"re you just gonna stand there with a Swiffer cleaner as your weapon?" Roan smirked and I threw it at him. Unsurprisingly, he caught it effortlessly and threw it back at me. Damn his quick reflexes.

"I thought you were some murderer. It takes two seconds to call." I grumbled as I put my "weapon" in the closet and walked back to the den. How did he even get in here?

God, he was so annoying and he didn't even know it.

"What the hell are you doing here anyway?" I demanded, sitting back in my comfy bean bag chair. I just wanted to be alone.

"Can't a friend just visit a friend?" He didn't sit with me—instead, he looked down at me as I ate my ice cream.

"Except we're not really friends."

"Stella told me what happened with that guy who friendzoned you." I stopped eating as my anger rose.

"Ohmygod, does everyone in the whole world know?" I demanded.

"Probably." He shrugged and I face-palmed myself.

"Why would she tell you?" I was going to kill her. Stella was my best friend but she couldn't keep a secret to save her life. But more importantly, if even Roan knew, who else knew, too?

"Because you wouldn't talk about it. She thought you'd want to vent."

Roan usually wasn't this nice to me, I was starting to get suspicious. He wouldn't just show up at my house to talk.

"Well, I don't. Not with you." No way I was going to tell him about my boy problems. He'd just laugh.

He made his way to the fridge and started looking through it.

"Sorry, no food."

"Then we should cook something."

"Brownies, sugar cookies, or cake, pick your poison." What can I say, I was in the mood for sugar.

"Definitely brownies."

"Alright." I sighed, only getting up because I wanted some, too.

I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV in the kitchen as we baked.

"Preheat the oven." I ordered and Roan raised an eyebrow.

"You preheat the oven."

I scoffed, "You're the one not doing anything." I was already mixing all of the ingredients and he was just standing there like an idiot.

"But this isn't my house."

I wanted to throw the bowl of mix at him but I didn't want it to go to waste. Nevertheless, I preheated the oven while he watched the news. After I mixed all of the ingredients, I put the tray in the oven and watched the screen. I blinked three times before I realized what it was.

It was a video of a man turning into a wolf in the span of five seconds.

"What the hell?" I gasped but Roan remained silent, still watching the video.

It was so clear, so obvious that the man in the video was a werewolf.

"The video was posted by an anonymous user and has already gotten more than three billion views." The newswoman reported and I just let my jaw fall open.

"They must've photoshopped that." He said finally, sounding indifferent.

"You can't photoshop a video." I said calmly and he scoffed.

"Yeah, you can. Or whatever they did to make it look like that. It's probably a scam or something to make people freak out." He shook his head and I sighed. "That's just stupid. Werewolves are stupid."

"It's real." I blurted stupidly.

Roan stared at me from across the island.

"Oh? And how would you know? Are you a werewolf?"

I didn't have a concrete answer other than the one I wanted to give.

This is not a good idea.

"Yes." I couldn't stop the words from falling out.

Roan stared at me for three seconds, still as a statue.

"You're not serious."

"Dead serious."

He studied me carefully, "No, you're not."

"Can you stop being a stubborn asshole and listen to me for once?"

Roan finally shut up.

"The video's real. You can't fake that to make it look so real." Maybe with CGI or something like that for a movie but not for a cheap video on YouTube. "Werewolves are real." I said in a shaky voice.

Why was I telling him this? Shut up, mouth!

"Fine," He said in resentment, "Then you should probably know that my parents are werewolves."

"Wait, what?" Back. The. Truck. Up.

"You know Alpha Troy and Luna Claire?" I shook my head, those names meant nothing to me. "The Jackson pack? Known for its recent alliance with the Trueblood's?" I shook my head again, no clue what he was talking about.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly.

"So, you're a werewolf, too?" I asked excitedly, happy that I finally found someone like me.

"I guess."

"Seriously? I've never met another werewolf besides my family!" I wanted to ask him a bunch of questions about phasing and if he knew anyone else like us. But Roan just stood there, not saying anything. Sometimes he's just stay silent when he was thinking about something so I changed the subject.

"Wait, if you knew, then why didn't you say anything?"

"How could I have known you were a werewolf? My parents told me to act surprised if word ever got out about werewolves so people wouldn't suspect me."

