Real wolves don’t take girls for a ride on their back through the forest. And real wolves don’t tie pants to their hind feet. Look me in the eye, wolf. I know who—what—you are.”

  

He looked at me. Those eyes. They made my heart flutter again, just when I’d thought it was settling back into normal rhythm.

  

“I know what you are,” I repeated, my voice cracking a little. “Paul.”

  

The wolf surged to his feet, and then sank back down again—or so it seemed. The silver gleam of fur vanished. So did the fangs, and the gigantic paws.

  

I stared, dumbstruck, at the naked man crouched on all fours beside me.

  

*******

  

I hadn’t really expected him to actually turn into Paul, you know? I mean, on one level I’d known he was a werewolf, but on another level I’d been in constant denial. I’d expected him to…I don’t know…run away, or maybe even attack me. But not to prove my accusation beyond all shadow of a doubt.

  

He turned away from me, quickly untying the pants attached to his ankle. “How did you guess?” he asked gruffly, pulling them on.

  

“I just told you. You acted way unnatural for a wolf,” I said. “That second night on the roof? I told you about meeting you in the restaurant to test you, because I kind of suspected. And the way you reacted…that practically proved it.”

  

He turned around again. “You know what?” he said, his eyes glinting dangerously in the dark. “I think you’re way too smart for your own good.”

  

He held out his hand. Without thinking, I took it. And when I did, he pulled me upright in one dizzyingly swift move, pressed my back against the tree, and kissed me.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

Kissing her was…everything.

  

Nothing else existed in the world from the second our lips touched. It was only me, and her, and….

  

“Ow,” she said against my mouth, wincing away and breaking the kiss. “The tree.”

  

“Oh.” I realized I’d been pushing her against it a little more forcefully than I needed to. “I’m sorry.”

  

“You should be. That was pretty forward, even for you.” She looked up at me in the dark, and I could see confusion and desire warring in her expression. I remembered that she’d just broken up with her boyfriend two days ago.

  

And I decided I didn’t care.

  

“I’m not sorry about kissing you,” I said, grinning cockily. “That I won’t apologize for. I’m just sorry that the tree interrupted us.”

  

“Oh.” Her eyes widened. I kissed them closed before brushing my lips down her cheek and to her mouth.

  

The second kiss was twice as amazing as the first one. If that was even possible. I was addicted to her, obsessed with her, completely in love with her. Her taste, her scent, the way she moaned softly against my lips…the way her hands shyly crept up my back and around to my chest….

  

She pushed hard, and I stumbled back.

  

Damn.

  

“Please don’t ever do that again,” she said, dangerously calm.

  

“I’m sorry.” And this time I really meant it.

  

“Sorry for what? That I interrupted you again?”

  

Ouch. “Angel, look, I know you just broke up with what’s-his-name. I guess this is a little too soon.”

  

She glared. “You think?”

  

“Just…God, give me a chance, would you? I really like you—” understatement of the year—“and I want to get to know you. If you don’t want me kissing you, that’s fine. Just…help a guy out here.”

  

She folded her arms across her chest, biting her lower lip, her eyes still narrowed. “Fine. No more night visits, first of all.”

  

“Gotcha.” Her daddy’d probably have a cow if he knew, anyway.

  

“And if you honestly want to date me… Forks Coffee Shop, five o’clock, Friday. Sound good?”

  

“Sure.” If I had plans on Friday, they were suddenly all cancelled.

  

“Oh—and just to make sure you won’t forget yourself and ravish me….”

  

“Yes?”

  

“I’m bringing my brothers.”

  

I groaned.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

Okay. So I liked it when he kissed me. Sue me. He was warm and—dare I say it?—almost cuddly. In a dangerous sort of way. Like a teddy bear with sharp claws. He did have dog breath, though. And I couldn’t stop comparing him to Ben the entire time, which sort of ruined it.

  

Ben never kissed me this purposefully…Paul kisses like he means it.

  

Ben always tastes like mint because he brushes his teeth like three times a day.

  

Oh, gosh—what would Ben say if he could see me right now?

  

It was that last one that made me push him away. Kissing another guy two days after the breakup? What was I, some kind of slut?

  

A little voice in the back of my head said, Ben kissed someone else before the breakup, remember?

  

I told the voice to shut up and focused on chewing Paul out.

  

I must be some kind of pushover, though, because I couldn’t make myself reject him in cold blood. He looked kind of hurt that I’d pushed him away. So I invited him to my TGIF coffee night.

  

The TGIF tradition had actually been Ben’s idea. Whenever there was a lot of stress at school or work or whatever, we would look forward to Friday night, when we could go and get dinner and a caffeine buzz and be goofy as a couple. Sometimes we invited friends, like Jessica Stanley or Eric Yorkie. I’d brought Zac and Josh once or twice. Usually, though, it was just us.

  

This had been the first time I was planning to go alone. I wondered if, on some level, I’d asked Paul to come with because I was afraid I would just sit there and weep into my mocha if I went by myself.

  

Maybe. Probably I still would. But at least Paul and the twins would be able to entertain each other, if that was the case.

  

Paul, after promising to explain the werewolf thing on Friday, turned back into a wolf. It was kind of disconcerting, mostly because he had to take his pants off first. I turned red and looked away. I wasn’t used to guys getting naked in front of me. Ben and I had kept it PG-13, and although he had brought up the subject of going further once or twice, I’d quickly squashed the idea. I wanted to wait until marriage to go All The Way. And anyway, Dad would probably shoot Ben if he found out we’d done anything more than kiss.

  

Paul didn’t seem to care, though. I suppose he has plenty of experience, I thought, studying the tree. For some reason, the thought made me feel kind of sick.

  

A cold nose touched my cheek. I jumped and looked straight into the silver wolf’s eyes.

  

“Oh,” I said weakly. “Hi.”

  

The wolf knelt down so I could get on his back. I wove my fingers into his fur, preparing myself for another terrifying and exhilarating ride.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

Friday seemed unnaturally slow in coming, especially since I couldn’t sneak around her house in wolf form anymore.

  

I should have known she’d figure it out. She wasn’t as dumb as my last girlfriend (that one had lasted about a week. I couldn’t listen to her annoying yappy voice without wanting to phase and rip her to shreds. Seriously. She never. Stopped. Talking). And it wasn’t like I was super-careful, anyway. The pants had to be a dead giveaway.

  

But it had shocked me right out of my wolf skin when she said my name. I think my phasing had shocked her a little bit, too (though maybe it was just the part where I was naked. Hee hee). I kept running over and over that scene in my mind: her wide eyes, the tremble in her voice, the feel of her hands on my bare chest, the kiss the kiss the kiss. I think if I lived to be old as that Methuselah dude and never saw her again, I still couldn’t forget the way kissing her made me feel.

  

Throughout the week, Ginny forced me to do stuff besides staring into space thinking about Angela. We went hiking (it rained), hung out on the beach (rainy again—Ginny froze her butt off in her swimsuit), took the ferry across the Sound again and went to Pike Place Market for a day. Ginny liked being a tourist; even though technically she had grown up here, she liked pretending she was from out of state.

  

I skulked along behind her, letting her do the talking. People noticed Ginny a lot, but they mostly ignored me (unless they were guys, in which case they asked if I was her boyfriend).

  

When Friday finally came, I spent the day in growing anxiety about the date. The one question I had hoped never to ask myself finally became an issue: What do you wear to impress a girl like Angela?

  

I stewed all day before finally breaking down and asking Ginny for help. Ginny grinned gleefully and waded into my bedroom.

  

“You are such a slob,” she complained, opening the window to let out the odor of wet dog. “God, Paul, when was the last time you cleaned in here?”

  

“Uh…never?” My bed had been unmade for at least a year (Mom forced me to change the sheets sometimes), and the floor was covered in muddy footprints, shoes, and dirty clothes.

  

Ginny was already going through the chest of drawers, looking for something that didn’t have any holes in it. She finally found a pair of jeans that I didn’t wear that much (they were too big) and threw them at me with a belt. “Take a shower,” she instructed, “and put that stuff on while I find you a decent shirt.”

