My Childhood Friend is a Werewolf

Chapter One

The bridal room was a flurry of activity, the swirl of pastel blue skirts darting from one end of the room to the other, carrying makeup, hair accessories, jewellery, or curling irons. Bobby pins were being launched across the room in a panic, and Emma could swear she heard someone request socks to stuff in a push-up bra.

"Yoko needs super glue, stat!" a bridesmaid yelled, and Emma saw her best friend Hannah sprint across the room waving a tiny tube of super glue in the air.

"I got it!" she roared, sliding to a stop in front of their friend Yoko. Knowing that Hannah had everything well in hand, Emma turned back to her phone.

Yoko was a dear friend of hers that she met in college while attempting to become a lawyer before realising that she was absolutely unfit for that career path. She and Yoko stayed friends while she had pivoted to something far more stressful: wedding florist. Because of her ridiculous choice of a career, Emma found herself sitting in the bridal room amongst a literal zoo of women trying to get ready, texting her employees as they set up the floral archway where her good friend would be getting married.

Make sure the flowers are facing where the camera will be, she texted, her fingers flying across the little phone screen in her hand. And don't put too many pink flowers at the top, leave some scattered on the bottom too. Her phone then buzzed, a different employee sending her a picture of the reception centrepieces and subsequently sending her on another texting spree. This would have been so much easier if she wasn't also a bridesmaid, but Emma knew she would have regretted not saying yes to both things.

"It's showtime, girls!" The wedding coordinator burst into the room, waving her clipboard around. Some of the girls were urging Yoko not to cry while doing their last-minute touch-ups and speeding out the room in their four-inch heels. Emma followed them, taking her place in the middle of the line-up.

The ceremony was beautiful and her employees did a fantastic job with the floral archway, securing their bonus for a job well done. She and Hannah had a hard time not messing up their makeup with tears as they watched their good friend finally marry the man of her dreams. There was a flurry of picture-taking that she was forced to stay for before the bridesmaids and groomsmen were dismissed to enjoy cocktail hour and the couple went off to take private photos.

"I'm so ready for a drink," Hannah said, heading straight for the bar and dragging Emma with her. Emma ordered a fruity cocktail for herself and as she waited for her drink to be made, she looked around the room. The cocktail hour was in the same place as the reception, allowing all the guests to find their seats and mingle as they pleased. It was an outdoor venue perched on a cliff that overlooked a lush forest stretching farther than Emma could see. The sun wasn't quite setting yet, but it would be soon and she could only imagine how amazing the view would become washed in the glow of the sunset.

She and Hannah lived in the city so getting here was a bit of a nightmare requiring a several-hour drive. Looking at the view, though, really made it all worth it for her. She felt Hannah, already holding her wine, nudge her.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asked, smiling. "Kind of reminds me of home."

"Mm, yeah," Emma mumbled in agreement.

Home. She hadn't thought of that place for a while. It brought up too many painful memories, if she had to be honest with herself. The twenty-seven year old really didn't want to think about the mistakes she had made there, and the hole that it left in her heart, a hole that never got filled. His face flashed across her mind sometimes, but it was always the face she remembered; the boyish, heartbroken face of her youth.

How did he look now, she wondered? Was he even more handsome than before? Did he still have that same sardonic grin? Did he still like climbing onto his roof and taking a nap in the middle of the day?