"I think you overdid it with the acting, Leo DiCaprio," I rolled my eyes.

"Who?"

"I'm just gonna ignore that."

"Why did you tell me you were a werewolf?" Roan asked suddenly.

I looked at him in all seriousness, "I don't know, to shut you up?" I joked but I didn't really know myself. I'd known him almost my entire life and we'd always been frenemies. . . why tell him?

It came out of nowhere. It's not like I really trusted the guy.

That's when I smelled the smoke.

"Ohmygod, the brownies!" I yelled and opened the oven, ready to take them out, but Roan threw something at me before I could.

"Are you stupid?" I stopped myself just in time and put on the oven mitts he threw at me.

The brownies were beyond burnt, totally unsalvageable.

"My poor babies," I frowned, "I was so hungry, too."

"You have terrible cooking skills." Roan tutted once and I rounded on him.

"You were supposed to remind me!"

"You never set a timer, it was your fault you burnt the brownies."

Then I heard the garage door opening. Which meant that Roan had exactly less than ten seconds to get out before they walked in the door.

"My parents are here, you gotta go!" I pushed him out the back door onto the deck outside.

"Wait-"

"Yeah, bye!" I cut him off, shutting the door on him.

.•*•.

Everyone thought it was a stupid prank. Even Stella, Nicole, and Taylor thought it was stupid.

"I wish." Taylor sighed.

"Yeah, werewolves are hot, but everyone knows they don't exist." Stella added.

"So you guys don't think the video was real?" I clarified.

"Of course not, I'm not stupid," Nicole shook her head and I sighed in relief.

"Hey, Roan, come sit with us!" Stella waved in a bubbly manner but he didn't give her any sort of greeting.

When he didn't make a move to sit with us, she grabbed his arm so he'd have to sit. For some reason, Stella liked having Roan around.

"How's it going?" Taylor asked but he didn't reply.

Stella turned to me, "Lia, why doesn't he ever talk?"

"He's just being a rude ass, it's nothing new." I bit into my sandwich, glaring at him.

"So, Roan, do you think that werewolf video was real?" Nicole asked and Roan stared at the spots on the table.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It was obviously fake." I didn't miss the way he glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

"That's what I thought." Nicole nodded.

"Well, see you later," Roan abruptly stood up and left without another word.

"Why does he only talk to you?" Stella whined.

"Are you kidding? He doesn't talk to anybody." I objected.

"He seemed pretty upset when I told him you got rejected."

"Why did you tell him in the first place?" I demanded and Stella gulped when she saw my face.

Luckily for her, the bell rang, signaling that lunch was over.

"I'm not done with you yet." I growled and she scurried off.

I walked to the gym, one of only two classes with Roan.

I guess I wasn't looking where I was going because that's when I tripped and lost my balance, hitting my nose onto something hard.

Or someone.

"Ouch-" I rubbed my nose and was ready to tell the person off (even though it was my fault) but shut my mouth when I saw who it was.

Shit.

"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going—oh, Lia,"

"Asher." I muttered.

"Do you have gym right now?" He asked and I nodded, "Me, too."

"Great." I gave him a fake-smile and saw Roan looking at me from inside the gym.

Asher gestured for me to walk in first so I did, in which he walked beside me.

He tried to make small talk with me but I couldn't even look at him, let alone talk to him.

Thankfully, he cut the conversation short and headed over to the boys locker room, "See you later,"

Before I could go change, Roan stepped in my way.

"Who were you talking to?" He narrowed his eyebrows and I crossed my arms. He had eyes, didn't he?

"Asher." I growled his name.

"Why?"

"Because I tripped into him."

"Really?"

"I'm not clumsy, the floor just hates me." I stuck my tongue out but his face was hard.

"Asher was the guy who rejected you, wasn't he?" I looked away, which validated his prediction, "It just had to be him." He scowled and I scowled back.

"Well, sorry, I can't control who I find attractive or not." I aim the last word at him. It wasn't that he was unattractive, but the fact that I wasn't attracted to him.

"You know who Asher Trueblood is, don't you?"

"Besides King of the friendzone?"

"He's a werewolf, the son of an Alpha."