Tell No Lies

Boys of Summer

Paul quickly walked into Sam and Emily's, knowing he was the last one to arrive and was pretty late. They were probably waiting on him, which he knew would put Jacob in a pissy mood. Sam would be mildly put out, but wouldn't make a big deal about it in front of the others. No, he'd wait until they were on their own before launching into another lecture/pep talk on responsibility.

Paul had had enough of them, to be honest.

And it wasn't as though he had meant to be late. He would have been on time - actually, early - if the damn Newton kid hadn't wanted to go over the inventory one more time, not trusting that Paul had done it right. Every shift with him was an exercise in maintaining control and calm as Paul wanted nothing more than to punch him. When Marshmallow wasn't criticizing his work (which there was usually nothing wrong with in the first place), he was gossiping (Bella and the Cullens were unfortunately still a popular topic) or hitting on any and every young woman that happened to come into the store (which unfortunately wasn't a lot but still enough that Newton was annoying). Or talking about some sort of scholarship he gave up to the University of Washington to help his family in the store (which Paul seriously doubted).

As Paul entered the living room, he met Sam's eyes, seeing the alpha giving him an understanding yet stern look while Jacob was frowning at him from Sam's side. In Paul's opinion, Jacob was letting the whole alpha thing get to his head. He wasn't even his alpha, but yet the younger man always seemed to try and boss him around.

But now wasn't the time to rehash old wounds, Paul thought as he quickly made his way over to the couch and sat down next to Jared, who had thankfully saved him a spot. The room was crowded with oversized teens as both packs were present. They had started out meeting separately, but Sam had the bright idea of doing joint meetings in the name of unity. They started up while they were dealing with the leech army problem and both alphas seemed content to continue on with it for the time being.

Paul could do with a little less unity when it came to Jacob.

"Now that we're all here, let's get started," Sam said, his voice booming through the room and quickly cutting off all conversation.

Paul listened as he went through a few housekeeping items, namely reminding the younger pack members that the school year was about to start up. Paul glanced over and caught Quil and Embry grinning, the two of them excited to start their senior year.

His eyes then moved around the room, seeing that all the younger members looked eager to get back to school. Paul supposed that if it had been him, he probably would be eager for a school year where he finally didn't have rogue vampires and constant patrols getting in the way of sleep, homework and studying, too.

Now that he thought about it, he was shocked he had even graduated.

Long before he became Paul Lahote, the Uley Pack's third-in-command, he had been Paul Lahote, slacker and trouble-maker. When he wasn't skipping with other delinquents, he was usually getting into fights or making wise-ass comments in class that got him sent to the principal's office every other day or so. His GPA was almost non-existent. Paul was about as far from responsible and honorable as you could get.

So, you could imagine Sam's shock (and well... everyone on the tribal council, really) when Paul phased the first time, officially making him the third member of a pack of spirit warriors that was now tasked with protecting everyone in the La Push from vampires. Then imagine Paul's shock when Sam asked him to take on a position of responsibility within the pack.

"How was patrol last night?" Sam asked, turning his attention to Paul and pulling him out of his musings.

"All quiet," he said with a sigh, repeating the same thing he had said about every patrol he had done over the last several months since the leech army had tried to wipe out the Cullens.