He hesitated for a split second, something I probably wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't know him so well, before turning to look and me and responding. "Where did you hear that?"

His eyes had widened and his breathing had picked up slightly, again something I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't known him almost better than I knew myself. He sounded angry although I could tell he was trying to hide it.

"Embry, although I don't see why it matters. What is it?"

He hesitated once again, and then turned his attention back to the TV. "It's not important."

Now I was starting to get angry. Why wouldn't they tell me? Jake and I never kept things from each other.

Well, except for my recently increasing inappropriate thoughts about him. But that was different.

"Jake, what is it?"

"Seriously, Ness," he said, turning his gaze towards me once again, "it's just a stupid wolf thing. Don't worry about."

Part of me thought he was lying. He seemed relatively calm now but when I first asked him about it, his reaction led me to believe it was more than he was letting on. However, the other part of me believed him. Jacob had never lied to me before so I had no reason to believe he was lying to me now.

I decided to drop it and bring it up again later or maybe talk to my parents and see if they knew. Or Seth. Maybe Seth would tell me.

"Ok, Jake," I said.

"Ok?" he asked, looking at me like I was crazy. "Just ok? Since when do you ever drop something that quick? You're pretty much the most stubborn person I know."

I shrugged. "You're my best friend. I trust you. If you say it's nothing, then it's nothing."

I half believed what I was saying. I did trust him but I still had this sneaking suspicion he wasn't telling me something. I figured if he was lying, what I had just said would make him feel guilty and maybe he would tell me.

When he didn't respond, I got up, my glass of water in hand. "Goodnight, Jake."

"G'night, Ness," he answered.

I woke up the next morning, almost afternoon, around 11:50. I stayed in bed for a few moments enjoying the fact that I had just slept so late since tomorrow was Monday and I'd be back to getting up early again.

When I finally got out of bed, I decided to go ahead and take a shower. After I had done that, dried my hair, and gotten dressed, I decided to check my e-mail to see if maybe Charlie had written me back after I had e-mailed him yesterday.

I logged on to see that he had. He talked about how he, Sue, Leah, and her husband Jason had went out to dinner last night. He told me that Leah and Jason had gotten approved by the adoption agency and I made a mental note to call them and congratulate them.

After writing a brief e-mail back to Charlie, my stomach growled and I went into the kitchen and grabbed an apple.

I heard the sound of the TV in the living room and I rounded the corner to see Jake on the couch, just like he was last night. I sat down next to him and took a large bite out of my apple.

He turned to look at me and I held my hand with the apple in it out to him. "Wanna bite?" I asked.

I usually asked him if he wanted a bite of the stuff I was eating and most of the time he would say no thanks, for me to eat it.

Which is why it surprised me when he took a bite. Only he didn't take the apple out of my hand. He leaned forward and just bit it, his gorgeous lips and perfect teeth not even inches from my hand.

When he leaned back, there was juice running down the left side of his mouth onto his chin and I swear I have never wanted anything more in my life than to lean in and lick it off.

I knew if I didn't look away from him right then that I would probably do just that so I quickly turned my attention to the TV. It was on a commercial.

"What are you watching?" I asked, trying to get myself to calm down.

"Harry Potter marathon," he answered with a slight smile.

"Nerd."

"Oh, like you're not going to sit here and watch it with me."

I laughed. "Never said I wasn't."

We continued to watch the movies for a few minutes and I then realized how quiet the apartment was.

"Where is everyone?" I asked.

"Seth is at the gym, then going to the store since it's his week to get groceries," he began. "And Embry is out to lunch with some girl he met. I told him not to go to lunch with her, to call her and change it to dinner, because a lunch date is the quickest way to the friend zone."

I let out a little laugh and rolled my eyes. "Oh wow, Jake, quoting Ryan Reynolds from Just Friends, how witty. That movie is like ten years old."

"I'm not trying to be witty, it's true."

It then hit me that we were all alone in the apartment. Sure, we had been alone here many times before, but this felt different somehow. Probably because I had come so close to jumping his bones earlier.

"My hands are sticky," I announced as I got up and went to the kitchen to wash the apple juice from my hands. After I had gotten all of the sticky juice off, I gripped the sink and took several calming breathes.

Get a hold of yourself, Ness. This is Jacob Black, your best friend since birth. You do not want to lick apple juice from his chin.

After I had chanted that in my head several times, I turned off the water and returned to the living room.

Jacob's POV

When she came back from the kitchen, I had my arm across the back of the couch and she sat next to me and curled into my side, like she always did. I moved my arm to drape across her shoulders and brought her even closer to me.

