Chloe's POV:

I'm never drinking again.

Getting up for my shift at the library was god awful and near impossible. My mouth tasted rancid from the mixed drinks, my body was sweaty, and my head pounds even now. I slept in late, of course, and mustered up a quick but needed shower. I brushed my teeth for probably four minutes because I had to rush out the door to make it on time. My boss is a really sweet older woman from the Res, loosely related to the Clearwaters. She's tanned from her native roots and had beautiful long black hair which remains in a long thick braid down her back. I never want to disappoint her and I know my help is needed, so I'm never late. Typically I'm even early, but not today.

Luckily my job is quiet and I don't interact with people too often, so I've been nursing this hangover for hours now. I've focused myself on the task of going through all the returned books from the weekend and I've set up for the children's after school reading session too.

I was so busy this morning I nearly forgot of how much of a fool I made myself out to be last night. It was really bad.

I've drank plenty of times before at social gatherings, but rarely do I get that drunk. This was definitely the first time I've done something so vile while drunk. Normally I just get happy and tired, sleeping a heavy nights sleep. Last night though I was looking for trouble. Begging for it if I remember right.

I inwardly cringe at the memories, wishing so damn badly they'd go away. Clearly I wasn't drunk enough to blackout, unfortunate for me.

The worst part is Quil was stone cold sober. He'll remember every last detail of what I did.

I'm willing to blame it all on the imprinting. My drunk mind was horny and begging to give into what my sober brain wants to avoid, Quil. He wasn't even trying to take advantage of my happy mood though, he was gentle but firm. He did not want me to regret something today. Well he was right, but I just had to push him.

A hot blush scorns my cheeks and I look around to see if anyone's nearby to notice how flustered I am.

I cannot believe for the life of me that I made Quil Ateara cum in his pants so quickly.

Oh god, Quil is definitely pissed today. Pissed I got drunk and crawled into his bed. Pissed I touched him so lovingly. Pissed I made him cum..in his pants. Fuck.

He's either going to avoid me like the plague or torment me for months about this. I think I embarrassed him so much that it'll be the first option. I shouldn't care that he'll ignore me, but I feel so guilty that I do care. I really could not take a damn hint and I've gone and took it too far. Sober me would never, sober me hates drunk me.

I already made it a plan to apologize today, whether I'll cry about it later or not. He deserves and apology for all of it and I'm not so shitty that I would just let it go.

I went to Bella's just to hang out and have some girl time, it was supposed to be innocent fun. She mentioned she had a whole pack of seltzers in the fridge and offered me them. She had just two while I guzzled down five and went full on drunk mode. We did have a good chat though. She told me about how she's going to take things slow with Edward and see how she feels. I told her about my talk with Quil. I made it a point somewhere between drink two and four that I would talk to Quil about the ugly comment. I didn't want that to stew for very long. The idea of me making someone feel insecure eats me up inside. I had to tell him it wasn't true, I just did not need to go about it quite how I did.

"Honey." Mrs. Lisa's voice sounds from behind me. She walks with a cane now as of this year, but her energy stays strong. She's really into herbal remedies and always insists I need to come get some lessons on herbal health from her. "I'm going to get going, I have an appointment I need to make. Are you alright to lock up?" She smiles kindly.

I nod quickly. "Of course I can, anything you want me to work on while I'm here?"

She shakes her head, patting my shoulder. "No, you always do great work. I'll so you tomorrow and I'll bring you some tea." She smiles before walking towards the door.

"Have a good night!" I call softly, not wanting to disrupt the few people let in here. I start on my walk around the library, trying to do a little tidying up where it's needed. Mostly everyone cleans up their books, but sometimes kids leave a few books on the tables or on the floor. I scoop up a few books from the floor and begin searching for their place on the shelf. It took me a while, but I almost have this place memorized. It's difficult because it's rather large, but it has a simple pattern of sections. I really enjoy the children's section because it's so colorful and fun. Mrs. Lisa bought little tables and colorful rugs so the kids can have a fun place to learn.

"Hey you." I nearly jump out of my skin as I leap around to see Jake chuckling behind me.

I look around to see if I've startled anyone, but no one is paying attention to me. "God Jake, you scared me." I place a hand on my pounding chest, trying to calm down. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "I was hoping to run into you, see how things are going." I raise an eyebrow at him, searching his face for any indication as to what he's talking about.

"For the first time in months you want to see how things are going?" I retort, turning my back to him so I can finish placing these books on the shelves.

He sighs heavily, moving to my side. "I know you're pissed, I get it." He says quietly. "It's shitty what we have to do, it's hard on us too. We don't want to push away our friends, but this is all a big deal. It's not some little secret, it's our lives now. It's dangerous, yanno? We wouldn't want to bring you into that unless you were stuck being a part of it."

I pretend I'm too busy for him, but I'm listening. I understand why they did it, but it doesn't make up for the months of me being miserable. "I hear you Jake, but it doesn't make things okay all of a sudden."

"I know that." He says quickly. "We can't expect for you to just forgive us." He pauses, following me down the stack of books. "Look, Kim's not doing so well."

