Holiday Wolf Pack

by Bridget Essex

I listen to her heartbeat, feeling warm and bright and as happy and joy-filled as I can ever remember being.

  Somewhere, far below us, a church rings out on Christmas morning.

  Paige’s warm lips brush against the top of my head. “I would love to make you Christmas breakfast,” she tells, then, her voice low and throaty as she chuckles. “I make a mean eggs benedict. If you’d like,” she offers then.

  “I’d love that,” I tell her honestly, straightening so that we’re eye to eye. My heart skips a beat as the true blue-ness of her gaze sees to the very depths of me.

  “Merry Christmas, Mandy,” she tells me softly, her smile still full of mischief and mirth as she draws me to her, claiming another kiss.

  And it is a Merry Christmas.

  The Christmas Wolf

  “Why do you even want a roommate, Kat?”

  I stare at my best friend, unblinking, for a whole minute—right up until the point where my eyes start to water; then I finally cave in and blink.

  “Because,” I say, drawing out the word while I shake my head, trying (and failing) to stop myself from smiling, “there's a thing in this universe called money, Diane. And, you know, the lack of having it.”

  Diane rolls her eyes and picks up her piping-hot coffee, blowing across the surface of the cream-colored liquid (she likes a little coffee with her milk) and finally taking a sip. “You make almost enough to swing the rent,” she points out, “and if I can bring it up for the umpteen-millionth time—”

  “Could I stop you?” I chuckle, drinking my tea.

  “No,” she says, blonde curls bouncing as she grins widely at me and taps her paint-spattered finger on the table's surface. “I hate to remind you, but, dude, living with someone else is terrible.” She shakes her head adamantly.

  I snort. “I lived with you for years, you big jerk,” I tell her, reaching across the table and poking her ribs playfully. “And now you're living the high life with your husband and painting career, and where's poor Kat?” I flutter my eyelashes and place my chin under my hands, trying to look sad, but I'm giggling too much to pull it off. “Destitute!” I place the back of my hand against my forehead. “Forced to find a roommate that is somewhat less messy than you were!”

  “Yeah, I was totally messy,” says Diane, still smiling as she takes another sip of her drink, “and you're kind of the neat freak from hell, so—”

  “I think someone has confused the term 'neat freak' with 'a person who dislikes sleeping on a pile of pizza boxes because she's too lazy to move them off of her bed.'”

  “That only happened, like, five or six times,” says Diane, waving her hand airily. “But I'm serious. Have you thought about what it'll be like living with someone who doesn't share your neatness and who isn't your best friend?”

  “I have,” I tell her, with a little grimace.

  “And have you realized that you're the suffer-in-silence type who is completely incapable of telling anyone to pick up after themselves?” she asks, brow raised imperiously.

  I groan, flopping forward onto the table and banging my forehead gently against the wood. “Yeah,” I mutter.

  “Good,” she says with a small smile, but then she shakes her head again, the smile disappearing. “I really am sorry, Kat,” she says, a little more serious this time. Her voice drops lower as she looks down at the drink in her hands. “I know my moving in with Roger was something neither of us ever saw coming—”

  “Don't even say it,” I murmur, smiling at her affectionately. “Seriously, Diane, Roger is really good for you, and I'm so happy for you; I mean it. I never feel anything but happy for you.”

  “Be that as it may,” says Diane, tilting her head to the side, her eyes clouding over with concern, “I left you in the lurch. Roger makes good money, and I've got it kind of easy,” she says. “I know that you don't make enough to pay the rent by yourself, and that has me worried...”

  “Don't worry. I left myself in the lurch by being a poor schmuck who can't get a better job than working at a department store,” I mutter, raising my glass of tea in a mock salute. “So please, please, please don't feel sorry for me. I couldn't bear it.”

  Overhead, the dirge-like version of “Silent Night” that the coffee shop was pumping out over its speakers changes to a jazzy rendition of “Jingle Bells.” Which, admittedly, sounds better than the dirge, but I groan, flopping backward in my seat in disbelief.

