"Did I not tell you on our last date that you would be voted as Homecoming Queen?" Ryder greeted to me at lunch while I sat with Bailee, Evan, and Aaron. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah only if you heard about some mutiny of you being voted as king," I responded. I narrowed my eyes. "Which I don't get," I added and looked to Bailee. "Doesn't everybody hate him?" I asked her before looking back at Ryder. "Honestly, who would vote for you?"

"I'll pretend you didn't say that," Ryder laughed before kissing my cheek and taking a seat next to me. This morning the nominations for homecoming court were announced. Along with me and Ryder, the only other names for nomination I recognized were Trevor, Stella, Shana, and Jack Willis. It was ridiculous how everyone acted about homecoming around here and here I was without so much as a dress for the dance.

"I don't think 'hate' is the right word," Bailee answered.

"I do—" She hit Evan's chest before he tried to offend Ryder.

"I think 'fear' is better," Aaron announced.

"Some men rule by love, some by fear," Ryder shrugged.

I thought you didn't want to rule at all, I teased telepathically. He looked over at me with a shine in his eyes and a smirk on his lips before his eyes fell to my own pair. The way he had been acting was making me want to believe everything was truly fine between us and we could just skip the rest of the day to kiss in a janitor's closet or something.

"Speaking of fear..." Evan muttered before I tore my eyes away from Ryder and saw a timid sophomore walking up to us whose brown eyes were humbly glued to the floor.

"Hi Evan," Miles Cameron stammered and looked up briefly. Evan shifted and hid his condescending smirk with his hands as his elbows were propped on the table. But instead of addressing the older brother of his mate, Miles  looked to Ryder. I realized I hadn't actually seen him for about a week, but something was changed with him.

"I need to talk to you..." he told Ryder.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?" Ryder asked him.

"Yeah, but it's important," he revealed. "It won't be long...I told my teacher I needed to go to the bathroom."

Ryder refrained from rolling his eyes and laughing in the kid's face before sending me a look that he'd be back right before he got up from the table and walked out with Miles.

"Ugh," Evan complained. Bailee smacked his arm.

"Stop," she giggled.

"He acts like a sad little puppy!" Evan reasoned, which almost made me laugh because I had learned that Miles' name amongst the pack was actually 'Pup' since he was the youngest.

"That's because you make him shit his pants for dating your sister," Aaron laughed.

"Do you blame me?"

"Yes," Bailee and I said.

"He's a young kid in love," Aaron defended despite not even knowing Miles other than being the boy along with me who had found him stumbling nakedly back into town. He stopped laughing and looked seriously at his best friend. "He just doesn't want to screw up."

"Speaking of which," Evan altered, "how are you and Stormy?"

I looked around for Stormy's presence and found her to be in her usual spot outside by herself. She had her earphones in and read from a book, which was better than her initial state of crying over her breakup.

"Yeah, how are you and Stormy? Couldn't you have not been an asshole so she could at least be at the same table as you? She's my friend too," Bailee whined and threw a grape at him.

"I think it's a lost cause," Aaron grumbled and I saw his eyes briefly meet mine because I knew that their reasoning for breaking up wasn't something that could be easily reconciled. It's not like a witch and a werewolf could continue to be together. But it was more than that because Aaron knew by choosing to stay a wolf when he didn't have to meant that he didn't actually want to be with Stormy and that's what hurt her the most.

"Sorry bud," Evan muttered and Aaron just nodded.

"Well maybe it's not all bad," Bailee wondered before her eyes wandered to me. "A death of one relationship is the birth of another."

"Hey, hey, hey. Ryder and I were already together. We just had to reevaluate some things," I defended before she could give me some crap about how on/off relationships didn't work.

"Not you," Bailee laughed at my discomfort.

"She meant Andrew," Aaron named. So his date last night was real... "He's going out with that new girl Meena."

"Seriously?" I asked and glanced around to find out that I was the last to know. I groaned at the thought of my brother with a loud girl who I had watched talk to every guy possible last week. But maybe she was just social. Maybe I should just be happy for Andrew.

I got up and collected everyone's trash before walking over to the trash cans to discard it all. But when I spun around to return to my table, I was met with Dakota standing in my path.

"Congrats about homecoming court," he teased, causing me to roll my eyes.

"Dakota," I groaned. "Why does this happen to me?"

"I heard Ryder had something to do with it," he laughed and I tried not to share the smile, but failed because despite the misconduct of election, it was a sweet gesture if Ryder really did rig it. I saw Dakota look around. "Where is he by the way?"

"Talking to Miles," I answered, causing a confusing look to form on his face for only a second before realizing the hidden message.

"Oh good. I was talking to him earlier this week, but figured he needed to talk to either Ryder or Brett about it—"

"About what?" I asked.

"He and Rose had sex last weekend," he announced and my eyes widened.

"What!?" I asked with a wide smile because I was surprised the kid had it in him. But I was concerned because two weeks ago, he didn't even know if he was in a relationship with her and freaking out over how to have sex in the first place. And now that seemed so long ago...along with the fact that Ryder hadn't even seriously considered Rose as Miles' mate two weeks ago.

"Yeah," Dakota laughed before I noticed his humorous blue eyes look past mine. "Well I'll let you get back to Ryder since his talk seems to be over..."

"We're still on for after school right?" I asked him.

"Of course," he replied and then Ryder had walked up.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hey," Dakota returned as his smile fell. He glanced at me. "I'll meet you at Ryder's car after school and we can go from there."

"See ya," I concluded and then Ryder threw his arm over my shoulders.

"Do I even want to know what you two were talking about?" he asked.

"I should be asking that of you and Miles," I joked.

"Don't remind me," he groaned and continued to steer me out of the cafeteria at the sound of the bell.