I pause my work, turning to him as worry swarms inside of me. "Is she sick?"

He shakes his head. "She's not sick, but she's miserable. She's been miserable for a while now. I know you were feeling the same and you want to blame her, but she wasn't just moving on without you. She's been cooped up in the house nearly everyday since you two stopped talking. She's hardly eating and she's not spending a lot of time with Jared even, he's worried about her too. I can see and hear his thoughts and memories, I can tell you she's not doing so well."

My shoulders slump slightly as I listen. I don't want Kim to be miserable because of me, though I can argue and say that she's the reason I was during those hard times. I honestly don't know how to feel about it. "Well she hasn't reached out and she knows I know." I counter argue.

He nods his head once. "Yeah, but how do you think you would have reacted to her? She probably thinks you're firstly still overwhelmed, and secondly still pissed."

"If Jared's so worried why isn't he here?" I question, putting the final book away before fully turning to him.

He sighs, looking at the ground. "Kim won't let him, she doesn't want you to get even more pissed. Look I know it's not really my business, but I want you both to be better and happy. We miss the both of you." He clasps his hands together.

I shrug my shoulders, sighing. "Look Jake, I still don't know how I feel about anything. I have a lot on my mind, but thanks for telling me." I start walking towards the main lobby area and he follows me. I look up to see Bella walking in with a bag, holding it up for me to see. My face brightens as I see her, waving my hand.

"Hey, I figured you might be hungry." She passes me the little paper bag and I pull it open to find a donut.

"Aw thanks." I beam at her.

I catch Jake smiling at Bella from the side of my eye. "Hey Bells, where have you been?"

She shrugs, folding her arms over her chest. "Eh, things have been busy. I've been meaning to stop by though." She smiles back at him. "Hey how's Billy doing?"

I walk away to let them catch up, headed towards the main desk. I quickly eat my donut while closing out of the horribly old computer system. It hardly works and it's awfully slow, but Mrs. Lisa says she won't know how to use an updated desktop or laptop, so I make it work. I clean up my work station and by the time I'm done Jake's headed out and Bella's approaching me.

"How was your night? Are you hungover today?" She chuckles a little, resting her hands on the counter.

I sigh heavily, nodding. "Oh yeah and you'll never guess what stupid shit I got into last night." I laugh a little, still shocked with myself. Bella is wide eyed with her mouth dropped open as I go into details about last night. When I finish her face is in complete shock and she slaps a hand over her mouth. A few customers walk by throughout my story and I quickly quieted down and waved goodbye to them.

She's silent for a moment and then lets out a snort. "Holy shit, that is some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard." She giggles.

I laugh a little at myself too. "Yeah I know, I'm dreading going home. I need to apologize."

"Honestly he's probably happy as a clam today." She giggles a little more.

I roll my eyes as the last set of customers leave, retrieving the keys from my drawer. I walk over to her and we start heading out. "Yeah which isn't going to be good. I'm still not interested in being his imprint so last night definitely confused him, which is all my fault." I shake my head, pulling the double doors closed and locking up. I test the doors and when I'm sure they're locked we walk down the large steps towards the main road where our cars are parked.

"Eh, just explain it to him that you were drunk. He'll be fine." She assures me. The weather has already cooled down a lot outside. It's an overcast today and the wind has picked up since this morning. It gets cold fast here, but the summers can be brutally hot. I for one enjoy the chilly months, just not so much when my car is under a mountain of snow and ice when I have work.

"Yeah." I stuff my hands into my cardigan. "Wanna go to dinner tomorrow?" She nods happily. "Okay, thanks for the donut, I appreciate you." I pout at her. Bella's been a saving grace these past few days. It feels so good to have a girl to talk to again, but ever since Jake showed up I've had a pit in my stomach about Kim. Bella's made getting over Kim easy, which makes me feel pretty bad. I thought Jared was replacement for me, but maybe he's not. Maybe Kim needs me still.

Bella waves goodbye and jumps into her old beaten up truck as I climb into my tiny car.

I drive home, not bothering with the radio. I need to rehearse my apology to Quil and put my pride away for the evening. It's not ideal to be apologizing to that guy, but I'm not an asshole. I can own up to a mistake. I pull into the driveway and I'm disappointed to see Quil is already home from work.

I let out a heavy sigh, climbing out of my car. It's begun sprinkling so I run up to the porch, pushing in the front door. The house is a toasty temperate, which I'm thankful for. I pause in front of the lit fireplace, pushing my hands closer to it's heat. I carefully kick off my shoes and line them up neatly by the entry way before walking to my bedroom. I let it sort of a mess this morning, so I do a quick clean up as I switch into my sweats.

I pull my hair up and put on some warm socks before reluctantly walking over to Quil's room. I pause outside of it but I realize a moment later he can hear everything I do. I quickly knock twice on his door. "Come in." He calls out.

I push the door open and step into the doorway to see he's sprawled out on his bed, watching TV. His face doesn't lighten as he sees me, it remains flat and disinterested. "What's up?" He asks, before looking back to the TV. I walk in and shut the door behind me, though it'll do very little to drown out our conversation for Embry.

