Monday came, and I was an absolute ball of nerves on the drive to campus. It coiled inside of me, preventing me from eating that morning or focusing on my first class. When Bio came, I fiddled with my pencil in a very annoying manner as I waited for Everlee to show up. When she did, the coils sank and I felt like I was going to be sick.

She took her seat next to me and I watched an agonizingly slow process of her grabbing her books from her bag and placing them on her table. She placed her pencil on top before finally meeting my eyes. Neither of us spoke for a solid thirty seconds at least.

Losing patience, I broke. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you dying to know why I was at the Williams' Friday afternoon as much as I am dying to know why you were?" Great plan, April: play dumb. I mentally rolled my eyes at myself, knowing when she realized how not-so-dumb I was, I would really be in for it.

Her eyebrows raised and I saw her thoughts flash through her eyes as if I were physically reading them. She knew she couldn't mention anything about pack business or wolves at all. She bought into the human act. April: 1. Maybe.

Everlee blinked, thinking through her choice of words extremely carefully. "I guess I was a little shocked to see you barge through that door. I could see on your face that was not what you were expecting. You said you usually babysit for the Williams'?

I, too, had to word everything carefully. "Yeah, I live down the street." Lying was becoming far too easy, but I prayed I hadn't previously told her I was from Utah. If I had, that lie would not end well.

She seemed to buy it, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. "Oh fun! The kids seemed to like you. They came looking for you right after you disappeared to find them. Kind of funny how you didn't cross ways in the hall."

I laughed nervously, "yeah! You know, that house is so big I tend to get lost often!"

She laughed with me until the professor decided to stroll in and start his lecture. I turned away from her and set up my notebook and pencil, hoping the conversation would permanently drop with that.

After the lecture hour, she said goodbye and hurried on her way to her next class. I turned the opposite direction and headed down the sidewalk towards the library. I really needed to get some homework done before it piled up any further.

I reached for the door handle when a different hand came out of nowhere and swung it open for me. When I glanced up to thank the random chivalrous stranger, I nearly had a heart attack. Staring down at me were those piercing blue eyes, shining through dark strands of hair hanging in front of his face as his head tilted down at me.

It was him. The alpha from Friday.

"Thank you." I squeaked, feeling intimidated by his presence. Suddenly nervous my body language would give away the fact I knew what he was, I straightened up and walked through the open door. I didn't have look back to know he had followed.

I found an empty table to claim and placed my bag on the floor, pulling out my laptop and books. The alpha sat down across from me. I avoided his eyes.

"This isn't being saved, is it?" His voice was rough, almost like he was holding back, shielding any true emotions that might leak out of his guardedness.

When I didn't answer and just opened my laptop and biology book, he smirked. A close-lipped half-smile that stirred a different kind of coil than that morning's. Damn you. I told my stomach.

"I'll take that as a no."

I scribbled something in my notebook.

"What are you working on?" I supposed that was better than "what's your major?"

"Don't you have your own homework to work on?" I looked up to meet his eyes, "sorry, that was rude. I'm working on biology."

"No."

I paused my writing. "No?"

"I don't have homework."

"Oh, then why are you here?" I sighed and set down my pencil, "sorry. Again, that was rude." What had gotten into me?

He smirked. And again, those damn butterflies stirred. I told myself it was just the nerves of holding an alpha's attention.

"I'm here because you intrigue me."

I continued my homework, mumbling a thank you that sounded more like a question. If I didn't know he was the alpha of what I had heard to be a well-respected pack, I would be mortified and borderline creeped out. I just kept scribbling across my notebook page.

It was silent for several minutes, and I didn't dare look up for any of them. I would be creeped out if I confirmed he was just watching me work.

"What's your name?" He finally spoke.

"Who's asking?" I quipped without even pausing my note taking.

I could physically hear his amused smirking expression in his voice, "Xavier. Xavier Black."