  “They play this version at work,” I say, pointing upward and making a face, “exactly two hundred times a day. I keep track. And they've been playing it two hundred times a day,” I say with a bright, very fake smile, “since September first.”

  “You're joking,” Diane tells me archly, but when she glances across the table at me, her eyes grow wider. “Oh, my God—you're not joking.”

  “Hey, you know that I keep track of these things,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, after all, I'm the Christmas lady!”

  “Don't start!” Diane begins to laugh, but then I'm leaning forward with a bright smile on my face.

  “Christmas has been my favorite thing since I was knee-high to a snow globe, since I was a twinkle in the Christmas Star's—”

  “I get the picture,” Diane laughs. “After all, I remember living with you. You had a Christmas tree in every room—two in the bathroom.” She raises a brow. “It kind of looked like Santa threw up in your living room.”

  “I'll take that as a compliment.” I grin at her. “And I don't really mind the Christmas overload you get when you work in a mall. But it's the versions of the songs they play. Like right now,” I say, pointing upward again. “This sounds like a jazz band put together by first graders who are hopped up on a thousand sugar cookies attempting to play 'Jingle Bells,' and actually just barely managing 'Three Blind Mice.'”

  Diane puts her head to the side as she listens, then nods. “Yeah, I can hear that,” she chuckles.

  “Anyway,” I tell her, leaning back in my chair, “I'm really hoping that—”

  But then the terrible rendition of “Jingle Bells” is muted a little by my phone, from deep in the depths of my purse, announcing that someone is calling me by playing another version of “Jingle Bells.” This one, though, is created by dogs barking.

  “Well, that's festive,” says Diane with a crooked smile as I dig the phone out of my purse. “And, hey,” she says imperiously, pointing at my phone, “I thought we promised that we wouldn't even look at our phones while we were out for coffee. I specifically remember you telling me that cell phone use makes for terrible conversations, and—”

  “I will beg your forgiveness in five seconds,” I tell her, after glancing down at my cell screen. “But...I don't recognize the number—I think it's finally someone calling about the apartment! I have to take this!”

  Diane gives me two thumbs up, and then she fishes her own phone out of her back pocket and pulls up Facebook to amuse herself while I take the call.

  I stand up and answer my phone, stepping back from the table quickly and trotting outside, wrapping my arms around myself and shivering in the cold. I left my jacket draped across the back of my chair, darn it. “Hello?” I say into the phone, hopefully sounding friendly and like the type of woman you'd want to be roomies with.

  “Hi—my name's Jewel,” comes a smoky voice from the other end of the line. “I'm calling about the 'roommate wanted' ad you put up on Craigslist?”

  I blink; this is, oddly enough, not what I was expecting. What was I expecting?

  Well, for starters, not someone whose voice sounds like liquid sex.

  Okay, admittedly, I'm exaggerating a little, but she sounds like the kind of late-night radio announcer that you could listen to for hours on end, all growly and warm and velvet-like.

  I blink again, and then I'm doing a little dance, right there in the dirty gray snow outside the front door of Coffee Charms, because sexy voice or not, I was right. It's someone calling about the apartment!

  “Hi, my name's Kathryn,” I
tell her warmly (practically gushing with enthusiasm), “but everyone calls me Kat. Um...what kind of place were you looking for?” I ask breathlessly, clutching the phone with a white-knuckled hand. I'm trying to ignore the fact that she sounds like a radio announcer and instead zero in on the hope that whatever she's looking for will be a match for my place.

  (I hate to admit it, but roommate-hunting has not been going spectacularly well.)

  “Well, to be perfectly frank...” comes that smoky voice from the other end of the line. I can tell she's smiling now. Her voice is warm, low... My muscles begin to relax a little. “I'm going to be up front with you,” says Jewel. “I'm looking for the kind of roommate who's okay with werewolves.”

  I blink again, holding my phone to my ear.

  Well, this conversation isn't really going like I'd expected.

  Because...werewolves.

  And that statement must mean that this woman, this woman on the other end of the phone...is a werewolf.