I glance at his TV to see he's watching The Office. I look back to him, but he's not bothering to look at me. "I want to apologize." I saw quietly, tilting my head down a bit.

"For?"

I clear my throat, picking up my eyes. "For last night." I expand. "For pushing things when I didn't want to push things. I was drunk and I apologize for what I did."

His eyes raise to mine and he looks me up and down before nodding. "It's no big deal." But I don't think he's being honest. I think I really humiliated him and pushed him further than I should have.

"It was though, I shouldn't have acted like that. You said to stop and I didn't and that's not okay." I press on. "I'm sorry I touched-"

He quickly puts up a hand as if to pause me. "I don't want to talk about that." He says solemnly. I nod quickly, also not interested in reliving last evenings events. "Look um, I realize it was probably pretty weird that I..got off so quickly." My face flushes red at the topic. "It's just that with imprinting my bodies sort of pepped up on hormones and-"

I quickly shake my head. "No need to explain." He just nods, looking away from me again. "Um, I did want to reiterate that what I said about the ugly comment was honest, I didn't mean to make you upset yesterday when we were talking either. I planned to apologize for it, but clearly I was drunk and acted dumbly."

His eyes flash back to mine. "Thank you." He says in a gentle voice. "So, you um, didn't blackout?"

I shake my head. "No, close to it I'm sure, but no I remember." I say begrudgingly. Quil groans as he sits up, stretching out his arms. He runs a hand through his curls before patting the bed next to him. I hesitate but slowly walk over, sitting on the very edge of it.

"Don't be weird, you're the one who made the moves on me remember." He teases, his lips curling into a smile.

I laugh a little, moving closer to him, folding my legs beneath me. "Yeah I remember." I grumble.

"I know you're not ready to make the next moves yet, and I'm going to continue to respect your wishes." He says, looking up at me. He seems genuine in this moment and I suddenly feel safe next to him. "I'm never going to push you to do anything sexual or to make things official between us. I just want us to be open about how we're feeling."

I nod thoughtfully, "Okay, well how do you feel right now?"

He hums in thought. "I mean I feel ready, but I'm the one with the wolf, yanno? I think it instantly makes me ready."

"But doesn't it bother you that you don't actually have feelings for me, like they're not genuine." I chew on my lip. I've been wanting to have a calm conversation about this, but now I feel a little shy.

He quickly shakes his head. "To me it's very real, not something that just happened over night. We've known each other our whole lives and I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider this before." He admits, playing with the hem of his sweats. He's thought about this before? What does he mean? "To me it's comforting to know I found someone so early on and it's someone I've already known forever. Yeah we need to work on getting closer and talking more like this, but that happens in time. Can I ask..have you felt any different towards me since we imprinted?" His face seems to fill with what looks like hope. His brown eyes are wide open, he looks so innocent.

"I mean my body feels different when you're around I guess.." I trail off, not wanting to get into it.

"Like lastnight you said about the goosebumps?" He asks quietly, placing the backside of his hand on my wrist. We watch together as goosebumps quickly occupy my arm from his gentle touch.

I move my hand away to look at it. "Yeah it's stuff like that and I guess when I'm drunk the other part of my brain thinks moving quick is a good idea.." I laugh a little, feeling embarrassed.

"Do you feel okay being away from me, like when you're at work?" He asks, thoughtfully.

"You pop into my brain a lot I guess. I also dislike the feeling of when you stop touching me, which sounds weird." I laugh nervously.

He quickly shakes his head. "No I feel the same, it's an disappointing feeling." He nods to himself.

"What's it like for you, do you only react sexually to me?" I ask, feeling a little braver to ask.

He shakes his head. "No, I feel comforted when you touch me or just when you're around. I just can't form goosebumps." He taps his arm. "The sexual part isn't just me wanting to have sex, it's the mating process. When you first imprint your body is on high alert, sex is like a way to dignify the imprinting is accepted, so it's normal for us to be turned on by eachother." He says, smiling a little. "Like you were last night." He gently shoves my shoulder.

My mouth drops open as my cheeks turn red. I reach out and shove his arm. "Shut up! I was not, that was all you." I laugh a little.

He shakes his head, smiling. "You forget I can smell you." He reminds me, though I wish he wouldn't bring that up. I absolutely hate that he can smell me, it makes me feel insecure. "Plus you were rubbing up on me, if I remember correctly." He teases me.

I scoff, shaking my head. I wrap my arms around my chest. "Shut up." He snickers at me. "That won't be happening again." I assure him, though he just rolls his eyes playfully at me.

"I'm sure. Just wait until mating season."

I pause my movements, my smile dropping. "What the hell is that?"

"Apparently it happens a few times a year and it makes our hormones hocked up and wild." He chuckles a little. "Maybe the guys are being dramatic about it, but it's apparently a thing."

"Well when is the next one?" I ask, feeling worried. Was that why I was turned on by him last night?

"I'll double check and let you know."