  

I obeyed.

  

When I came back in, bare-chested and spiky-haired, she had stuffed all my dirty clothes into a basket, lined up my shoes next to my closet, and made the bed up with fresh sheets.

  

“Hey,” I complained. “I can see the floor!”

  

“That’s not always a bad thing,” she said airily. “A vacuum and some Lysol would do wonders in here….”

  

I made an incoherent sound of protest and she rolled her eyes. “Men. You must enjoy wallowing in your own stink. Here, I found you a shirt.”

  

It was a black T-shirt with the name of a band that I couldn’t even remember listening to. “Where did you find this?” I asked, holding it up dubiously.

  

“Dad’s box of clothes from when he was skinny and in high school,” she said. “Hope you like Def Leppard. And don’t mess it up, or he’ll kill you. We are so going shopping tomorrow, Paul. Your shirts are disgusting.”

  

“Yeah, well, I shredded all the ones I like,” I grumbled. Then clamped my mouth shut.

  

“What do you and your friends do when I’m not here? Sheesh.”

  

“Sometimes we jump off cliffs for fun,” I said, pulling the T-shirt over my head.

  

“I’m not even going to ask,” Ginny said, picking up the basket of dirty laundry. “Good luck on your date, Paul. Try not to eat like a wild animal, and whatever you do, don’t belch in front of her.”

  

I sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  

“Unless she belches first. Then it’s okay.” Ginny laughed to herself, probably remembering some bygone belching contest, and waltzed out of the room humming to herself.

  

I went into the bathroom and wiped condensation off the mirror. Surprisingly, I looked all right. Less wild than usual—almost tame. Or maybe that was just the 80's band emblazoned across my chest.

  

I slid my sunglasses on and took a deep breath.

  

I can do this.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

I sat down at a free table, glaring at my brothers, who were already knocking over the sugar. No coffee for those two. They’re hyper enough already.

  

I looked around the room nervously. When would he show up? Would he show up?

  

He hadn’t called or stalked at all this whole week. I was sort of proud of him. He’d managed to actually leave me alone. But part of me wished he hadn’t proven so self-controlled. The selfish part of me, which I tried to suppress, wanted him to be so attracted to me that he just could not stay away.

  

I put the sugar out of reach of Josh, who was now licking his finger and scooping up the sugar that’d spilled on the table. “You don’t know who’s licked that table before,” I said, and when this didn’t stop him, I let him do it. I was too preoccupied to concentrate on scolding him.

  

Then he walked in. I froze. It was the wrong he.

  

He spotted me at once and came over. “Angie, what are you doing here?” Ben asked, sounding strained.

  

“TGIF,” I squeaked. “I’ve had a hard week, you know.”

  

He dropped his eyes to the table. “Um. Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I was going to do TGIF too. Do you mind if I—?” He gestured at the empty seat between Zac and me.

  

“Uh, actually, that seat’s saved,” I said quickly. “I’m expecting a—um, a person.”

  

“Oh.” A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “Who?”

  

“Is this kid bothering you?” said Paul, coming up behind Ben right on cue. He had a look that was kind of…territorial.

  

It was one of those moments where you would just love to disappear. But, unfortunately, I didn’t.

  

“Paul, this is my ex-boyfriend, Ben Cheney,” I was forced to say. The ex caught in my throat. “Ben, this is—”

  

“Her date, Paul Rivers,” said Paul firmly. He looked Ben up and down. “You know, he looks exactly like I thought he would,” he added in my direction. It was obviously not a compliment.

  

Ben’s expression was total shock. “Angie, you—this guy—I—”

  

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, wondering how I was going to explain this one.

 

 

[Paul]

  

He was just as wimpy as I expected.

  

Just seeing him—and knowing what he meant to Angela, and what he’d done to her—made me want to wipe the floor with his shrimpy little behind. He had kissed Angela before me. He had gone on dates with her, and hugged her and whispered things in her ear. And then he’d stood her up to make out with another girl. What kind of idiot would do that?

  

Anger surged. She was mine. He didn’t deserve her, had no right to her. I gritted my teeth, forcing the wolf to behave. If I phased in such a public place, there’d be hell to pay.

  

“Who is this guy?” the kid finally forced out. “How long—”

  

“I met him last Saturday,” said Angela, looking excruciatingly uncomfortable. “We talked. I saw him again on Sunday in a restaurant. I invited him to come here. It’s not—”

  

“Angie, I’m pretty sure he thinks it is,” said the kid—Ben. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  

“Yeah, well, kinda too late for that,” she said quietly, looking away from him.

  

“Angie, I’m bored,” said Tweedledee, oblivious.

  

“Why don’t you leave Angela alone?” I said through my teeth, keeping my voice low. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

  

“Angie,” said Ben nervously, taking a half-step back.

  

“Goodbye,” I said pointedly.

  

He left.

  

I sat down between Angela and Tweedledee. “Hey, Angel. You looked kinda uncomfortable just then…hope you don’t mind that I got rid of him.”

  

“No, I…I’m glad he’s gone,” she admitted softly. “You could have been nicer about asking him to leave, though.”

  

“I don’t think there’s a nice way to say, ‘Go away so I can enjoy my date with your ex-girlfriend.’”

  

Tweedledum giggled.

  

“And her kid brothers.” I rolled my eyes.

  

“Maybe not.” She avoided my gaze, toying with the sugar. “It’s just…I don’t know…gosh, I wish I didn’t have to see him ever again!” she burst out suddenly. “It hurts.”

  

I probably should have patted her shoulder or done something to show sympathy, but I didn’t know how. I’d had plenty of breakups in my time, but I hadn’t actually been that sad about any of them. I now found myself bizarrely wishing that I had. Then maybe I’d understand what she was going through.

  

Tweedledee stole the sugar and started pouring it into his palm. She appeared not to notice.

  

This was way awkward. I needed to say something, anything, to change the subject. But how could I when all I could think of was, “You look really pretty”?

  

I settled for, “Yo, kid, better not eat too much sugar.”

  

“My name’s not kid.” And he kept licking his sticky palm. Gross. Had I been like that when I was that age?

  

Well, no. I had probably been worse.

  

Angela finally noticed. “Zac, don’t do that.” She reached for the sugar. Tweedledee—Zac, whatever—jerked it away. Unfortunately, the motion sent a cascade of sugar right onto my dad’s old band t-shirt.

  

I looked down at my lapful of sugar. “Dude,” was all I could say.

  

Angela started laughing.

  

I looked up at her, incredulous, and she covered her mouth with her hand. But her eyes kept right on laughing at me.

  

“What’s so funny?” I asked indignantly.

  

She grinned at me, a real, genuine smile, and for a second I felt like I’d just thrown myself off a cliff. You know, that swooping sensation when you realize what you’ve just done and that the water is really rushing up to meet you, and all you can think is, Whoa, I’m falling. And then, This is gonna hurt like hell in a second.

  

“Pour some sugar on me,” she sang. I raised my eyebrows.

  

“You’re wearing a Def Leppard shirt and you haven’t heard that song?” she said, still laughing.

  

“It’s my dad’s shirt,” I admitted.

  

“Oh. Well, they have a song called ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me.’ And I just thought it was ironic….”

  

“That you guys poured sugar on me.” Oh. Now I got it.

  

“Exactly.”

  

“So, you’re a fan of 80’s bands?” I asked, brushing the sugar off my clothes.

  

“Let’s put it this way…I like to be well-rounded in my music tastes.” She grinned again.

  

“That’s cool. You know, I had you down as the kind of girl who only listens to Celine Dion and Christian rock.”

  

She giggled. “Nope. That’s only when my parents are listening.”

  

The subject of music got us halfway through our coffee. When we were done comparing tastes (rap: she hated it, I liked it. Boy bands: she liked ‘em, I hated ‘em. Country: neither of us were very enthusiastic about it. Fall Out Boy: surprisingly, both of us liked them), the conversation flowed into movies and on to hobbies. Before I knew it, an hour and a half had passed and we were still involved in the conversation.

  

I was surprised. We actually had stuff in common! Who knew?

