Youth ✿ Paul Lahote [1]

viii. sneaking in

   "Alex, this is a crisis!"

   The brunette only narrowed her eyes playfully at Kim as she said this, knowing fully well that this definitely didn't constitute a crisis situation. 

   "Is you not knowing what to wear on your date with Jared really a crisis?" Alex sassed back to Kim, who was sifting through a massive pile of clothes she had made on her silk duvet. She had called Alex around to her house for this exact purpose – Kim had to find an outfit to wear for her date and now that Alex was aware of the shapeshifter world, Kim finally felt like they could bond without secrets sitting between them. 

   Kim chucked a pair of socks that were in the pile directly at Alex, knocking the girl directly in the head. A smug grin came to rest on the taller girl's face. "This is important. Looking cute is a must, especially when on a date with your boyfriend."

   "Please, Jared would love you if you turned up in a trash bag. This effort isn't really that necessary but I will suffer just for you."

   "You're so generous, a true inspiration."

   Alex laughed at the girl but still sat in her place on her bed, watching Kim's hands fumble through the piles of material in front of her. Alex didn't think she had seen someone with a bigger wardrobe. Kim had what seemed like over a million options and she had still been indecisive for the last half hour.

   Kim picked up a striped crop top and held it up for Alex to look at, the younger girl nodded in approval. "So, how are you? After everything Paul told you."

   "Fine," Alex answered somewhat truthfully. It was a lot to wrap your head around that there were humans that could shape shift into actual wolves and that two of those wolves were Jared and Paul. She had been telling Paul that she understood, which she did, what she didn't tell the boy was that this news freaked her out a lot more than she would admit. "It's just a bit weird that's all."

   Kim continued to work through her pile but now moved to where her many pairs of jeans sat. Clearly the top from before had been a winner, which was more progress than she had ever made today. "You'll get used to it, trust me. I used to be scared out of mind but now it's all relatively normal."

   "The fact that people turning into werewolves is normal to you is completely insane," Alex commented as Kim raised two similar looking pairs of black jeans. She seemed to be debating on which was best when Alex couldn't even tell the difference between them.

   Kim nodded her head in agreement. "Fair point."

   "If you are trying to figure out which pair to wear then you need help, Kim. They look the exact same."

   Kim looked at her friend with mock offense. "There is a clear difference, Alex. This pair is a darker black than this one."

   "How could I be so ignorant?" Alex jokingly mocked the girl and Kim threw another pair of socks her way, which Alex caught this time rather than letting them knock her in the head. 

   "Seriously though," Alex made sure that Kim was looking at her when she spoke, needing her full attention to get her message across. "Jared isn't going to care what you wear, he really likes you, Kim and it doesn't matter which jeans you wear."

   "I know," Kim said in defeat, laying both pairs of jeans on the bed and coming to sit on the silky duvet. "It's just that Jared used to never know I existed, not for a long time and now that he actually seems to like me I kind of get scared that he won't for long. I know it sounds stupid."