"That's a strong last name." I didn't detain the sarcasm from my voice. I had never heard of an alpha line being one as simple as a color. The thought brought a snort out of my throat and I coughed quickly to hide it.

"Yes, I know I wasn't born fortunate enough to have a last name full of power, but it's better than, say, yellow."

A snort I couldn't hide that time escaped, causing my hand to jerk and drag the pencil across the page and create a jagged line extending from the last letter I had written. With a huff, I flipped the pencil and scrubbed it off with the eraser.

Peeking a glance at Xavier, I noticed he seemed satisfied to have made me laugh. I continued with my work, resuming to avoiding his eyes. I wanted him to leave me alone so I wouldn't be distracted. Thankfully, he stayed silent.

Eventually my phone buzzed to let me know it was time for my next class, the final one of the day. I quickly packed my things and stood up to leave. He jumped up with me.

"Where are you going?"

"Um, my next class?" I hadn't meant for it to become a question.

"I'll walk you there." His wasn't a question, it was a statement. He wasn't asking, he was telling me what was going to happen.

He stepped to the right side of me and waited for me to start walking. When I did, he did too, matching my pace and staying next to me the entire stroll across campus. I was tall, but he was even taller, so a few times he had to shift his gait to keep pace with me.

I wasn't sure why he decided to follow me around today, but a small part of me was enjoying his company.

I found his obsession with me kind of strange, though. From what I could tell, he wasn't my mate. Wolves would describe making eye contact with their mate as the whole world freezing in time, spiraling them into an abyss that only held the two of them. I didn't feel that at all whenever I met Xavier's. All that was there were those stupid butterflies. But those could easily be brushed off as intimidation, or just the fact that he was an extremely attractive guy.

Or maybe he was my mate and I just was unable to tell due to my fox. Ugh, why did it have to be so confusing!

He held the door open for me again when we reached the building. I muttered a thank you as I passed, turning to the right and jogging up the stairs. Irritatingly, he followed.

I turned on the landing to face him. "I'm good now, thanks for walking me to class."

He smirked, meeting my eyes and stirring those goddess-awful butterflies awake again. "I actually have a class in this building too."

"That's convenient," I grumbled as I turned away from him and headed down the hall. Before he could say anything else, I ducked into class and made my way to the back, sitting myself at the table I had occupied last week. I almost half-expected Xavier to sit down across from me, making something up about transferring into this class. When he didn't, relief washed through me and I relaxed, feeling like I could breathe again.

That relief lasted exactly forty-eight hours.

I didn't see him again until Wednesday afternoon, when I sat down at that table in the back of my math class. Monday I had dipped early, in case he was going to try and walk me to my car or something. I managed to not pass him all day Tuesday. But Wednesday, he strolled through the classroom door as if he had always been in that class.

He sat across from me at my table. I raised an eyebrow, "are you in the wrong class? Do you need help finding yours?" He chuckled, and my first thought was how beautiful his laugh was.

Ugh, stop it.

"I actually transferred to this math class. I didn't like that professor."

Bullshit. He transferred because of me. "Uh-huh. Totally reasonable to figure that out on the fourth week of the semester." I said aloud, nodding as if I believed him whole-heartedly.

He knew, and that stupid smirk showed it. "Exactly."

That time, when class ended, there was no escaping him. If I dipped early like I did on Monday, there was an extremely high chance he would follow me anyway. So, I let him walk with me out of the room and down the stairs. When we got outside, he turned to face me.

"Are you busy right now?"

I gave him a side glance, but kept walking. "I usually babysit for the Williams. Remember?"

"Right. I was there when you barged into our meeting last week."

I decided to push. "Are you guys like work friends or something? I hadn't seen you there before Friday."

He cocked an eyebrow, pushing right back. "Funny, I hadn't seen you there before either, and I get together with the Williams regularly. Where did you say you lived again?"

"I didn't say." I kept walking down the sidewalk towards the bioscience building where my car was parked at. Xavier seemed to be waiting for an actual answer about my living situation, not that I was going to give him one.

