"Whatever you have to tell me better be worth it, I'm missing History for this."

Alex was now sitting on Paul's back porch and Paul was standing in front of her on the grass while staying oddly silent. That was usually Alex's thing, Paul was always running his mouth.

"History with Embry," Paul mumbled, scuffing his shoe in the dirt surrounding him.

Alex watched him curiously, noting the bitter glint in his eyes. She smiled at the thought of him caring and at the thought of what her brother had said about jealousy only yesterday. "Yes, history with my totally platonic friend, Embry."

Paul looked up to meet her gaze, rather than focusing on the worn down converse on his feet. A small grin made its way onto his face.

"Are you ever going to tell me why you pushed him over? What made you so angry?" Alex wondered out loud at the mention of her friend.

Paul sat down beside Alex on the step, their thighs only just touching. "Out of all the things to explain to you, that is by far the easiest. I was jealous."

Alex's brows furrowed. Despite her brother telling her this much, Paul saying it made it so much more real. With Jordan, she could simply shrug off what he said and presume he was trying to wind her up, but she knew Paul was telling the truth. "Jealous of what?"

Sometimes Paul forgot how Alex wasn't that aware of people – she had stated many times that she had never really had many friends. Paul thought the whole world knew about his crush on her, most of the people at school were talking about it on the daily. He didn't exactly hide the fact. Somehow, Alex seemed to have missed it. "I guess I thought that you and Embry might have been a thing. I saw you two getting out of his car and I got jealous."

"I was helping him with his Spanish," Alex tilted her head as she deadpanned what the real truth was. She didn't see Embry in that light, in fact she had put him in the brother-like category the minute the two started talking.

Paul's face perked up at that. "You speak Spanish?"

"Obviously," Alex said as she gestured to herself, thinking that it was beyond obvious although it might not be to everyone. "My mom is Colombian, she moved here when she was twenty and my dad's parents were born in Mexico, although he was born and raised in Forks. I'm a Latina hybrid, per say."

This made Paul's grin widen. Finding out anything about the girl beside him always made his mood spike, but being this close to her made his pulse quicken like mad. "Does that mean you know how to curse in Spanish?"

Alex let out a small laugh at his question. "Of course you would ask me that."

"Hey," Paul's hands rose up in a mock surrender. "I'm a sixteen year old boy, what did you expect from me?"

"Yes I do know how to curse, but I'm not going to teach you."

Paul let out a small whine at that. "C'mon, Lex."

Alex simply shook her head at the boy in finality, although her stomach tightened at the small nickname he had so easily called her. "I promised my mom that I wouldn't ever teach kids how to swear in Spanish. She even made me sign a contract and everything."

That small fact made Paul let out a laugh. His shoulders shook and his eyes crinkled, Alex's smile only grew at the sight of it. He looked so carefree, even more than usual. "You did not."

"I did!" Alex protested, trying to hold in laughter as it only made her look like she was joking. The boy's laugh was infectious however, Alex desperately felt the need to laugh along with him. "When Jordan, my brother, was thirteen he went around and taught all his friends how to curse in Spanish and of course their parents complained once they figured it out. My mom and dad got majorly told off by the principal and that same night my mother made us both sign contracts that we wouldn't teach anyone naughty Spanish words. I have the paper at home, I will show you one day."

The insinuation of Alex wanting Paul to stick around and let him come into her house one day made the sixteen year old's heart beat just that little bit faster. "Your brother seems pretty cool."

"He is," Alex answered almost immediately. The mention of her twin was enough for the brunette to remember what the two were talking about before this distraction got brought up. Her cheeks almost blushed at the thought of Paul being jealous of her and Embry. "But enough about my brother, back to you being jealous."

"You seem oddly happy that I was, Alex," Paul said to the girl, a smirk falling on his face at the tinge of pink that blossomed on her cheeks. He would never get over the happiness that pooled inside him at the affect he had on the brunette.

"Not happy," Alex clarified, although the feeling inside her was definitely one of happiness. "Just confused."

Paul's head tilted slightly as he tried to understand her. That wasn't something he thought she would be confused at, his feelings for her weren't something that he actively tried to hide. "I like you, Lex. I don't think that is a hard thing to grasp."

But it was hard for Alex to grasp. Not once in her life did she think a guy had paid attention to her, well maybe once when she was in first grade. This was entirely knew ground for her – she didn't know what constituted flirtation or how to tell if someone liked her in that way. Everything about her interactions with Paul were confusing to Alex, especially the way her mood changed drastically with him around.

