Paul's POV
"You'll like him," I reassure.
"Didn't Paul get a month long suspension for getting into a bad fight two months ago?" Kim squirms in her chair.
"Yeah, he did," I freeze in mine, remembering how Sam had to get involved with the principal because that's when Paul first started to turn. I might have been able to help, but I was already pulled out of school from changing the week before. "That wasn't Paul's fault." I add.
Well, it was his fault. He did start it. But he couldn't control himself.
"Paul is doing a lot better," I barely believe myself as I say it. Paul is less volatile, but he still has a lot to work on. "He's pretty funny, you know."
We wait at my kitchen table at my mom's house, the library not seeming very Paul friendly. Actually, Paul isn't very big on libraries; he'd get kicked out if he gets too frustrated. Emily's and Sam's was also out because Kim still doesn't know about the legends, and she's still weirded out by how Emily first invited her over. So my place was next. Quiet enough, not too stimulating, and my mom bought extra snacks to keep Paul and I docile as puppies.
"You two hangout a lot?" Kim harmlessly asks, organizing her sticky notes. At first I thought it was cute, but after she confessed to me about she struggles in school, now I notice how she anxiously color codes her cards.
"He's like a brother to me now."
"You two weren't really close before," Kim pauses, eyeing my short hair. I can tell by the look in her eyes she's connecting the dots, it's the same look she gets right before answering in class. The whole school has noticed it too. One day I just stopped coming to school for a whole month, a week later Paul disappeared too. We both stopped talking to our friends, stopped going to classes, stopped being normal. When we did show up we've both cut our hair and had matching tattoos.
"Now you guys are always together." Kim observes.
"We're um," The wolf in me takes advantage of my panic and tries to leap up to the surface. I stifle the deep growl with a nasty sounding fake cough. Kim lets me have a minute, not realizing how I'm struggling to keep my breathing even and my head leveled.
"Paul and I are both going for anger management." I finally settle on the safest lie I can think of. Now I have to tell Paul he's has to lie about anger management till I tell Kim she's my imprint. Her face slips, her jaw nearly dropping before she catches herself and smoothes it out.
"Oh." She nods. "Group therapy?" She pauses before adding in a small voice, "Court order?"
"Sure, kind of like group therapy." I go along it, "Hey, don't bring it up to Paul if you can."
"Of course. I won't tell anyone." And I know she wouldn't.
She drops it, and I try not to feel too guilty how she believes my bullface lie. It gives me a dull ache in my body, and my heart drops to my stomach. Worse of all, it makes me feel farther away from Kim. How instead of getting closer, I'm just ruining everything before anything happens. Just when it gets too difficult to look Kim in the eyes, I hear Paul pulverize through the tree line. Faking a stretch, I see him through my kitchen window over the sink, transforming back in the middle of my yard.
"What's up, Cameron?" The screen door claps hard against my house as Paul lets himself in, helping himself to a fistful of chips as he drops down into a chair. He nudges his chin at Kim, "Nice seeing you again, Mrs. Cameron."
I hear the uneven, hard pound of her heart in her chest before her face goes red. So red it makes the freckles across the bridge of her nose vanish. Trying to bite down a grin, I shove his shoulder in warning, "Knock it off, Lahote."
It takes a long minute before Kim recovers, her ears still red even as they poke out from under her brown hair. When she does finally speak up, she points out "Did you not bring your backpack?"
"Uhh..." Paul's smirk falls, freezing up in his seat midair as he leans back. "Shit."
"Do you need to borrow a pencil?" I try, noticing the paniked look on Kim's face only deepen. A werewolf can't run with a backpack on.
"Lets take a break." Paul smirks mischievously.
"It's been twenty minutes." Kim doesn't even look up from her work, busy crossing out a practice problem for Paul's upcoming biology test on water transplants. She's been doing that one problem the entire time. I'm beginning to understand what she meant by not being naturally bright, but rather earning her grades through sheer hard work.
I've never noticed before. Mostly because I didn't notice Kim till I imprinted on her.
"Perfect time for a break." Paul rises up, but I clap a hand on his shoulder and force him back down.