We got halfway across campus before he gave in. "Okay, so you babysit for the Williams's kids. But I'm sure you can take a day off, they've got, like, a bunch of people there to watch the kids." He started walking backwards in front of me so I would be forced to look at him. "Don't their grandparents live there too?"

He did have a point. I wasn't sure how I was going to argue my way through it. There were a dozen omegas available for the kids, plus Eirenae and Kota lived near too. Not to mention Emerald was always home, anyway.

"Fine," I told him, "I guess I'm not busy then."

He smiled, a full, real smile with his teeth showing. The butterflies soared to my throat, and I thought the smirk had been bad.

"Perfect, follow me." He spun to the left, taking a different concrete path than the one we were on. I was confused, but I obliged.

He led me to a parking lot on the East side of campus. He took out keys from his pocket and the lights on a black Ford truck lit up.

"This yours?"

He kept his voice flat. "No, I stole the keys from some guy in math class today."

Giving him a smirk of my own, I eyed him as he walked to the passenger side and swung open the door. He gestured with his arm to let me climb in. I climbed up onto the seat, refusing his outstretched hand that offered to help me up. He shut the door and walked around the front to the driver's seat.

When he shut his own door and had started it up with the key, he turned to look me in the eye. "It's mine."

"I got that."

"Good, just didn't want you thinking I would actually steal a truck."

I laughed and he pulled out of the parking lot, turning the opposite direction as the mountains, heading East into town. It was less than two minutes of a ride before he was parking behind a line of restaurants off of Main Street. He shut off the car and hurried to come around to my side. By then, I had already climbed out and was standing on the asphalt. He rolled his eyes.

"Is this a date?" I finally asked the question pushing against my throat the entire drive over.

"No." He was studying my face, as if worried he would say the wrong thing and send me running for the hills.

"Hmm. Sure seems like a date."

We started walking towards a sandwich shop. "Do you want it to be a date?"

I side-glanced at him, the question taking me off guard. Did I want this to be a date? I barely knew him and was half-way positive he couldn't be my mate. But he was also undeniably attractive and he seemed to be into me.

But he was a wolf. And if I wasn't his mate, surely he would know that by now. So what did that mean?

Xavier led me to a table near the back. It was pressed up against the window that looked out onto Main Street. When I took my seat, I watched people stroll down the sidewalk, laughing and talking with one another, holding hands and swinging their arms. The majority were definitely college students, spending some free time outside of class shopping and eating in the little shops and cafes around town. This street was within walking distance from the East side of campus.

"You like people watching?"

I had forgotten he was sitting across from me for a minute. "I wasn't staring!"

He chuckled, the sound making my heart do this strange flip. "No need to defend it. I often watch people around campus as well."

Trying to play innocent, I folded my hands in my lap and tilted my head, "is that why you started stalking me?"

"I'm not stalking you."

I thought about the way he followed me into the library, sitting there while I did my homework, and how he insisted on walking me to and from class when he was around me. "Sure seems like stalking to me."

He opened his mouth to defend himself but I stopped him. "Xavier, you switched math professors when you realized which class I was in. Stalker."

His body went rigid and he sat up straighter the second I started speaking. At first, I assumed he was angry I didn't let him cut in while I spoke, but then I remembered the way wolves react to certain things. Like a mate saying their name for the first time.

I studied him. Was this guy really my mate? How was I supposed to tell for sure? He was giving me so many signs, but he assumed I was human and that made him play extra cautious and go much slower. Besides, if he was, why couldn't I feel the pull?

Suddenly the urge to touch him hit me like a tidal wave. Maybe I could feel the sparks instead of the invisible forces that drew mates together. Maybe my fox responded to physical signs, not mental. It was an idea, but I couldn't be obvious. And a large part of me was undeniably scared of the result.

If he wasn't my mate would I be disappointed? Relieved? If he was, what would happen next?