I knew she was probably still a little angry at my dismissal of her question last night, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell her about imprinting. I made the decision shortly after she was born that when the time came, if she wanted to be with me, that it would be because she truly loved me and not because she felt like she had to be with me because of some weird werewolf magic.

We had always been closer to each other than we were to everyone else, but thankfully she had never questioned why. She had never questioned why we couldn't stand to be away from each other for more than a day at the most.

When Nessie was four, or around thirteen depending on how you looked at it, the Cullens decided to take a trip to visit their friends in Denali. The first night they were gone, I got a phone call in the middle of the night from Bella, worried because Nessie had a nightmare and woke up on the verge of a panic attack and kept asking for me. I got on the phone and managed to calm her down and the next day, she, Bella, and Edward got on the first plane home. I never told anyone but Nessie that I had also had nightmares and woke up and couldn't breathe. It was like our bodies knew when we weren't close. That was the first and last time we had ever been more thirty minutes away from each other. If I was in La Push and she was in Forks we were fine, but any farther was pushing it.

It wasn't until the last six months that my feelings for her had started to change. I remember just looking over at her one day and being completely blown away by how beautiful she was. I found myself getting increasingly jealous whenever she would touch Embry or Seth, even though I knew she didn't have feelings like that for them. Whenever we hugged, I would hold on longer than necessary.

There had been so many times I had been tempted to tell her about imprinting, to tell her that she belonged with me, but I didn't want her to feel forced into loving me.

We continued to watch the movie for the next thirty minutes until Seth came in the door.

"There are still some groceries in my car, would guys mind grabbing them?" he asked, his arms full of sacks of food, as he headed toward the kitchen.

I inwardly groaned as I got up, missing the warmth of Nessie's skin against my side already. While I was slightly warmer than her, she was the only one, other than the other wolves, who even felt remotely warm next to me. I made my way to Seth's car, following behind Nessie, and grabbed several bags of groceries.

After bringing the groceries up to the apartment and setting them down in the kitchen, I returned to the living room, only to find Seth sprawled out on the couch, remote in hand.

"What are you doing?" Nessie asked. When we had established the rules of the apartment, so to speak, we decided whoever got the groceries for the week also had to put them up.

"I already put up all the stuff that needed to be refrigerated, I'm just watching a little TV."

If there was one thing Seth was good at, it was procrastination.

"Yeah, well, me and Jake were watching something so move," she told him.

He shook his head and continued to channel surf. "You guys both have TV's in your own room, I don't."

"C'mon, Nessie," I said, moving to touch her arm, "we can watch TV in my room. Let's leave Seth alone so he can focus on his procrastination."

Seth rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored us as we turned to go down the hallway and into my room. She threw herself on my bed and I grabbed the remote and did the same. I quickly changed the channel to the Harry Potter marathon and scooted closer to her, enjoying the feeling of being so close.

I was hit with the realization of how easy it would be for me to just roll over and have her beneath me, every inch of her body pressed into mine. I would lean in and kiss her and run my hands down her side and she would thread her fingers through my hair. When we needed air, I could drag my lips down her perfect neck-

I made myself stop. Those kinds of fantasies were not helping my self-restraint. I forced myself to focus on the movie and not on how amazing she felt next to me or how good her hair smelled.

Nessie's POV

I must have fallen asleep sometime because the next thing I knew, the room was dark except for the sliver of light that was coming in through the bottom of the door.

The first thing I noticed was that Jake wasn't in the room anymore. The second thing I noticed was how stiff my neck was. I quickly sat up, twisting my neck from side to side and stretching my arms above my head.

I was planning on just laying there and watching the movie that was still on but then I realized how thirsty I was. After getting up and stepping out into the hallway, I heard voices coming from the living room.

"You seriously need to tell her," I heard Embry say.

"Why?" Jake asked. "Please, tell me one good reason why that is a good idea."

"She has a right to know!" Embry exclaimed.

I don't know why, since I could hear just fine from where I was, but I started inching down the hallway, closer to the living room.

"Seriously, man," Seth started, "just tell her. She really does have the right to know."

"I don't want her to hate me," Jake said. He sounded upset.

"Nessie could never hate you," Embry told him.

My breath caught. They were talking about me?

I heard Jake sigh, and then Embry spoke again. "Look, I really am sorry I said anything about it, I wasn't thinking. But maybe it's for the best, you know? Maybe she'll be happy."

I still found myself dangerously inching down the hallway, for some reason anxious to see Jake's face. I hated when he was upset and I just wanted to comfort him, even if there was apparently something he wasn't telling me.

Before I even had time to react, I heard Jake get up and he headed towards the hall. I tried to make it back to his room, but I wasn't quick enough. I was too distracted to really utilize my half-vampire speed.

"Nessie?" I heard him say behind me.