  Werewolves “came out” about five years ago. They said they were tired of hiding, that us humans could learn a lot from them, that they were probably the evolution of the human race...and because there were so many werewolves (so many more than you would ever expect), the whole “coming out” thing went relatively smoothly. It's an odd sort of truce, and it's made being alive in this day and age kind of...um...interesting.

  But still, most werewolves don't announce themselves to people like this. And there's nothing specific about their appearance that makes you realize the person you're talking to is, in fact, not human but someone who can change into a wolf. You won't know unless said person actually, you know, changes into a wolf right in front of your eyes. Which, despite the largeness of the werewolf population, happens much less frequently than you might think.

  So that this woman is volunteering this private information right away...yeah, that's really not usual.

  “Sorry to drop a bomb on you there,” chuckles Jewel after a long moment of silence, “but I want to be honest. You see, my last living situation ended rather badly when someone opened my personal mail, found out what I was, and then proceeded to harass me about it until I moved out of the apartment complex. So I want everything out in the open right from the start. If you have a problem with werewolves,” she says, taking a deep breath, “there's no hard feelings. But I need to know whether you do or not before I even come see the apartment. I don't want to waste my time,” she adds, and there's warmth in her voice, “and I don't want to waste yours.”

  For a few seconds, I don't say anything, and then I'm shaking my head quickly. “Um, no. No!” I tell her. “I have absolutely no problem with werewolves. I've just never... I don't think I've ever known any werewolves,” I manage.

  Jewel chuckles, her laughter warm and sweet, like honey. “I kind of doubt that,” she tells me, without sarcasm. She's not laughing at me. “We just don't really like to tell people what we are. But there are many of us, I promise. You've probably known several werewolves without realizing it. Anyway,” she says, her voice dropping lower. I'm finding that voice mightily attractive.

  Um...but this is a lot of information to process all at once, so I try to ignore my attraction, try to ignore all of my curious wonderings—and I listen.

  “I'm really neat and tidy,” Jewel says, which makes my ears perk up (even, I hate to admit, more so than when she'd announced herself as a werewolf. Hey, I have my priorities!). “I have no pets. I work days, and I'm very courteous. I've never really applied to be a roommate before,” she confesses, her low voice chuckling, “so I'm not really sure what you're looking for...” She trails off, prompting me.

  “Well, why don't you come see the place? Then I can meet you, interview you,” I say, flinching and closing my eyes tightly, bracing myself for a, “No, thanks, I've changed my mind.” I'm not a pessimistic person, but getting someone to commit to being my roommate has proven to be harder than I would have ever imagined. Hell, it's been way harder than finding a lady I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

  And since that's proving to be impossible at the moment, that's really telling you something.

  “Are you sure?” Jewel asks, and her voice is softer now—sadder, somehow. “I...realize I must sound so relentless about this, but I want to be perfectly clear. I just really don't want to get there and find out that you hate my kind,” she tells me softly. There's a long pause before she adds, “I have to be honest: the only reason I called your ad is because you wrote that you're a lesbian in the description, so I thought that you, of all people, would appreciate discrimination.”

  “Well,” I tell her slowly, “I don't appreciate it—”

  Jewel laughs at this, a low, warm chuckle. “Yeah,” she tells me dryly, then, “I don't appreciate it, either.” There's a moment of awkward silence between us while I try to figure out what to say.

  “Well, I'm going to be up front with you, too,” I tell her then, standing a little straighter as I shiver, a cold breeze twisting its way between the buildings and assaulting my coatless body. I ruby my shoulder and wrinkle my nose. “I don't know much about werewolves. I'm sorry,” I tell her truthfully. “But I've got no preconceived notions at all, so...” I trail off. “I promise,” I tell her then, and I pour my heart into the words, “I don't hate anyone.”

  “Okay,” she says, and she sounds a little dubious, but her tone is warm again. “Where's the apartment located?” she asks me, a smile in her voice, “and how soon can we meet there?”