"Don't you have an overdue paper on Romeo and Juliet?" I raise a brow at him.
"Why don't you write out a rough draft?" Kim offers, finally taking a break from the problem by raising her head.
"I haven't even read it." Paul admits with a shrug. Paul sees the look on my face and defends himself. "It's not like we don't know how it ends."
That finally breaks Kim, and she regrettably agrees to a break. Paul is jumping up from his seat before we can even put our pencils down. "You're the best teacher ever, Mrs. Cameron."
"Thanks again for doing this." I say the minute Paul heads out to my garage to grab a few cans of soda. All for him probably.
"Do you guys joke about it a lot?" I do a double take at her, realizing I've been mistaking her worry face this whole time when it was a frown.
"Joke about school? Sometimes, but not right no—."
"Not that." She shakes her head. Her cheeks go red again when she brings it up. "My doodle..."
"Your doodle?" I ask, my face knotting up in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"That stupid scribble you saw in my notebook." I do a face at her, still confused. Then it hits me! The doodle! The last time I saw Kim before my change I caught her scribbling 'Mrs. Kim Cameron + Mr. Jared Cameron forever.' in a heart.
"Don't laugh!" She gasps when I immediately start smiling ear to ear at the memory.
"I'm not laughing." I wag my brows at her, which makes her go redder. I can't stop grinning, going warm all over. Am I blushing? I'm too happy to care.
"No, I didn't tell anyone about that." I didn't get a chance to, given how I went through the change that same night. "That's not what's Paul is teasing about, I promise." I reassure her, pressing my right palm squarely in the middle of my chest like an oath.
"Then...what's he's teasing about?" She asks, her ears brighter than her face. I love how she flushes. The rosy hue against her tan skin makes her look deliciously red and inviting. I just want to press my lips against each ear, follow the red down her neck and see how red she turns.
"Just Paul being Paul." I lazily shake my head, trying to shake the grin off my face. I've been positively beaming for the last five minutes. This whole time it felt like I've been stupidly and madly in love with a girl who I missed my chanced with and now I'm just her friend. But now, nothing feels more right, because Kim's feelings for me are not me conniving her, it's just us.
I don't have to keep worrying about whether or not if she's likes me. She's mine. She already does. And she has all of me too.
"You're making Googly eyes." Paul gags as he wonders back in. He's already downed a whole can of soda from just the walk between the garage and the kitchen.
"Make googly eyes at your homework." I quip, smirking at Kim. She looks like she wants to laugh, but holds it down behind a shy grin.
"So, about my Shakespeare paper." Paul tries to give Kim one of his winning crocked grin. The one he gives teachers when he tries to get out of detention. "How about we just watch the movie, and call it day?"
"Which version?" I ask without thinking, ready to ignore the rest of my assignments. Over the table, Kim gives me a disapproving look which I just counter with my own innocent grin.
"It could help. Visual learning." I try to convince her.
"That's like watching Clueless for your paper on Emma." The anxious look in her eyes tells me she knows she's out numbered.
"We can watch half of clueless and half of Romeo and Juliet." Paul bargains. She thinks it over, staring at the unfinished work on the table.
"Half of Romeo and Juliet, but then you have to write half your paper." She offers sheepishly, giving in. Paul groans but agrees, loading up all the snacks in his arms to bring them to the living room.
"He likes you." I tell Kim who looks taken aback. "See, I told you he wasn't so scary." I can tell my friends liking her makes her happy, it makes her sit up straighter and less shy. Which makes me happy.
"Paul, we're taking notes during the movie." She calls, which is answered by a deep groan. She doesn't look timid at all as she brings him a spare pen and paper.
The moment she disappears around the door I reach over for her notebook, flipping through like a magazine. When I find what I'm looking for I smile to myself.
As carefully as I can I tear the little heart with 'Mrs. Kim Cameron + Mr. Jared Cameron forever.' Out of her notebook. Stashing it in my pocket, I clutch it in my hand, smiling to myself.
The sooner I tell her, the sooner we can start our forever.