Hello everyone! Apparently I don't write in the summer, but I'm back. Enjoy this story of Quil and Claire. Hopefully it's a little different than other Q&C stories. Enjoy!

Chapter 1.

Quil and I sat side by side at my desk in my bedroom. His hand was on my shoulder. His mouth was next to my ear as he explained to me how to work out a quadratic equation. His deep voice and hot breath on my neck sent chills down my spine. I couldn't concentrate. All I could think about was Quil's hand on my shoulder and the fact that his hot breath made me shiver.

"Earth to Claire-Bear," he said, trying to get my attention. I suddenly realized he had finished giving me the directions. I looked up at him cautiously. His eyes were dangerous. I would lose all reasoning when I looked into those hazel-brown eyes with those long lashes. "What's up? Are you even paying attention?" Quil asked with a smirk. I loved that smirk.

I tried to get my crap together to answer him without embarrassing myself. "Um. I'm just tired." Lame excuse Claire.

Recently, I discovered that I, Claire Cooper, am in love with Quil Ateara. Quil has been my best friend since I was two years old. He's always been around. He's been to every one of my birthday parties since he came into my life. I've dressed him up as a princess and even coordinated Halloween costumes more than once. He's kind of like my big brother. He's kind of like a father-figure as well since my dad hasn't been around much since we moved to the Quileute reservation when I was two. It's always been me, my mom Jan, my sister Katie, and Quil.

But normal people don't fall in love with their big brother or the father-figure in their life! It's sick. I feel the need to be with him all the time. There's an ache in my chest if I go too long without seeing him. It's been that way since I can remember. And to top it all off, he's around thirty years old, although Quil looks like he's about twenty-five, but still. I'm sixteen. I'll be seventeen in four weeks. It's not like I could suit him up and take him to the high school dance. People may frown upon that. Our close friends and family know nothing kinky is going on. They just know us as Quil and Claire, best friends, not a man robbing the cradle. Strangers think we're siblings. With our Native American background, we have some of the same features.

Nothing inappropriate has ever happened between Quil and me, although I wouldn't mind it now. Quil is always a gentleman. Occasionally he'll hold my hand, but it depends on who we're hanging out with. He always kisses me on the head, sometimes the cheek. I don't remember ever kissing him on the mouth, but I've seen a picture of it from when I was little. It was an innocent puffer-fish kiss with our mouths together, cheeks blown out, and our hands making fins by our ears. Again, I wouldn't mind if he kissed me on the mouth now.

The reason Quil looks younger than he actually is, is because he's a werewolf. Not the traditional werewolf, but more like a shapeshifter, but he only shifts into a wolf. Quil is Quileute and only certain people in the tribe have the gene. Quil is one of them. Being a wolf makes him very large, very muscular, and very hot. Hot in both the literal and the figurative terms. He is always warm with a usual body temperature of one hundred and eight degrees and he's so pretty. If he knew I called him pretty, I would be in trouble. Quil belongs to a pack of other wolves that is headed by my uncle, Sam Uley, the alpha.

Some of my earliest memories are of Quil and me playing on the swing set in my backyard and walking around in the woods while he was in wolf form. I remember when I first discovered I was in love with Quil. It was towards the end of last summer, almost a year ago. Quil and I were at First Beach with our pack family. It was so warm and the beach was crowded with locals and tourists. Our group had our own section of the beach. The pack always drew lots of attention. As with Quil, every other member of the pack was huge and attractive with his naturally tanned skin and his lean muscular body. Guys were intimidated by them and the girls always swooned over them. Other than two or three members of the pack, all the swooning from the tourist chicks never seemed to faze the guys. They were utterly devoted to their girlfriends or wives.

We started a game of volleyball dividing the teams up evenly. We made sure both sides had an equal amount of wolves and an equal amount of wimpy girls like me. I'm not even sure why the wimpy girls were allowed to play, because other than serving the ball when it was our turn, we hardly ever touched the thing. The wolves with their quick reflexes would always get to the ball first.

Quil insisted on being on my team, which I didn't mind other than the fact that he never let me touch the ball. He always tried to protect me from things that flew at my face. Like I couldn't handle it. I was on the school's volleyball team for crying out loud.

"Quil, will you please let me play?" I whined after he swooped in for the eightieth time to volley the ball back to the opposing team.

"Sorry Claire-Bear," he replied with a sheepish grin.

"Thank you," I sighed.

The next serve from the opposite team hit me right in the face. I think Embry served it, but not sure because I'm certain I lost the half hour prior to me blacking out.

In the darkness I could hear muffled arguing and frantic chattering before my eyes opened.

"Here, use my shirt to soak up the blood," I heard Embry say. Great blood, I thought. Quil's gonna freak. He was more protective than my mother. My mother would brush things off with a kiss and a Band-Aid where Quil would start to spaz out and want to take me to the emergency room.

The throbbing between my eyes finally registered in my brain and I started to moan from the pain. The warm arms around me gripped tighter.

"Claire-Bear. Open your eyes. Wake up," I heard Quil's voice and it sounded like he was going into pure freak-out mode.

"Stop. I'm fine," I replied, my eyes were still closed.

"Just open your eyes so we can check them out. Please," Quil whispered.

