Hello! Welcome back. I'm really, really loving you guy's reaction to my story so far. I also have enjoyed writing it as well. And obviously, I have been loving creating the character of Anna and her strong friendship with Josh as well as her developing attraction and feelings for Aidan (he's really hot, right?). This chapter will start with some Sally/Aidan interaction (same thing as what ended last chapter) and then move on from there.

Enjoy and I own nothing (damn!).

...

Sally gaped at her roommate, feeling a mixture of pride and surprise at what he had told her. Well, not that much surprise, really.

Aidan had told her everything about what had been going through his mind about a certain she-wolf (except for the explicit stuff because she so did not need to hear that). He had told her about the drive that got interrupted by Anna's need to lose her breakfast in a bush and the following drive to her apartment that resulted in her inviting him up to her place and him saying both yes and no.

Sally wished she was more surprised at this. The night she and Aidan had met Anna for the first time, she had watched the vampire eye their houseguest like one would a juicy steak. She could roll her eyes at how obvious he was being (being 200-years-old and all, you'd think he'd have more finesse). Salle even caught on to the fact that Josh had even noticed his immortal roommate eye-fucking his new friend. Of course, it was Josh and he didn't say anything. If only just to keep the evening about welcoming Anna into the fold and all that.

And after she had disappeared when Josh had gone to the store, it seemed something had shifted between Aidan and Anna (who, bless her, stayed put to take the load off Josh's back and help wash dishes). It seemed everytime Anna would move to sit or stand anywhere, Aidan would waste no time in staying by her side. Granted, he had been more subtle about it then earlier in the evening so, it had taken Sally a little while to recognize the possessive dog and pony show he was putting on.

"So, that explains it, then." Her voice had an 'aha!' quality to it that made Aidan's dark eyebrows quirk upward.

"What?"

"Come on. Like you don't know." The ghost stared at him, waiting for a lightbulb moment, and when it didn't arrive, her eyes visbly widened. "Oh my god, you don't."

"Don't what, Sally?" His voice held an exasperation at being kept out of the loop about something he was apparently supposed to already know.

"Seriously! Your such a guy. You should have totally figured this out by now!" Sally was almost boucing in her sit. She seemed both excited and aggitated, which only served to darken Aidan's irritation and apparent oblivion.

"What are you talking about?"

She smiled widely, in the way that she did. "Your in love with the she-wolf."

And then, you could hear a pin drop.

It was minute. A silent minute where her friend stared at her like she had grown a second head.

And then he got up and began moving towards the door, only for Sally to mist in front of him again. "Oh, come on. Come on. You know I'm right." She tried feebly to block his way but, he inevitably just walked through her. "Where are you going?"

"Out." And then, all she heard was the door slam.

That went well.

...

Anna was studying at her kitchen counter, her book open and a notebook at the ready for her notes, her ipod jammed in her ears to drown out distracting thoughts and sounds.

She loved studying. Just being by herself researching and writing answers down after reading through something soo thoroughly gave her an innate sense of satisfaction. And it also helped that she got nearly excellent grades when she did study. Which, given her lack of a social life, was all the time. So, luckly for her, grades were the least of her worries.

That and she had an exam in a couple of days. Never hurts to be prepared. And it also kept her mind off of certain things (or in this case, people).

Or a certain person. A certain person who had said he wanted to come up to her place and then recanted, saying he wasn't going to and then-

Stop. Just stoppit, Anna.

She really did not wanna think about this. Especially now. She didn't want to think about the look on his face when she had asked him if he wanted to come up to her apartment or the way his gaze slid over shamelessly and thrillingly...

Anna looked down at her open book.

Art History. Her favorite subject.

And she couldn't even focus on it.

Dammit!

Before she could indulge more in her thoughts or attempt to continue her feeble route of distraction, she noticed her phone light up next to her. The music in her ears made it difficult to hear but, she could see it was ringing.

Grabbing it, Anna could almost slap herself at her initial hope that it was Aidan, shaking it off before snapping her phone open and grinning nonetheless at the name she saw blinking on the small screen.

Putting her phone to her ear, she greeted her friend. "Hi Josh."

"Are you okay?" His voice sounded urgent and extremely concerned through the phoneline.

"Gee, that's one hell of a greeting. Whatver happened to 'hello' or 'hey, what's up' or-"

"Anna!" He cut her off impatiently.

"Yes! Yes. I'm okay. I'm fine. Why?" Anna grabbed a nutri-grain bar near her bag, suddenly in need of a snack.

"Aidan called me."

Son of a bitch.

"And what did dear Aidan say to you?" She fought an instinctual shiver at his name on her tongue and managed to keep her voice nonchalant and dripping with sarcasm.

"I think you know what he said to me." The slightly crackling quality of the line was suddenly clear and she could hear the demand in his voice that called for honesty.

Anna sighed in resignation. "Oh, here we go."

"Yes. Here we go. I told you could call me if anything happened today. If you feel mad, call me. If you feel sad, call me. If you feel the need to cry and throw up in a goddamn bush-"

"Call you. I get it." She almost felt like chuckling but, thought the better of it.

"I mean it, Ann." They hadn't been friends that, that long but, he was the only one allowed to call her by that nickname. The only other person had been her bitch of a foster mother.

"I know. I'm sorry I worried you. I just wanted to handle... this on my own." She made sure he heard her apologize sincerely in her voice.

There was deep sigh from his end of the line. "It's fine. I just... your not alone. You hear me? You can come to me. You can talk to me and I'll listen."

She felt tears in her eyes.

How did she ever deserve such a great best friend?

"Thanks, Josh."

She heard shuffling, indicating he was walking. "Your welcome. Listen, I gotta go. My shift ends in an hour and after, I'm headed home to change and I have a thing with Nora tonight. Are you sure your gonna be okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. You go. Have fun on your date." Her voice came out brighter as she tried injecting light into their conversation.

He obviously got the hint because he chuckled and said mischieviously. "Oh, I will."

She laughed quietly. "Bye, Josh."

"Bye." And they both hung up.

Going back to her studies, she got as far as pressing her pen barely onto her paper before she heard the knock at her door.

Who the hell would wanna visit me now?

Hopping off her counter stool, Anna walked over to the door, hearing another couple of harder knocks.

"Calm down. I'm coming." She said loudly as she neared.

The knocking ceased and when she leaned up to look into her peephole, her breath hitched.

Aidan.

...

A/N: HA! HA! I know. I'm bad. I honestly wasn't planning on teasing you guys soo early in the story but, as I was writing this chapter, I suddenly had the idea to end on a mini-cliffy. Hope you don't hate me for this. And if you think I suck, just be nice about it.

Anyway, love you guys. Please review!