With her mouth pulled into a frown and her eyes cast down to the ground in thought, Paul quickly realized that Alex really had no clue that he liked her. Paul hadn't always taken the innocent nature of the girl quite so seriously, but looking at her as she was seemingly analyzing the conversations they had in the past really made him see that Alex Santiago was in a league of her own.

Paul's hand gripped Alex's chin softly, directing her attention back to him as he delicately turned her head to look at him. "I like you. I really do and I know this is new to you, and that's okay. Don't feel pressured."

Alex's chin tingled at the contact of Paul's hand on her skin, the warmth of his oddly hot body temperature radiating onto her slightly cooler one. She didn't know what to say, and Alex figured if she did speak then she would instantly make a fool of herself.

Paul was right; this was all new to Alex, but that didn't mean she didn't like it. She liked being close to Paul, she liked when he touched her and she really liked the way she felt when she was around him.

As an answer, she simply smiled up at the boy. Paul understood, her face mirroring his own as Alex's eyes looked at him like he had made her the happiest he could. Brown eyes with hues of gold, sparkling and looking up at him. He almost melted on the spot.

With that matter settled, Paul reluctantly removed his hand from where it grasped Alex's rounded chin. He stood up and moved to where he was before on the grass. Paul let out a breath as he realized what showing this could mean for the two; Alex could accept him in a way that he had never experienced before, liking him for all that he was and all that biology had chosen for him, or Alex could get scared out of her mind and bolt in the opposite direction, never to talk to Paul again.

He couldn't not tell her, so Paul was taking his chances. He just really hoped it wasn't going to be the latter.

"What I really brought you here to show you is kind of weird."

Alex's eyes narrowed in confusion, her gaze set heavily on the teenager in front of her. "I'm good with weird."

"Keep an open mind, okay?" Paul asked the girl, his tone desperate to warn her as much as he could before making his bones mold him into something different.

Alex nodded, and it wasn't that just a gesture for his benefit. She trusted Paul and knew that if he was to show or tell her something, no matter what it was she would try and understand. He would do the same for her, she knew that deep down in her heart without having to even ask.

Paul stepped back further, so that he was a good five meters away from the girl on his porch steps. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, he saw firsthand what hurting an imprint had done to Sam and just by the thoughts of his Alpha, Paul never ever wanted to go through that.

To save material, Paul kicked off his shoes and tugged the thin cotton shirt off his body. The shorts stayed on, not wanting to make Alex run in the other direction before he had even showed her what he wanted to.

Alex didn't know whether to be confused with the removal of clothing or gawk at the toned torso exposed in front of her. For her own curiosity, she didn't say anything – but Alex did stare at Paul's muscular chest longer than she should have.

That was the last thing on her mind however as Paul's figure started to shake. Something rippled inside him, causing his body to lower and start to shift.

A wolf had taken his place in no more than a second.

Alex's body reacted by thrusting her into a standing position. She felt the need to pinch herself, there was no way she had just seen Paul Lahote's body morph so that a wolf ripped into place. There was absolutely no way in hell.

Paul watched the small girl through his different set of eyes, feeling no touch of anger like he usually did when the change happened to him. He felt oddly calm and he knew it had everything to do with the brunette now standing not far from him.

He wanted to be better for her, he wanted to keep her safe. Paul knew right then and there – with her small, petite frame looking so vulnerable, like he could see right in to her soul – that he would do whatever he could to make sure that she never got hurt.

Everything in Alex's body was telling her to run, it was more screaming at her actually. Her brain hadn't had time to wrap itself around the technicalities and details of what just happened – and if it did she would have to rethink all she knew about the world – but that didn't mean she didn't recognize danger.

Paul's dark, silver wolf had started to approach Alex without even thinking, it was always his first thought that being close to her was his best option. It was where he felt most himself. His heart clenched at the slight tremble of Alex's small hands that were hanging by her sides.

The only part in Alex's body that willed her to stay was her heart. It egged her to move forward because this was Paul, the guy that approached her on her first day at La Push high, the guy that talked to her even when she couldn't wrangle up a reply, and most importantly he was the guy that made her feel happy. It was just Paul, even if he didn't look like it.

Alex listened to her heart and kept her feet firmly planted on the ground. She knew there would be plenty of time to freak once her brain processed what she witnessed, but for now she was very aware of Paul approaching where she stood.

Once the timid looking wolf was in front of Alex, the girl looked down to see the familiar deep-set eyes in their chocolate color staring right back at her. This was definitely Paul, those eyes couldn't belong to anyone else.

Alex's hand, which still rightfully trembled, reached out and touched the side of the wolf's head. Her fingers glided smoothly through the silver fur, which Alec hadn't expected would feel so soft.

As Alex locked eyes with a wolf, the brunette was more than aware that this was still just Paul.

Her Paul.

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