  Well, this interaction is more positive than the other potential roommate interactions have gone, so I'm leaping at the opportunity. And, dammit, she has the sexiest voice; I'm kind of curious to find out what she looks like, and what she's like, in general.

  I give her the address, and then I take the phone from my ear and glance down at it to see the time. “I can be home in twenty minutes,” I say quickly, then immediately start to beat myself up over my enthusiasm. “Or did you want a later time?” Real great, Kat, scare her away. Who the hell wants to meet in twenty minutes? I think with a soft sigh.

  But she surprises me.

  “I'd love that. Yeah, I'll be there in twenty,” she agrees. “See you soon, Kat,” Jewel tells me then, a smile in her voice, and she hangs up.

  I dash back into the coffee shop, and the moment that Diane sees me, she grins. “Oh, my God, good news?”

  “Great news,” I manage, tossing my phone into my bag and then peeling my coat off of the back of my seat. “I'm sorry, Di, but I've got to run—she wants to meet me at my place in twenty minutes for an interview and tour. Oh, my God, I might actually have a roommate for next month's rent check!” Again, I do a little dance in place, pumping my fist in the air. “So,” I tell her brightly, “I might be able to afford to eat better than ramen and PB&J next month, too. A win-win!”

  “Good luck,” Diane tells me, standing up and hugging me tightly, “but are you going to make it home in enough time to change out of...that?” she asks, indicating my outfit with a laugh.

  I've been employed at True Women, the big women's department store, for five years now, and every year at Christmas, I'm one of the only people they can get to wear a costume. So, yeah, I'm dressed like a Christmas elf right now, right down to the little green shoes with curled toes and bells on the tips. I'm wearing green tights, a green tunic belted at the waist with a spare Santa belt, and a big green hat with more jingle bells.

  I jingle every time I take a step, and a few little kids have run up to me here in the coffee shop, asking me if Santa got their letters (I told them “yes,” which was met with resounding enthusiasm).

  “Um...the bus is slow on this side of town,” I tell Diane with a grimace. “So I probably don't have time to change. But then...” I close my mouth. I was about to tell her that this woman, this Jewel, was a werewolf, and since she was very honest with me about being a werewolf, I'm hoping that I can get some of my eccentricities out in the open, right off the bat.

 
; But I can't tell Diane that Jewel's a werewolf—it's not my place to say, and secondly...well, I already know exactly what Diane would tell me.

  She'd stare at me with angry, flashing eyes that she'd then try to mask (unsuccessfully), and with a touch of venom in her voice, she'd ask, “A werewolf?! You can't room with a werewolf, Kat It's not safe!”

  Diane is open-minded about most things (that one time I took her to the Devil May Care drag show was pretty noteworthy)...but she's really never gotten a handle on the whole werewolf thing.

  I mean, a lot of people haven't. Even though there are a lot of werewolves out there (last estimate was one-third of the world's population, maybe more; it's hard to take a scientific census), the notion is just too much for many people to take in. Werewolves have, for too long, been part of the Hollywood grouping of “monsters” (which is a really offensive term to werewolves). And after the werewolves came out, it was too late to fix that. People associated werewolves with something they should fear. And fear them they did.

  Hatred is just the mask that fear wears.

  But for me, it was all just too damn close to how folks have treated gay people for millennia, so I refused to participate in any of the hate mongering. How could I, someone who had experienced her own fair share of prejudice in my lifetime, be anything less than accepting, loving, and kind to werewolves, people who were—at their very essence—exactly like me? And every time Diane brought the topic up, that she thought that werewolves should have stayed in the proverbial closet, or mentioned that she was really uncomfortable around her doctor, who happened to be a werewolf, and that she was going to find another doctor, instead, I'd calmly (but hurtfully) told her how damn similar being a gay person and being a werewolf were, at least in the way we were treated by society at large...and then she'd quiet down about the matter.

  But I could tell that it didn't sit well with her. And she went to another doctor, anyway.

  She's an artist, for Pete's sake. Shouldn't that have made her accepting, by default?