  

We both, for instance, owned stupid collections from our younger days. Hers was rocks—she’d picked one up for every place her family went on vacation—and mine was, embarrassingly enough, Barbie doll heads. Eleven-year-old Ginny had been confused and increasingly annoyed when all of her dolls, one by one, started turning up headless. She still didn’t know where I kept them.

  

We both had a weird fascination with old Westerns, and a secret soft spot for animated Disney movies. (It was Ginny’s fault—she forced me to watch all the Disney Princess movies when we were kids. I liked Aladdin the best. Angela, interestingly, said Pocahontas was her favorite.)

  

We also both liked swimming, though Angela had never tried cliff diving. But I think I almost convinced her to try it.

  

Finally, her brothers started nodding off on the table and she grimaced. “I have to go. These guys should be in bed.”

  

“I never did get around to explaining,” I said, remembering. “About the…you know….” I mimed claws.

  

“Oh my gosh, that’s right!” She laughed. “I totally forgot. Well, it might not have been a good idea to talk about it in front of them.” She nodded at the twins. “You’ll have to tell me another time.”

  

“Your roof, midnight?”

  

She gave me a severe look. “I told you, no more sneaking around my house.”

  

“Okay, fine. Tomorrow. When do you want me to pick you up?”

  

“You don’t give up, do you?” She laughed at me again. “Okay, what about two in the afternoon? I need to be home for dinner, but my afternoon is free.”

  

“Great. It’s a date.”

  

“Where are we going?” she wanted to know as she shook Tweedledee…I mean Zac…awake.

  

“How ‘bout I surprise you?”

  

“Okay.” She smiled. “I warn you, though, I don’t surprise easily.”

  

“You do now.” I grinned in what I hoped was a mysterious manner.

  

“We’ll see.”

  

Was it just me, or were we actually flirting with each other? Awesome. I think she was actually starting to like me. Who woulda guessed?

  

*******

 

[Angela]  

I was surprised to find, over the course of the date, that Paul was actually a person.

  

No, really. I’d been thinking…I don’t know…that he was one-sidedly grouchy and stalkerish. That being a wolf was his entire life. But the more we talked, the more I realized that he had a life. The guys I’d seen him with at the Science Center were more than just a posse of friends. He talked about them like they were his family.

  

His parents rarely got mentioned—I guess they weren’t all that interested in how he spent his time, now that he was out of school—but he talked about his sister a lot. She’d alternately been his best friend and rival growing up. The more I heard about her, the more I liked her. If we ever hung out, I bet we’d get along great.

  

I couldn’t stop thinking about him the whole night. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and replaying our conversation in my head. The sugar thing, I realized, had been pretty good timing. Without some kind of icebreaker, we might have spent the whole evening in awkward silences.

  

I thought, I could get to like this guy. Actually, I already liked him a lot. To tell the truth, it was possible I could learn to like him as more than just a friend. That kiss in the forest, the one I tried not to think of, was proof. It had made me almost as dizzy as wolfback riding had.

  

The whole turning-into-a-wolf thing was weird, I’ll admit. Scary, too. I wondered what the story behind it was. I knew I would find out the next day, but it didn’t stop me from making up elaborate stories about him. Maybe his mom had had a thing for wolves…ew, okay, no. Besides, it was biologically impossible for humans and wolves to crossbreed. Maybe he was raised by them, like Romulus and Remus…but no, they didn’t have the ability to actually turn into wolves.

  

Maybe he’d gotten bit by one when he was a little kid. But he didn’t have any scars or anything.

  

I finally drifted off to sleep—and when I did, I dreamed of wolves.

  

*******

  

Paul pulled into the driveway in a beat-up, dusty black pickup promptly at two the next day. I raced down the stairs, having been watching from my window, but Mom answered the door first.

  

“Can I help you?”

  

“Hi, I’m Paul Rivers.” He shook her hand; I saw her wince at his firm grip. “I’m here to pick up your daughter.”

  

“Angie?” Mom asked uncertainly as I skidded to a halt next to her. “You know him?”

  

“Yeah.” I left it at that, hoping she wouldn’t ask for details.

  

“Where are you two going?”

  

“Um,” I said, remembering that I didn’t actually know.

  

“Nowhere dangerous, I promise,” said Paul, leaning against the doorway and looking like the epitome of danger.

  

“I’ll be back by dinner,” I said.

  

This seemed to satisfy Mom, though she still seemed a little skeptical. “Okay. Have fun, honey.”

  

“Sure, Mom.” I slipped past her, thanking my lucky stars that Dad hadn’t answered the door. If he did, I wouldn’t have gotten away so easily.

  

“Your mom seems…nice,” said Paul, once I’d gotten into his truck. It smelled faintly of cigarettes and sweat, but there was a brand-new tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, masking the air with the scent of cinnamon.

  

I nodded, feeling awkward again. “So, um, where are we going?”

  

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

  

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Have it your way.”

  

He smirked, keeping his eyes on the road as we turned onto the main highway, heading toward La Push.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

I wasn’t sure how she’d take it. I mean, she was like Miss Goody Two Shoes and all. But I was starting to see that there was more to her than that. She acted the good girl for her family and friends and probably even her ex. She believed the act, too—tried to make it her real personality.

  

But that wasn’t who she really was. I saw a bit of a thrill-seeker in her. A part of her liked listening to music that her parents hated, and going out with a near-stranger right under her ex’s nose. Maybe she even thought the whole turning-into-a-wolf thing was hot. I don’t know. I hoped so.

  

I parked the truck and reached behind the seat to grab the duffel bag I’d packed for today. As I opened the driver’s side door, I noticed Angela was still struggling with the handle. She wasn’t being forceful enough, I guess. My truck was kind of junky—older than me by a good five years, with a radio that only played static. You had to turn a crank to get any air conditioning (meaning, you had to roll down the windows). And sometimes, the door handles stuck.

  

I jogged around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. She turned pink and grinned at me, hopping down to the ground. I realized I’d accidentally done something gentlemanly.

  

“So, the beach,” she said, looking around. “Does this involve long walks in the sand, by any chance?”

  

“No way,” I said. “Do I look like the cliché type to you? We’re going up.” I pointed to the trail that led to the top of the cliffs. “And then down.”

  

Her eyes got all big. “You’re taking me cliff diving.” It wasn’t a question.

  

“Surprised?” I grinned.

  

“No,” she said, too quickly. Then, “Okay, fine, yes. But I can’t jump off a cliff! It’s dangerous. Besides, that water’s probably like two degrees.”

  

“It’s not dangerous,” I scoffed. Seeing her expression, I amended, “Well, it is, but the pack and I have gone a million times and nobody’s gotten hurt. Well, that one time Bella jumped when we weren’t around and almost drowned, but I won’t let that happen to you. I got Embry and Jacob to come as lifeguards.”

  

“I don’t know….” She still looked apprehensive.

  

So I tried the last-resort argument: “What, are you chicken?”

  

She glared at me. Then she started toward the trail, her face set in resolution.

  

*******

  

Half an hour later, we stood at the edge of the cliff. We weren’t at the top—I didn’t think it was a good idea for Angela to start too high—but there was still a stomach-turning drop to the bottom. Jacob and Embry were treading water below, acting as spotters in case something happened.

  

Angela’s hair was whipping across her face, even though she’d tried to pull it back in a ponytail. She was wearing one of Ginny’s old swimsuits—her clothes were in my bag, along with the fluffiest towel my mother owned. She kept alternately closing her eyes and then opening them again and looking down.

  

“I can do this,” she muttered.

  

“Remember, I’m jumping with you,” I said encouragingly.

  

She bit her lip, looking at me nervously. “Can I hold your hand?”

  

“No,” I said, though my guts were doing all sorts of acrobatics at the thought that she wanted to hold my hand. “It’s not a good idea. We might knock our heads together midair, or something.”

  

She nodded, scraping her hair out of her eyes. “Okay, on three. One….”

  

“Two….” I joined in the count.

  

“THREE!” For a moment, I thought she was going to chicken out, but she closed her eyes tight, took a deep breath, and jumped.

