Embry's POV

Another day was passing by Embry in a blur, and he found himself wallowing in self-pity again, as he had been for the past few months. Things had changed so much in the four years since shifting had turned his world upside down. He clicked his phone off and slid it into his pocket, staring off at the wall as he did.

"Who did you just ignore man?" Quil asked, leaning his head on Embry's shoulder to see his phone. "I saw you ignore a call yesterday too."

Embry glared backward at his friend in annoyance. He'd ignored one phone call yesterday and one phone call today, and suddenly it was a thing. A thing he didn't want to talk about.

"Whatever, just gonna ask you later after we shift and I'll know," Quil shrugged and walked to the kitchen, carefully moving around Sam as he went.

Embry rolled his eyes. He had hoped that in time he would get used to the lack of privacy with his brothers, and sister (though he hadn't seen or felt Leah in over a week, which wasn't uncommon), but he hadn't. So, he didn't plan to shift later that night. He'd shift tomorrow after they went out for Paul's birthday when most of them were drinking, and there were other things on everyone's minds. And they'd all find something else to pay attention to anyways, especially with the holidays just around the corner.

"Probably just another girl that's obsessed with him," Seth called from the kitchen.

"I call bullshit on that," Sam chimed in, grinning at the television as he spoke. "Fucker hasn't touched a female in, how long, exactly?"

A while. A very long while. Embry thanked all of the stars in the sky that Emily and the girls weren't home. The last thing he wanted to deal with was her trying to set him up on yet another date with her or Kim's friends. He clicked the phone off as it began buzzing again.

"I don't see how I mean look at you, you're just so handsome" Quil teased as him and Seth walked back into the living room and threw themselves on the landed on Embry, who shoved him playfully backward and onto the floor. Seth cursed loudly but grinned and threw a few of the chips he'd been chomping away at toward his friends.

"Don't make a mess, it'll upset Emily," Sam said, his voice sharp. Sam was always

Emily. Emily. Emily. Everything in Sam's life revolved around her. Embry ate the chip that had landed on his lap bitterly. God forbid they upset her by making a small mess in her house.

"I think he's just afraid to imprint," Seth teased and threw another chip at Embry, who smacked it away, so it crumbled on the ground. Sam growled at them quietly, making Seth lean over and brush the broken pieces up the best he could.

"No, he's not afraid of that, he's just afraid of looooovvvvveeeee." Quil sang when Embry turned his glare to him.

"You know it's true," Quil continued. "But you shouldn't be. Imprinting on Claire was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I mean, imprinting doesn't mean you fall in love with someone, it just means they become, I don't know. It's kind of like that pack, I guess. We've all felt how you feel about us, how we kind of replaced the emptiness that was there before. We're family, and when you imprint, they become your family. Not just your family, everything."

Embry snorted. That was the problem. The pack was already his everything, and he didn't want another "everything" to add to it.

Wasn't he allowed to be selfish for once? After spending so much time protecting La Push from rogue vampires the past few years, he wanted nothing more than to be selfish. Plus, why would he want to put someone in danger like that? Emily's scars were proof that even if you loved someone more than the world itself you couldn't avoid putting them in danger, not with their forced lifestyle.

"Regardless, remember what Billy said? It can happen at any time. Even if he's met them before. There is no avoiding it. So, if he wants to force himself to suffer, then I say let him!" Seth grinned.

"If it ever does happen," Sam stood by the doorway skimming his gaze over his pack-members carefully, avoiding Paul's eyes as he did. "He'll understand. Even if it means falling in love."

Embry let out a noise that was a mix of a growl and a grunt, then pushed himself off the couch.

He strode toward the door and shoved past Sam, who growled quietly at him as he did. Pushing the Beta wasn't a good idea, but he was sick of them talking like he wasn't even in the had work anyways, and if he didn't leave, he'd end up late. And Mrs. Copenhagen hated when he was late. And he hated upsetting Mrs. Copenhagen, especially since when she retired in a few years she planned to let him run the bookstore for her.

Why couldn't they just let it go? He hadn't even spoken, and they just kept going. He was losing patience, and they all knew it.

That was actually the worst part; they did know.

They knew that the fact that he was lonely was the reason for the way he'd been acting. He was the only ones among the older members-at least those who were out of high school and considered adults- of the pack that hadn't tried to date, anyone. That hadn't been an issue for so long, and he never thought it would be.

Then Paul married Rachel, so the two of them were still stuck in a honeymoon stage that had no end in sight, and Rebecca did nothing but encourage the two them to have kids. So of course, they were trying.

Then Emily had announced to them all that she was three months pregnant last month. And of course, her freaking hormones had her and Sam shacked up for hours on end, and Sam was constantly thinking about it. CONSTANTLY.

Jacob and Jared were just as bad with their significant others, if anything, worse because the entire pack knew that Jared was going to purpose soon, and for some reason, it was making his need for her worse than ever.

Even Brady had been sleeping around with a girl from school, mind he had an insane amount of control over his shifting that made the rest of them see red with envy. That kid was one lucky bastard.

And Seth had been seeing a girl he'd met in school too, though only a few times, because he didn't have as much control as Brady, and he wasn't afraid; it was enough to keep him happy.

Which left him and Collin as the only two who weren't, well, sexually active, and though Collin didn't seem to mind living vicariously through the others, Embry was having a much harder time with it. And the entire pack, save for Leah, Brady, and Collin, had taken to teasing him relentlessly about it.

Last week, Jacob had even told him that his best friend had changed, and though it hadn't been in a bad way, it hadn't been in a good way either. And Embry knew that well enough. It hadn't helped that his mother had kicked him out. She still didn't know, didn't understand, and that was fine. Because why would he want her to know who he really was if she hadn't even tried to understand that something was wrong in the first place?

Embry knew that he wasn't the same person he'd been before the change, or even in the months after, and they knew that too. Though if they couldn't see in his head, they probably wouldn't have understood. But that didn't matter, and neither did their opinions of who he was. People changed over life, that was just how things worked. They'd get over it sooner or later.

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