I struggled to open my eyes because the sunlight made the throbbing hurt worse, but when I did I swear that Quil, my Quil, looked like an angel. Hokey, I know, but it's true! The sun was positioned behind his head just so, that he seemed to glow. His dark hair looked like there was a halo just above it. His hazel-brown eyes showed so much love and concern. Ok, so I'm not sure the amount or type of love in that look, but there was certainly a lot of concern. When I finally focused on Quil's face I could feel my mouth turn up into a dorky smile that I couldn't control. Although I loved Quil, for some reason at that moment I saw him differently. I loved him more than just a best friend and a brother and a father-figure. I saw him as my knight-in-shining armor, my protector, and all those other fantasy Prince Charming roles that I made him play when I was little. I'm in love with Quil Ateara. And, for just a glint of a second, I could have sworn I saw that same feeling in his eyes too. So yeah, I was concussed at the time so it probably didn't really happen.

I heard a couple female voices from our audience gasp and then giggle. Do they know what I'm thinking? I thought and suddenly blushed.

As predicted, Quil drove me straight to the hospital. I had a broken nose and two black eyes that lasted a couple of weeks. Luckily school was out for summer break and I could hide my ugly face at home. Quil was there to wait on me hand and foot, which only made me fall in love with him more. I received a ton of apology flowers from Embry.

Like any other tragic love story of a teenage girl, our love was one sided. I loved Quil, but he did not love me. Well, not in the same way I loved him. He told me he loved me all the time. But in the "love ya kid" kind of way that usually comes with a light punch on the shoulder. He did hug me often, but lately I tried to avoid it because his touch made me all tingly inside and my feelings seemed highly inappropriate.

This is where I sit now, at my desk in my bedroom avoiding any type of physical contact with my thirty year old best friend, who happens to be a gorgeous male shapeshifter, because the slightest touch from him makes my insides turn to jelly. But at that moment, with Quil's warm breath on my ear rattling off algebra, my insides are more like the consistency of lava, sending a warm sensation oozing from my ear down throughout my body.

"Well, if you're tired maybe you should go to bed. You still have tomorrow to work on this," Quil said as he scooped up my math homework. The way he said 'bed' made a tremor run down my spine. I was totally losing it.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Sundays are Quil-and-Claire-Day, or Q&C-Day, and they have been since I can remember. We always planned to spend most of the day together either by ourselves or with the family. Quil usually let me sleep in unless he had major plans for me that involved an all day road trip.

"What do you have planned for tomorrow?" I asked. "I don't want to spend my time doing homework." It was only the first week of school and I already had a ton of it.

"Nothing big. I thought we'd go window shopping so I could get some ideas for your birthday," he replied with a wiggle of his eyebrow while he looked through my Cosmo Girl magazine. We usually went to the mall in Port Angeles. That wasn't a shocker. Quil wasn't one for surprising me with gifts. He liked to know exactly what I wanted. I could guess what he was getting me because he usually gave himself away. Quil wasn't very subtle.

"I'll take you to lunch, maybe get some ice cream," he continued.

"Cool, but no ice cream! I've gained like two pounds last week," I groaned. I walked over to my full length mirror and checked out my butt. My jeans were starting to get a little snug.

"Does my butt look like it's getting big?" I asked with my eyes still on my jeans. When Quil didn't answer I looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was staring at my bottom, but not in a pervy, creepy way. It was more like he was trying to figure something out.

"Well?" I asked. Quil's eyes jerked up towards mine for a second and he knew I caught him staring. His eyes flashed back to the magazine.

"You're not fat," he mumbled, flipping hastily through the pages.

"That's not what I asked," I mumbled back. I noticed I was starting to fill out more, which I didn't mind in the boob department. But with my hips and butt areas, I did mind. My mom says that I'm getting my womanly curves. My Aunt Emily tells me it's my hour-glass figure. I think it's just fat. I took one more look at my butt, sighed, and walked away from the mirror.

"You look beautiful," Quil said as his warm arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest. His touch started the lava flowing in my body again. When he said things like that and made me feel that way, I almost believed him. I almost believed he saw me the way I saw him.

"You're going to make one guy very lucky some day," he continued. He always said things like that. He would give me compliments and then bring up that "one guy". What guy is that Quil? 'Cause it's apparently not you.

"Sure, sure." I replied and playfully pushed him away, trying to hide my disappointment.

Just then my sister Katie walked by my bedroom door towards her room and stops when she saw Quil.

"Hey Quil," she said to him with her total "I'm easy" look on her face. She's eighteen and gorgeous. We have the same straight dark hair, but her eyes are lighter than mine, hazel, and they seem to pop from her face. They give her kind of an exotic look. She doesn't have the hour-glass figure. She's still skinny. I hate her. I ignored her and started putting my homework in my backpack.

"'Sup Katie?" Quil answered. I glanced in his direction and noticed he was still flipping through my magazine. He wasn't ogling her like all the other guys around here did.

"What are you guys doing tomorrow? If you're going shopping, can I bum a ride?" she asked in her flirty tone. I rolled my eyes.

"Sure!" Quil said a little too enthusiastically. I immediately sent him a death glare, but he didn't notice and continued. "We're leaving around eleven, is that ok?"

"Ok! Thanks!" Katie giggled and scurried off to her room.

When she left the room Quil looked up at me and finally noticed my death glare.

"What?"

"I don't want her to go," I hissed out in a whisper so she wouldn't hear me.

"Why?" He totally didn't get it.

"Forget it." I didn't feel like explaining. I didn't want to tell him that I didn't enjoy trying on clothes with my sister who was much smaller than me. I didn't want to tell him that I didn't enjoy watching her flirt with him mercilessly. I had a feeling she knew I liked him and I think she liked him too. She uses her eighteen-year-old "adult" status and the fact that she isn't jailbait anymore to throw it in my face.

Quil-and-Claire-Day was gonna suck.

Please let me know what you think. I've been working on the first few chapters FOREVER. I've changed my story line three times. I think I'm going to like the final version and I hope you do too. Please send me a review and let me know what you think.