  

Without a further thought, I flung myself after her.

 

 

[Angela]

  

How come everything I do with Paul is scary? Seriously. Wolfback riding, and now this.

  

Cliff diving, especially the first time, is terrifying. Like pee-your-pants, oh-my-gosh-I’m-going-to-die terrifying.

  

“Jump out far enough that you don’t hit the rocks on your way down,” Paul had coached me. “Don’t just step off the cliff. Keep your body as straight as possible and it’ll hurt less when you hit the water. Don’t belly-flop—trust me, it hurts. And remember to hold your breath.”

  

It all flew right out of my mind as soon as I jumped into nothingness. There was a moment of weightlessness—like in the cartoons, when somebody walks off a cliff and doesn’t realize it, and for a second they hang in the air looking confused—and then an overpowering rush of air and gravity.

  

I screamed.

  

And then I was underwater, realizing I’d forgotten to hold my breath. For a long moment, the world was dark and freezing cold. Then I was in the air again, the air against my face shocking me with the cold, and Paul was bobbing up next to me, grinning like a loon. I coughed, spitting seawater.

  

“You did it!” he yelled.

  

“Yeah!” I said. My voice was an octave higher than it should have been.

  

We swam toward shore. My muscles were seizing up from the cold by the time we stood up in the shallows, and my teeth chattered. I kept swallowing water on accident.

  

“You’re cold,” he said, worried. “I forgot, you don’t have a werewolf’s temperature. Come here.”

  

Somehow, his bare chest was still warm, even though the water dripping off him was cold. I hugged him, stealing some of that warmth, pressing my cold fingers into his back.

  

“So, do you like cliff diving?” Paul asked, his hands warming my shoulder and the small of my back.

  

“It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done,” I admitted. “But as soon as I make sure I don’t have hypothermia, I want to do it again.”

  

He laughed. “I knew it.”

  

“Knew what?”

  

“You’re an adrenaline addict,” he said.

  

“Am not!” I protested. Adrenaline-addicted? Me? I just happened to like cliff-diving. And driving fast on back roads when no one’s around. And riding the upside-down rollercoaster at the fair five times in a row, pretending that it was Josh and Zac’s idea even though they were about to barf.

  

Oh. Maybe I was.

  

Now that I was warming up, the feeling of Paul’s body in such close proximity to mine was starting to be uncomfortable. I pulled away and went to get the towel he’d brought, hugging myself as the wind chilled me again.

  

Once I’d gotten dressed—Paul swore he wouldn’t look as I went behind a tree and threw on my clothes as fast as possible—we went back to his truck. Jacob and Embry stayed behind, leaving Paul and me alone in the cab of his truck with the heat turned up.

  

Actually, the heater didn’t work all that well, so it wasn’t like toasty or anything. But it was warmer than outside.

  

Paul looked over at me. He looked a little bit nervous. “So,” he said. “The wolf thing.”

  

“Is not feeling cold part of it?” I asked. He was still shirtless, and I hadn’t even seen him shiver once.

  

“Yeah. For some reason, we run a temp of over a hundred degrees.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt us. Oh, and we heal crazy-fast too. It’s pretty awesome.”

  

“Okay, so, how did it happen?” This was what I was most curious about.

  

He opened and shut his mouth a couple of times before finally answering. “This might sound a little weird, all right?”

  

“Go for it.” After seeing him turn into a wolf and back, I think I’d believe anything.

  

“It’s because of the vampires.”

  

“Vampires,” I repeated.

  

“Yeah. You know the Cullens?”

  

“Of course—I was friends with Bella and she was with Edward Cullen practically all the time… wait. Omigosh. You’re not serious.”

  

“Yup. They’re vampires.”

  

“And Bella?”

  

“They turned her into one.”

  

It was a good thing I was sitting down. My high school friend was a vampire now. Whoa.

  

“Okay, so, vampires.” That would take some getting used to. “How does that equal werewolf?”

  

“Our tribe is supposedly descended from wolves,” Paul explained. “There’s this legend—someday I’ll bring you to one of our bonfires and you can hear Billy tell it—but, like, these vampires, they called them cold ones, started terrorizing the tribe, and one of our ancestors became a wolf to protect the tribe. And it turned out that his sons and their descendants were werewolves too. Anyway, I guess the werewolf gene only comes out when there’s a threat—and since the Cullens moved to Forks, they were enough to trigger it. Half the teenagers on the rez started popping out in fur.”

  

“So there’re more of you?” I asked. Then, “Wait, let me guess. Jacob and Embry. And the other guys you hang out with. They’re wolves too.”

  

“Uh-huh. There are ten of us so far.”

  

“Wow.” That was a higher number than I’d expected.

  

“So, the whole stalking-me thing. That has to do with the wolf also?”

  

He exhaled, looking away from me. “Don’t freak out when I say this, okay?”

  

“Of course not.” Hey, I’d sat through vampires and werewolves and not freaked out.

  

He looked back at me, straight into my eyes, and I felt my pulse speeding up. He really was incredibly hot. Not really handsome, I guess, but attractive. Does that even make sense?

  

“Werewolves sometimes do this thing called imprinting,” he said, slowly and deliberately, like he wanted to make sure he said it right. “We find our mates that way. So far, four other members of the pack have done it. We thought it was rare, but I guess not.”

  

I nodded encouragingly, but my heart thumped even faster. I thought I knew where this was going.

  

“It’s sort of like love at first sight,” he went on, looking away again. “It happens the first time you see her after your first phase—that’s what we call turning into a wolf,” he added. “You look at her, and from that second, your life revolves around her. You want to protect her and make her happy at whatever cost—but you also want to be around her every minute.”

  

Oh, I definitely knew where this was going.

  

“So, that day in the Science Center….” He seemed to be struggling to actually say it.

  

“You imprinted on me,” I supplied softly.

  

He nodded, silent. I waited, and after awhile of staring out the windshield, he finally said, “Stupid, right? I felt like the biggest loser in the world. You kept looking at me like I was retarded, and all I wanted was—” He didn’t finish the sentence. I wondered what he’d been about to say.

  

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” I said. “I think it’s kind of romantic.”

  

“Oh God.” He pulled a face. “Romantic. No. I’m not romantic at all.”

  

I started to smile. “You know what? I think you are. You know how you said I’m an adrenaline addict and don’t know it? Well, I think you’re a hopeless romantic and you just don’t want to admit it.”

  

“No, I’m not, okay?” he said, his voice rising a little. “Look, Angel, I’m not a nice person. Every girl I went out with in high school dumped me because I was an arrogant jerk. I don’t think I ever loved any of them, either. I just thought they were hot. And I used them. I don’t do romance. I don’t know how.”

  

I retreated, raising my hands in defense. He was starting to look really mad. “Whoa, whoa. Not trying to start a fight here, honestly.”

  

He took a deep breath, in and out, and closed his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I get ticked off easily.”

  

“I noticed. You about ate Ben’s head off yesterday.”

  

“I didn’t like thinking about him touching you,” he said, a hint of anger still in his expression and voice. “I know he hurt you. And I wanted to kick his face in.”

  

I winced. “Um, please don’t.”

  

“I won’t,” he said. “Probably.”

  

Another pause. My thoughts returned to werewolves. “So, you imprinted on me,” I said. “What does that mean? Am I, like, your…um…mate now?” I could feel my face turning red.

  

“Not—not if you don’t want to,” Paul said. “I mean, I’m not going to force you to… but, yeah, if you want me, I’m pretty much yours. Can’t really help it.”

  

“Oh.” My blush deepened.

  

“But if you decide you don’t want me, I can’t promise I won’t stalk you,” he added.

  

I hit him on the arm. “You—!”

  

He grinned smugly. “Like I said, I can’t help it.”

  

“I don’t believe that for a second,” I said, glaring at him. Argh! That smug grin was infuriating.

  

“No, really. We werewolves just can’t control our urges sometimes,” he said. Okay, now he was totally teasing. I hope. “We can’t help following pretty girls home.”

  

“You do know how creepy that sounds, right?”

