Sleepwalker Wolf

New Meat

Valery

Tomorrow is my birthday. I never particularly cared for my birthday. It's just another reminder that my parents never loved me. To me, just another day.

To my best friend Caroline, it's the greatest day of the year. Which is why she's planning the entire day down to the minute. Any kind of event is the perfect reason to display her Type A personality.

"Then we can go get mani pedis-"Caroline rambles until I cut her off with a groan. The myriad of smells from the kitchen combined with the heavy cologne of whoever just walked past me is making my stomach turn. Not to mention the many forks scraping plates are beginning to grate on my sensitive ears.

"Val, are you okay?" Carry asks, placing her hand over mine.

"Fucking stinks," was all I manage to mumble.

Caroline doesn't ask. She knows how sensitive my nose is. All she does is suggest we move to a table outside when we get our food.

The early-autumn air is a welcome boon to my senses. The fresh air allows the smells to blow past my nose without clinging around like a noxious cloud. Trees planted in cut outs in the sidewalk rustle in the slight breeze that carries the smell of mostly car exhaust and earth.

"Okay, that's half the day planned. Was there anything else you wanted to do," Caroline asks as we settle at the table with lunch.

"Do we have to do so much? I planned to spend most of the day sleeping in," I say, after swallowing a bite of my ruben.

"Val! It's your twenty-first birthday!" After I raise a brow at her, she groans and relents. "Fine! At least we can go to a new bar that's opened up. It's a little out of the way, but it's something!"

"Alright."

Carry spends the rest of lunch telling me about how her boss won't stop reheating fish in the breakroom microwave and how her coworker refuses to clean out her stuff from the fridge.

We go our separate ways so I can get back to work at Stan's Prime Cuts, the butcher shop I work at. Sometimes I work preparing cuts in the back or I work the front, whichever Stan doesn't feel like doing that day.

Walking down the street, I filter out the street noise and the conversations I can hear from passing groups of people. I missed my morning jog, so the walk was much needed to stretch out my muscles and get rid of extra energy.

The shop is a small concrete building with its name painted on a wooden sign over the door. It's been in Stan's family for generations, but only he and I work there.

"Afternoon, Stan," I greet over the ding of the bell that hangs over the doorway. He grunts, pouring all his concentration into the books he demands keeping for the shop. I always tell him a computer would make everything much easier, but apparently I don't know anything.

On my way to the back cooler, Stan stops me. "Delivery of venison today," he grumbles before letting me go.

The Scotts make a delivery of venison and even sometimes rabbit two or three times a month. They're a strange family, but I'm not one to talk with my hypersensitive nose and sleep walking. They live out in the woods and are the most prolific hunters I've ever seen.

I stay in the back cooler until Stan announces the delivery. We head to the back door that leads to the back parking lot. I recognize Elijah, the youngest Scott, since he makes all the deliveries. He had dirty blond curls and soft brown eyes. Then two men I don't recognize step out of the front seats.

Both look similar, but slightly different. Same hair and eye color, but one's chocolate brown hair is curlier, his shoulders a little slimmer and not so much bulk on his arms. Both are quite handsome with a smell like Elijah's that seems wild and musky, almost like a dog.