Sleepwalker Wolf

Best Friends

Valery

When I close the door behind us, I can hear Sandy start screeching downstairs. I guess Trav got around to breaking the news before I did. Knowing that Sandy is so excited soothes my nerves just a little. They roar back up when Carry looks at the door suspiciously. I know she doesn't exactly trust everyone here but has loosened back into her crazy self as dinner wore on.

Carry leans against the door with her arms folded, looking every bit some kind of bodyguard. "I know what you're going to tell me. You're pregnant, right?"

I just nod. Carry's been my best friend for the past three years. We met not long after I first moved here in an almost comically cliché romantic movie. She spilled coffee all over me and we talked over the replacements she bought us. We're still very different, the same thing that kept me from forming attachments for almost all my life, and I for one didn't care at the time if I ever saw her again, but Carry was like a tic. She burrowed her way in through sheer persistence until being around her was an everyday occurrence. I loved her like a sister because even when we had almost nothing in common to talk about, she'd just ramble on about whatever thought floated through her head. It was the first time I had ever felt cared for and wanted. Even if I was normally quiet and boring, she always said it just gave her space to get everything that whirled around in her head out.

Heaving a sigh, Carry meanders over to sit on the bed beside me. The little air that wafts up carries Travis's scent up to my nose and causes my shoulders to relax a little. That man has me wrapped around his fingers, but he'll never know that.

"This is insane, but I've never seen you so... open before. What is it about them?"

I want to tell her that they're like me, that there's this familiarity I can't explain because it's biology, something built in my DNA to surround myself with others like me. That I just slotted into this family like I always belonged here.

"Travis helps. And Sandy basically adopted me the moment we met. I just fit here, Carry, more than I do with any of my foster families and maybe even the one I was born into."

"We never really talk about Travis," Carry says in an uncharacteristically small voice.

"We don't." I flop back onto the bed. "I've never had anybody to talk about before. The only person I had was you."

Carry flops down beside me. "You've never shown interest in anybody before."

Now that I know why, I want to explain to her that werewolves don't show much interest in sex or relationships until they first hit their fertile age. And even then, our instincts are so involved, and we usually wait until our instincts settle on one person and we stay with them until death.

"It was only Travis, I guess."

"Why?"

That question takes no thought to answer. I smile thinking about my doofus downstairs, probably already wrestling Trevor on the floor. "He's so fucking aggravating sometimes, but in the most adorable way that I can't really be mad about it. We had a few rough spots, like anybody, but we figured it out. He gives me space when I need it and I know he needs a lot of attention afterwards because he's such a baby. All he has to do is flash those dimples at me and I'll pretty much do whatever he wants, but I'll never tell him that. There's this specific way he likes to wake up in the morning where he sticks his nose between my boobs and flops his leg over me. He makes this cute dopey grin whenever he does that just melts me inside. Mostly I just feel like the best of myself comes out when I'm around him."