  

“And we can’t help it when—” He leaned closer, not quite touching me. His arm had somehow slid casually across the seat back; I could feel the warmth inches from the back of my neck. “When we get the urge to—” Closer. His breath brushed my cheek.

  

He kissed me again.

  

I think his lips might have had mind-numbing powers, because despite my misgivings, I found myself sliding closer to him and putting my hands on his shoulders. I was still kind of cold, and the heat of his arms around me felt so good.

  

And I liked kissing him. A lot. Probably too much; it’d been, what, a week since we met? A week since I’d broken up with my boyfriend of two years. A detached part of my brain thought, oh my gosh, I really am a slut.

  

No you’re not, said the part of me that was pulling him closer, kissing him with enthusiasm. Ben broke up with you. You’re single. You can make out with whoever you want.

  

Okay, said my easily swayed sensible side, and kept kissing Paul.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to having her close to me. It’s like being high. Or how I imagine being high would feel, never having done drugs (Sam was firmly against it). My brain sort of went into overload, so my thoughts probably sounded something like Asksjfejijklnfjgjkjeripwqkd omigodi’mkissingangelaweber akjfhgnjkrew. And since my brain was out of it, my body went on autopilot and my hands started to roam, crushing her to me with hopefully enough room that she could still breathe, and exploring the curve of her waist and lower back, first on top of her shirt and then slipping under it.

  

She pulled away briefly when I did that, muttering, “I really shouldn’t do this.”

  

“Yeah,” said my mouth on autopilot.

  

The part of my brain that was still coherent was very pleased to note that she was the one who kissed me the second time.

  

We must have made out for quite awhile (Angela was careful not to let it progress to anything beyond kissing), because when we finally quit, she looked at her watch and said, “Oh crap. I’m gonna be late.”

  

Then I remembered she’d promised her mom to be back in time for dinner. Oops.

  

I slid back to the driver’s side, she straightened her hair and buckled her seatbelt, and I started the drive back to Forks.

  

For a long time, Angela was silent, and I wondered if it was going to be awkward, now that I’d told her about imprinting. But then she said, “Can I turn on the radio?” And when she found a station that wasn’t playing static, it was playing country.

  

I automatically made a face, but Angela giggled and said, “What are the odds?”

  

I listened closer. The female singer’s voice wailed, “This kiss, this kiss! It’s centrifugal motion, it’s perpetual bliss….”

  

And then I laughed too. Because the singer may have been some cowboy-hat-wearin’ country chick who knew nothing about me (and sang annoying twangy country music into the bargain), but damn, she had totally just described what it felt like kissing Angela.

  

Then Angela started talking, and I answered, and before I knew it, the conversation was flowing as easily as it had the previous night. As I listened to her talk about the time her brothers had tried to pierce their chihuahua’s ear with a safety pin and their mom’s pearl earring, I realized how weird it was that I liked listening to her talk. Listening to my former girlfriends had been like watching seagulls fight over a dead fish on the beach—grating on the ears and mildly nauseating. (I guess I didn’t exactly pick ‘em for their brains, but still.) With Angela, though, it seemed like every time there should have been an awkward silence, we managed to find something to fill the space.

  

At first, I’d thought we were polar opposites. But now I saw that we were more alike than we realized. And, in an unaccustomed flash of deepness, I understood that we each had something to learn from the other. I wasn’t really sure what it was yet, but I knew we’d find out someday.

  

After all, as Ginny would say, it was our destiny.

 

 

[Angela]

  

Over the next few weeks, Paul and I hung out a lot. I got to know his sister; she was really nice. Together, we took Paul shopping for some better clothes. He grumbled the entire time, but Ginny and I had a lot of fun.

  

I invited him over for dinner, which he grumbled about too. I think my parents sort of scared him. But he showed up dressed nicely in something Ginny must have picked out, acted polite and respectful, and almost convinced my parents that he wasn’t the wrong sort of guy for their daughter to be dating.

  

Of course, later when Mom and Dad weren’t around, he told me exactly how degrading it was to pretend to be the kind of guy he made fun of in high school, with a few swear words thrown in. I said, “Language, Paul.”

  

He said, “Shut up,” and kissed me.

  

Mom and Dad didn’t exactly approve. They said he was “trouble,” no matter how nice he acted when they were around. I couldn’t honestly tell them they were wrong, but I couldn’t stop seeing him either. The more time I spent with him, the less I wanted to stay away.

  

At one point, I realized that I was imagining him holding me as I tried to go to sleep, where before I’d always pictured Ben. In fact, I was thinking about Ben very little. Every time I started feeling depressed, Paul would come around and force me to think about something else, or call me up and tell me off-color jokes to make me laugh. My anger at Ben cooled—and with it, my romantic love toward him began to fade as well. I still loved him, of course, and missed him, but as a best friend, not as a boyfriend.

  

Somehow, Paul had managed to replace Ben in the boyfriend area, without me even meaning for him to. He was the one I spent my free time with, and called every night, and kissed goodnight on the front porch. When I thought about it, it was a little bewildering how fast he’d become an important part of my life.

  

I didn’t get it, really, how I could care for him. And at the same time, I couldn’t imagine how I functioned without him. He was sometimes crude, irreverent, a slob—the kind of boy I’d thought was icky in grade school. But he challenged me. He kept me from sinking into boring routine. And sometimes, I’d see flashes of something deeper than the jerk I’d first thought he was. He could be romantic if he really wanted to. Sometimes when we were talking, he’d say something poetic or deep, but the next minute he’d try to laugh it off. He saw it as weakness. I saw it as his redeeming quality.

  

Plus, though I hated to admit it, I was more attracted to him than I’d ever been to Ben.

  

At last I realized, not without a measure of terror, that I was falling in love with him. I always wanted him around, to cheer me up with his wicked sense of humor, to surprise me with some aspect of his personality that he’d kept hidden.

  

I tried to suppress the feeling. I couldn’t fall for someone again, not so soon, and especially not since I was moving in less than a month.

  

If I admitted I loved him, I didn’t know how I could bring myself to leave him.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

Angela was like the opposite of drugs, booze, and sex. The opposite of my wild wolf side. She made me feel clean. In her presence, it was easier to control my temper. I had fewer and fewer episodes of accidental phasing. I chewed gum instead of smoking.

  

Craziest of all, I actually went to church with her. It was so weird. Like, I didn’t know squat about the Bible or Jesus or any of that stuff (my parents proclaimed themselves superstitious atheists—they didn’t believe in God, but they went along with the tribal legends and stuff), but when I walked into her church, I understood. I knew why she had that aura of calmness about her. The church felt the same. The atmosphere breathed silence and respect and cleanliness.

  

What her dad talked about, I didn’t understand much of that. It was like a higher form of talking, with thee’s and thou’s and meanings that went way over my head. So I swallowed my pride and actually bought a Bible. It didn’t make a lot of sense at first, but the more I waded through the obscure-sounding text, the more I started to kind of get it.

  

That Jesus guy, he actually had some really smart ideas. I said this to Angela, and she was like, “Well, why do you think the Bible’s still the number one bestseller of all time?”

  

Wow. Jesus even beat Harry Potter. That was pretty amazing.

  

I found myself going voluntarily to church the following Sunday. My parents looked all weird and skeptical when I told them where I was going; the pack laughed at me and Embry called me whipped. But I found that I didn’t actually care. It was nice having something to believe in, you know? I liked the whole “faith” concept. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

  

And I liked sharing something with Angela. It was like a whole new connection to her opened up as I started to understand the things she’d believed in her entire life.

  

I was also starting to understand that there was much more to a relationship than the physical. Angela was the first girl I’d ever felt so close to emotionally. My perception of the imprint, at first, had been blind physical attraction. But it was changing. Much as it may sound like the kind of romantic crap Ginny’s always spouting, I was starting to feel a bond between my soul and Angela’s—an attraction to her mind rather than to her body.

  

It got so I could barely imagine my life without her in it. Embarrassing? Heck yeah. I was practically obsessed with the girl. So obsessed, in fact, that I managed to forget one important fact:

  

She was going to leave for college soon.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

As moving day rapidly approached, I started to worry about how to break it to Paul that I was going to be moving. Should I beg him to come with me, or would that be pathetic? What if he already knew, and this was just some kind of summer fling for him? What if the imprint wore off—or worse, what if it had been some kind of trick to get into my pants?

  

The only comfort in that idea was the fact that it at least hadn’t worked. So far.

  

Finally, with little more than a week to go, he called me up and invited me to a pack bonfire. They told stories, he said, and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. I swore to myself I’d bring up the subject then. Maybe he already knew, but I’d at least make him talk about it.

  

The bonfire was surreal. I sat close to Paul, his arm around my shoulders and mine around him, and for awhile I forgot where I was. I was in the time of the tribal legends, watching the stories unfold before my eyes. Paul shifted and coughed, having heard the story several times, and his movements helped me keep a grip on reality. Even so, I found myself tearing up when Billy Black described a particularly dramatic death.

  

I felt content, there in the warm circle of Paul’s arm, smelling smoke and hot dogs and burning marshmallow (the pack ate an obscene quantity of food—it was pretty gross to watch). It must have been cool outside our circle—I mean, this is the Olympic Peninsula we’re talking about here, even if it was late summer—but I felt nothing but warmth. Emotionally, too. There was so much love and camaraderie among the pack. The other girlfriends were really nice—Emily was sort of the pack den mother, controlling the boys when they got crazy, and quiet Kim was easy to like. The pack boys goofed off and basically acted like teenagers, but as I watched, I could tell they had a bond stronger than normal friendship. They were, as Embry jokingly put it, “brothers from another mother.”

  

It all made me seriously consider blowing off college and staying here.

  

I mean, college was important to me. I’d always wanted to go, and besides, I couldn’t get a decent teaching job without a degree. But that all faded away when I was handed a membership to the tightest-knit family I’d ever seen. Sure, they were dysfunctional and unpredictable and sometimes broke out in fur. But they knew each other inside out (they couldn’t really help it, according to Paul—when they were wolves, they could actually read each other’s minds) and they were always there for each other, to forgive and forget mistakes. For instance, Jacob, whom Paul teasingly called “Heartbreak Hotel,” had practically broken every pack rule of conduct because of Bella—and then tried to run away when she left. Yet the most they ever did was laughingly mention it in passing—they didn’t hold it against him at all.

  

I loved the atmosphere so much. It was the opposite of my calm, quiet home, where the only disturbance was my mom yelling at my brothers for being rowdy—but I loved it all the same. And I might as well admit it—I loved Paul, too. I loved having him close, loved the way he grinned when the smoke from the fire blew in my face and joked, “Smoke follows beauty, they say….” I loved everything about him, from his tough-guy front to his repressed-poet insides. I even loved the side of him that was (literally) a wild animal.

  

Paul bent down to mutter in my ear, “Penny for your thoughts.” His lips pressed to my temple.

  

I love him, IlovehimIlovehim. I closed my eyes briefly. “Paul, I have to talk to you. Can we walk?”

  

“Sure.” He stood up, taking my hand.

  

“Wooooooo! Off to make out, are we?” Jacob and Quil were raising their eyebrows suggestively, grinning like loons.

  

“Shut your face,” said Paul, glowering. The corners of his mouth were twitching, though, and I knew he wasn’t really mad.

  

Embry wolf-whistled. Emily punched him.

  

My face burned. I was suddenly three times as nervous about what I had to say. Maybe I could still back out—pretend like “talking” was just an excuse to get him away from the pack so I could kiss him.

  

We headed away from the campfire. The temperature dropped, the darkness intensified, and the laughing voices faded. I kept a tight hold on Paul’s hand, assuring myself he was still there.

  

“Paul, I—” How can I say it? How? “I just thought you should know…I’ve started packing. For college.” Just like that, I guess.

  

He froze; I felt the muscles in his arm tense up. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  

“I’m going away in a week. The fall quarter’s starting, and I’m going to move to the campus.”

  

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he demanded, sounding strangled.

  

“I, I did. Remember? I told you I was going off to college the day we met.”

  

“Yeah, but…God, I thought…can’t you stay?”

  

“I want to,” I said, my voice extremely small. “I love it here. Your friends are all so…and you, I mean, I don’t want to leave….”

  

“So don’t.” Paul’s voice was deep as thunder and nearly as ominous.

  

“I have to. My tuition’s paid. I’m signed up for all my classes, I’ve got a roommate…and I need to go to college. I have no future otherwise.”

  

“Future?” Paul was practically growling now. “Do you think I have any kind of future? I’m nineteen years old and can’t afford college. My parents are drunk half the time and I can’t hold down a job. Don’t whine to me about your future. Your folks at least have the money to support you.”

  

I let go of his hand. He was letting his anger get control of him again—I was worried he was going to phase. “Paul, don’t be like that. I—”

  

“You can’t leave me,” he said.

  

“Paul…I have to.”

  

Next thing I knew, the silver wolf was lunging at me amid the fluttering pieces of Paul’s shredded shirt.

 

 

[Paul]

  

I knocked her backward with the force of my change.

  

She staggered, regaining balance to face the wild animal that was me with wide eyes. She didn’t scream, but I could smell her fear, could almost hear her heart pounding.

  

I growled, irrational anger surging through me, and tensed to strike. I was an animal, a predator. She was prey.

  

I sprang, and she went down in a heap under me.

  

There was blood—I could smell it. It excited the wolf even more, even as the human part of me recoiled in horror. Had I killed her?

  

Then she raised her head. There was a scrape on her cheek where my claws had caught her. She seemed dizzy, but she managed to focus on me, her eyes blazing into mine. Her left hand shot out in front of my nose, warding me off and sending me the universal stop signal.

  

“Bad wolf!” she said loudly, her voice a little slurred. “SIT.”

  

Her brain may have been rattled, but her voice rang with command. I knew the tone. It was the voice she used with her brothers when they were being unruly—and the one my mom had once used on me, before she decided she didn’t care what the hell I did. I paused, backing down a little.

  

Angela took a deep breath, sitting up halfway but keeping her eyes on mine. “Come back,” she said, her tone softening. “Come back to me, Paul Rivers.”

  

That was what did it—the way she said my name with such conviction, not seeing me as a wolf, but as a person. Before I knew it, my fur was gone, and I was stark naked, crouching in front of her and shaking with the knowledge of what I’d almost done.

  

“Oh my God.” I put my face in my hands. “Angel, I’m so—”

  

“Naked,” she said matter-of-factly, and stood up, averting her eyes. “I’d better find you some clothes. You pretty much ruined those pants you were…wearing….”

  

Then she sank back down with a sigh, laid her head on her arm, and fainted.

  

Oh, crap.

  

The sentiment was echoed by Embry, who was sprinting toward me with a horrified expression. “Holy crap, Paul, what did you do?”

  

“I phased on accident,” I said. “I don’t think I hurt her too bad, but she hit her head and now she fainted and—” my voice was starting to rise in panic.

  

“Find some pants, Rivers,” said Sam, arriving right behind Embry. “I’ll take care of Angela.” He had that I’m-really-disappointed-in-you tone that made me cringe and go all defensive.

  

“Emily’s got a spare pair,” Embry said, kneeling to check Angela’s breathing.

  

“Be careful with her,” I growled at them, feeling sick with shame. I hadn’t been careful. I’d been stupid. I’d let my temper get away with me.

  

I went back to the fire. Emily gave me a spare pair of pants and a look of such sorrow that I felt like crawling under my bed and dying. I’d come too close to giving Angela a set of scars to match Emily’s, and Emily knew it.

  

Sam carried Angela to my pickup and laid her on the seat. “She’s coming out of it,” he said brusquely to me, adding, “You don’t know how lucky you are, Rivers.”

  

Then he left.

  

“My head kinda hurts,” Angela mumbled.

  

“Yeah, um, sorry about that.” I slid into the driver’s seat, brushing her hair out of the way so I wouldn’t sit on it. “No, lie down. I don’t want you fainting again.”

  

She shifted, scooting closer and laying her head on my thigh. I tensed, trying to keep my mind out of the gutter.

  

“I’m sorry. Does that bother you?” she murmured.

  

“Um….” Define “bother.” “I, I can drive all right….”

  

Her lips curved in a weak attempt at an evil grin. Oh, she knew what I was thinking all right.

  

I tried to relax, putting the truck into gear and heading home. Emily’s house was closer, but I didn’t want the pack around—and I definitely didn’t want to watch Sam and Emily relive their own experience with an out-of-control phase every time they looked at me and Angela.

  

I helped her into the living room. Thankfully, Mom and Dad had gone to bed already, and Ginny wasn’t around. I made her lie down on the couch and went to get her some Advil, trying to avoid what I knew was inevitable.

  

She sipped her glass of water thoughtfully, watching me as I paced in front of the TV. I couldn’t think of a good way to say what I had to.

  

Finally I just said it bluntly. “I could have killed you.”

  

“You didn’t,” she said calmly. “That’s all that matters.”

  

I sighed, coming over to kneel in front of her. I had to get this out. “Angel, maybe you shouldn’t be around me. I mean, I’m dangerous.”

  

“Well, okay,” she said, with a rather sarcastic expression. “I’ll move to Connecticut tomorrow then. And I’ll forget all about you and the way to shoved your way into my life and turned out to actually matter and made me think I might possibly want to—”

  

I stared. “Want to what?”

  

“Spend my life with you,” she whispered.

  

If I’d been standing, I think my knees would have given out.

  

She wants to spend her life with me.

  

The next thing out of my mouth was, bizarrely, “Connecticut.”

  

She gave me a confused look. “What?”

  

“Don’t move there. Please.”

  

“What about Bellingham?” she asked, her lip twitching as she fought a smile.

  

“Don’t go there either.” I knew I was being crazy, having just told her she shouldn’t be around me, but God, the thought of her moving away was horrible. Even if she was only like three hours away…three hours was too far.

  

“I have to. My parents already paid for my tuition.” She tilted her head to one side, smiling sadly at me. “I’d like to stay here with you, maybe force you to go to anger management classes—you totally need them, by the way. If college didn’t mean so much to me, I would.”

  

“If I was smarter, I could go with you,” I said miserably.

  

She brightened. “That’s a good idea! Why not?”

  

I looked away. “I’m poor,” I said bluntly. “I told you before. My parents don’t have the money to pay for college, and I can’t hold down a job long enough to save more than gas money. Not to mention I was lucky to graduate. I almost didn’t.”

  

“How come?” Angela asked curiously.

  

“Which? The job thing, or the graduating thing?”

  

“Both.”

  

I rolled my eyes. “Well, I keep getting fired from all my jobs because I apparently have—” finger quotes—“a ‘bad attitude.’ I scare people away. And as for school, it kinda helps if you show up once in awhile.”

  

“Yeah, it does,” she said, her voice lightening with suppressed laughter. “Paul, you are totally smarter than you think you are. What if you moved up to Bellingham with me and just didn’t start college at first? You could get some help for your temper, and that’d improve your attitude, and then you could keep your jobs long enough to save up for college. You could even see about applying for financial aid.”

  

“What about the pack?” I said.

  

She shrugged. “What about them? You told me you can choose to stop being a werewolf, right? You can stop phasing? And once you do that, you won’t be bound to them anymore. It’ll probably help your anger problems too, come to think of it…. I don’t mean give up your friends,” she added quickly, seeing my face. “I just mean…well, there’s nine of them, right? I’m sure they’ll be more than enough to protect this place.”

  

I knew she was right. Part of me wished I would stop coming up with excuses already. But the other part was dead terrified. Moving away from the rez meant change. It meant hard work and probably living on ramen for awhile. It meant I might even have to go to school again…ugh.

  

But it also meant I could be with Angela.

  

“I don’t know,” I said dubiously.

  

“Listen to her,” said Ginny. I jumped. She was standing in the doorway, looking like she’d been there awhile.

  

“She is totally right,” Ginny continued. “You need to go out there and make something of yourself. You can’t hang around here forever, running around getting into trouble with your pack—not if you want to have a future.”

  

“My pack?” Oops. So she’d heard that part of the conversation.

  

She laughed. “Paul, how dumb do you think I am, anyway? I’m pretty sure half the rez knows you guys are werewolves. They just don’t say anything. For me, it wasn’t hard to figure out. All the ruined clothes, the claw marks in your curtains, the pawprints on your bed…not to mention you reek like a dog.”

  

Angela laughed. “I told you, Paul. You kind of suck at keeping it a secret.”

  

“Anyway, the point is,” Ginny said, “I think you should try living on your own. See if you can find an apartment up there. Get a job. Apply for some scholarships, like Angela said. I think you’ll like it a lot better than sitting at home…or running around the forest in a fur coat.”

  

My resolve was weakening.

  

“And,” Ginny added, “if you get yourself a job and an education, you can actually support Angela once you guys get married.”

  

“What?” Angela and I said at once, turning various shades of red.

  

“Oh come on,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes. “It’s completely obvious. You two look at each other like you’re the only two people on the planet.”

  

“Ginny.” Marriage wasn’t exactly a top priority right now. Though, now that I thought about it, it would probably be the only way Angela would let me get past second base.

  

“Right. Leaving now. I will go into my room, lock my door, and turn up my music.” She smirked. “I will hear none of the fighting and/or making out that is likely to ensue.”

  

I threw a shoe at her. It thudded against the wall; she was already gone.

  

I turned to Angela, whose face was bright red. “So.”

  

“Will you? Come with me, I mean?” She looked at me anxiously, and I was gratified to realize that she actually wanted me to come.

  

“I….” I took another leap off the metaphorical cliff. “I’ll look into it tomorrow, okay?”

  

She surged up from the couch. Before I could tell her to lie back down, she’d thrown her arms around me and planted a quick, enthusiastic kiss somewhere in the vicinity of my mouth. “I love you!” she cried.

  

I paused. Did she just say…?

  

She somehow knew what I was thinking and pulled back, growing serious. “I do, you know,” she said softly. “More than I ever expected to.”

  

She loves me. Shelovesme.

  

“Me, too,” I managed. My brain had gone sort of fuzzy. “Can’t really help it.”

  

“Right. The imprint.” She looked down, biting her lip nervously before bursting out, “Can the imprint—I mean, does it—ever fade? Do you ever stop being imprinted on me?”

  

Oh my God. She thought— I couldn’t help laughing. “No, Angel, it never stops, not so far as I know. But I, um, wasn’t talking about the imprint.” I felt myself turning red. I always felt foolish, saying this kind of sentimental stuff.

  

She made a little noise of questioning.

  

“The imprint was only the start,” I explained, speaking quickly and mumbling a little. This was so embarrassing to say out loud. “Talking to you, getting to know you these past weeks…I’ve realized that I would have loved you even if the wolf wasn’t involved. The imprint forced us together, but I, um…” Damn. I might as well say it. “…I fell in love with you entirely on my own.”

  

Okay, yeah, huge sappy moment. Ugh. That annoying romantic self just wouldn’t stay in the dark depths of my brain where I usually kept it. Luckily, Angela kissed me then, and stopped me from saying anything worse. Stopped me from thinking at all, in fact.

 

 

[Angela]

  

I walked into Hollywood Video, and the first thing I heard was his voice.

  

“Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

  

Half a year ago, that polite tone would have been impossible for Paul. The words “have a nice day,” he told me, still stuck in his throat occasionally, especially when customers were irritating or rude.

  

Working in retail was good for him.

  

So was the anger management counseling we went to every other Thursday. I had to go with him because I suspected he would blow it off if I didn’t. We went to church together every Sunday, too. The services made me feel a little homesick for my dad’s little church in Forks, so I was glad for Paul’s presence. I knew he was still skeptical about some aspects of religion, but it was nice that he made an effort to understand the faith I’d been raised on. It helped us understand each other better, in a way.

  

He lived in an apartment with two other guys, Sander and Patrick. Both of them were college students and about as broke as he was. They threw crazy parties occasionally, but Paul tried to avoid those for my sake. I didn’t like him drinking—it loosened his control on his anger, and I shuddered to think what would happen if he phased in the middle of a crowded room.

  

My own dorm roommate, Charlene, was nice enough. She was messier than I would have liked, but didn’t laugh when she found out I slept with a teddy bear, and kept quiet when I was trying to study. My classes were challenging, but I liked that—I wanted to learn, and wasn’t as reluctant to study as some of my peers. Paul laughed at me and called me nerdy, but I liked to think my willingness to apply myself to my schoolwork set a good example for him and his job.

  

Whatever the reason, they hadn’t fired him yet, and didn’t seem about to either. In fact, he said, his boss had hinted he might be promoted to manager soon.

  

“Hey,” I said, grinning at him as I walked up to the counter.

  

“Angel!” He laced his fingers through mine, the only affection we were allowed to display when he was on the job.

  

“So, I was wondering,” I said, all casual. “My roommate’s going to be out this weekend, and I thought I would invite my boyfriend over for a movie night. Got any recommendations?”

  

He raised his eyebrows. “Extra-buttery popcorn?”

  

“You—!” I swatted his arm and laughed. “I meant movies.”

  

“Yeah, but you know I’ll just be staring at you the whole time. And eating popcorn.”

  

I blushed. “You’re terrible, Paul.”

  

“That’s why you love me.” He bent to kiss the back of my hand.

  

Then a customer approached, and he cleared his throat and straightened. “Pick a good movie for me to not watch,” he said, smirking.

  

*******

  

[Paul]

  

When I stepped into Angela’s dorm, I was again struck by how tiny the place was. Not like my apartment was that big, especially with three really messy guys living in it, but the dorms were like closets.

  

Then I noticed that the lights were off, and she had a couple of candles lit on her desk. Angela herself was bent over the computer screen, her hair hiding her face as she set up the DVD player program.

  

“Romantic atmosphere. Nice.”

  

She half-turned and smiled, pointing at a big bowl on the bed. “Extra-buttery popcorn, too.”

  

“Even better.”

  

She finally got the movie started, and came over to sit next to me. I slipped my arm around her, and she scooted close. I breathed deeply, enjoying the scent of her mixed with the flowery perfume she was wearing.

  

“Hey. Share the popcorn,” she scolded, reaching for it. I put the bowl between us, making a show of my reluctance.

  

The movie credits started, and the main title displayed. The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I smiled to myself. Angela was full of little surprises—just when I thought I had her figured, she would come out with some new weird thing she liked. Like this movie. Which happened to be one of Ginny’s and my favorites.

  

We watched the movie in comfortable silence. I managed to keep my eyes on the screen most of the time, but I still looked forward to the end, when she would let me kiss her without being annoyed that I was interrupting the movie.

  

Once it was over, we lay together on her bed, kissing softly and then not so softly, and as usual I had to force myself to stay in control. I wanted her, God, I could hardly stand how much I wanted her—but I loved her too much to force her into something she didn’t want to do.

  

The thing was, she wanted it as much as I did. She was just being stubborn on the whole no-premarital-sex issue. Which I, of course, totally respected. Mostly.

  

It wasn’t the most comfortable of conditions, anyway. We had to squeeze together since the bed was so narrow. I took up more than my half, being werewolf-size, so she ended up all squished against the wall.

  

“Your bed is too small,” I said after awhile, when we were taking a breather.

  

“It’s not too small for me,” she said coyly.

  

“Your dorm’s too small, for that matter,” I added, ignoring her. “Angel, you know what, you should move outta this place. Get an apartment. We could share it. There are some nice ones over on—”

  

“Paul,” she said, giving me a reproving look. “We went through this. I’m not moving in with you.”

  

“I know,” I sighed.

  

And then, I swear, it came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  

“Will you move in with me if I marry you first?”

  

“Of course,” she said promptly.

  

“…Oh.”

  

“Why? Are you asking?”

  

“Maybe. Will you say yes?”

  

She gave me a “duh” look. “What do you think?”

  

“Um.”

  

“Yes, you dork. Of course I’ll say yes.”

  

“Okay, then. Will you marry me?”

  

“Yes.”

  

“…Okay.”

  

“Okay.”

  

“Dang. I don’t have a ring to give you. I didn’t exactly plan this, you know.”

  

“Obviously.” Angela giggled. “That was pretty much the most unrehearsed proposal I’ve ever heard.”

  

“Wait, how many have you heard?”

  

“A whole lot.” She saw my look of panic and giggled some more. “In movies, you big lunk, not in person.”

  

“Oh.”

  

“But if it’s any comfort, that’s the only one I ever wanted to say yes to.”

  

“I love you,” I said, quite without meaning to. I was doing that a lot lately.

  

She got this funny look on her face, and then she kissed me hard, pressing dangerously close, hooking one of her legs over mine, her hands sliding over my back. When she pulled back, she whispered, “I love you too, and you know what? I’m starting to really hate my own morals because I want you now.”

  

Couldn’t’ve said it better myself.

  

“But we have to wait,” she added, and I thought, Dammit.

  

*******

  

[Angela]

  

I opened the window of our hotel room, looking out at the quaint main street of Leavenworth, Washington. The whole town was built in a Bavarian style, even the McDonalds. The smell of sauerkraut wafting through the streets, the mountain goats on the golf course, the actors dressed in clothes reminiscent of the cover of my old copy of Heidi, the touristy little shops everywhere—it was like stepping into another world, only there were a lot of sweaty people in tank tops and shorts who had come with us.

  

“Aren’t you glad you let me pick our honeymoon spot?” I said over my shoulder to my husband. Husband! I still felt funny saying it—but it was a good kind of funny.

  

“Angel. You’re making me sit through The Sound of Music tomorrow,” said Paul, rolling his eyes at me over his suitcase. “Do you think I’m happy?”

  

“I think you’re so ecstatic you can barely hold it in,” I said, turning to smile at him. “You just won’t admit it.”

  

“How’d you guess?” he said, resigned.

  

“’Cause it’s exactly how I feel,” I replied.

  

He got that look in his eye—the smoldering I’m the wolf, you’re my prey, prepare to be devoured look that made me shiver in anticipation. “Come here.”

  

I wanted nothing more than that, but I played cool. “Make me,” I murmured, smirking in what I hoped was a sexy way.

  

He shoved the suitcase off the bed and stalked toward me, looking so intense I felt a twinge of fear. If we were back in the first days of our relationship, I would have thought he was about to phase. But he hadn’t phased in months, and he said he didn’t plan on doing it ever again.

  

He pinned me against the window, his breath hot on my neck. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to piss off the big bad wolf?” he whispered.

  

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to beat your wife?” I retorted.

  

Our lips met, and the feeling between us spiked until it was nothing less than raw passion. The feelings we’d both been suppressing for ages came rushing to the surface, and the buttons of Paul’s shirt melted away under my fingers until I could push the hindering fabric off his shoulders. He was likewise occupied with removing my clothes.

  

We made it to the bed without even stopping for breath. “Love you,” Paul gasped, and I replied in kind, welcoming him into my body and soul with a level of enthusiasm that almost overrode the pain and awkwardness of our first time.

  

We had time to practice. It was the second week of summer. School was out, Paul had a three-week vacation from his job, and the stress of wedding plans had finally been concluded yesterday. A simple ceremony, in Daddy’s church, with the groom’s parents, my closest family members, and nine werewolves. Ginny had come over from Pullman to be my bridesmaid and flirted outrageously with the pack.

  

Our whole future lay ahead of us, bright as the Washington sun after a shower of rain. Paul had managed to get a scholarship for next fall—he was thinking of studying to be a lawyer. The first three months’ rent was paid in advance on the little apartment near the college we were planning to share. In the distant future there were children, and a dog named Wolf, and a house with a long, winding driveway. Someday, there’d be big, rowdy family reunions with the pack.

 

But for now it was just the two of us, our world narrowed to the space of the queen-sized hotel bed, together in every way possible.