10. Monica

10

MONICA

M ove in early. Give me two weeks before I start work. Time to get acclimated, and get to know the locals. See what life is like on the mountain.

While in New York, those thoughts made perfect sense. And moving in sooner would help me in more ways than one. I wouldn't have thought that I would take everything I owned to my new home one day and be ready to go to work the next morning.

Alas, I hadn't accounted for an "X" factor. The one factor that in my experience always tends to unravel somebody's life, meeting someone new. I wasn't looking, wasn't prepared, and was sure as hell not ready for the "X" that came into my life. I mean if that had gone well, I would have been loving my new home. Raul was certainly a handsome, caring man. The kind of man I could even see myself having started a relationship with.

But man? Was that accurate? To an extent, yes. On the outside, he was a man. He appeared to be an excellent specimen of a male human being. Nobody could suspect the truth under that skin. Nobody could envision something so incredibly, unrealistically, out of the ordinary. And that out of the ordinary was the problem. His other, what, nature? Side? Part? Whatever you'd call it, that's the part that spoiled a potential relationship with him. Even if I got myself past it, he had been crystal-clear. Dating him was the equivalent of a death sentence.

Talk about doomed from the start.

Nearing the end of my second week here in Shandaken, I came to a decision. I would leave that serene place for a day or two. There was nothing for me here except being alone. In the city, I could see my friends and try to figure a way out of this mess. Despite Raul's warnings, I couldn't forget him. It had been three days since our kisses in the wilderness and the memory of them wouldn't stop replaying in my mind. No matter the hour, I'd catch myself drifting back and returning to that fateful moment when he revealed his true nature to me. And every single time I would feel the same warmth around my body. The same passion on my lips, which had left me aching for his touch.

I arrived back in the city in the late afternoon, I was making my way towards the old apartment building on 116 th Street. Erica could afford something much better than the second-story apartment. She was doing well for herself as a singer at Murray's Vintage Vibes. Her popularity was growing fast, and she was drawing significant crowds. Despite that though, she wouldn't consider leaving her current place. Mostly I think being just two hundred yards from work offered a certain amount of convenience that she couldn't find anywhere else.

She buzzed me in, and I walked up the stairs like someone had dumped a hundred-pound bag of cement onto my shoulders. Indecision, mixed with disappointment had been toying with my heart. And I had no doubts that soon enough one more feeling was going to come over me. Discomfort. Erica wasn't good at hiding her true feelings. I doubted that she'd ever tried. I knew what I was in for with her. Loads of sarcasm, along with a little bit of ridicule. Still, with Stacy working late, she was my last option. And despite her flaws, she was good at giving advice, which was just what I needed.

"Welcome back, hun!" She answered her door with a smile. "Whoa…" Her smile vanished as fast as it had come. "Who died?"

"Nobody," I responded, walking in. "Yet. How are you, Erica? I never asked you about that big date you ditched me and Stacy for."

"Ah, it's just, well, because it blew," she stated, pushing the door shut. "The guy was a perfect case of ‘beauty has no brains.' We went out to dinner. He wouldn't say much, and whenever he did, it was usually about his wardrobe. Our bill was sixty-two dollars. It took him about thirty seconds to calculate the change from a hundred-dollar bill."

I chuckled, reaching her couch and flopping heavily down onto it. "Some people need more."

"They should stay away from me," Erica added. "Okay, you are upset, girl. What's the matter? Did something happen in that quiet little town of yours?"

"Sit down, Erica," I urged, the idea of explaining things to her killing any notion of amusement. "You're going to want to hear this."

My friend obliged me, and I began my somewhat long narrative. I felt her confusion, more than once. No surprises there. She was a smart woman, and my story was nothing like she had ever heard before. It wasn't every day she heard about enormous wolves, shapeshifters, and their rules. Her most precious reaction came at the news of the assault on Jack. Erica had never liked him, finding him too cocky and arrogant. To her, he was a very far cry from ideal. He was barely an average guy who got lucky when he happened to marry someone way out of his league. At the end of my narrative, she tore her gaze away. Instead of the expected sarcasm and disbelief, she went over to her balcony door, pulled it open, and went outside.

"That's it?" I wondered, crossing her living room. "You don't have anything to say about what I just told you?"

"I have a lot to say about it," she disagreed as I joined her outside. "To be honest, I was going to ask if you'd had any of that herbal tea you made from the ones we collected with Stacy. Who knows? Maybe there was some hallucinate in those. But, seeing as you're so upset, I decided to keep it to myself."

"I ran out of herbs yesterday morning," I informed her, a touch of annoyance in my tone. "It's all real, Erica. I saw it with my own two eyes. He transformed right in front of me."

"Into a wolf…" She said nodding to accent each word while her eyes went wider and wider until I swear her eyebrows were about to merge into her hairline. "And you want me to believe that?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed, my own eyes widening. Frustration was building like one of those ancient furnaces that would blow if the steam release locked up. "Look, if you don't believe me, fine. But then I might as well leave. And that's too bad because I need your advice about him. I guess I should talk to Stacy instead."

I turned and walked back through the door into her living room in a total huff.

"Wait," she commanded, stopping me in my tracks. "Honey, you do realize how insane all this sounds, right? I mean, people who… what? They can somehow shift into wolves? Like, what, in the movies or something?"

"I do," I replied, my voice lost most of its volume as my nerves gave way. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. And believe me, I've thought about it a lot over the past few days, Erica. It's the one thing that explains everything. The puncture marks on his neck, his quick healing, the fact that he was able to track me and Stacy down in the forest…" I trailed off weakly waving a hand between us. "All of it. The works."

She took in a deep breath. She closed her eyes and held them shut then let her breath out in a long, slow exhale. "Alright. Let's go back to that advice thing. How can I help you?"

"I'm at a loss," I confessed. "I felt so alive when he kissed me. So wanted. And trust me, if he had tried to go all the way with me back there, I wouldn't have stopped him. I wanted him. In a way, I've never felt before in my life."

She laughed. Loud and with a flashing glance of mockery. "And here I thought it couldn't get any better. I mean, a guy—who's not human—kisses you like you've never been kissed before, and voila ! Monica Greenwell, the tight-ass doctor wants to put aside her inhibitions and fuck him, right then and there."

"I wouldn't put it so crudely, but yes," I said in a steady voice. My forming anger gave steel to my nerves. "And please, don't interrupt me again. Your sarcasm and disagreement over my morals don't help. I'm at a loss. I am. He says that getting involved with him will put our lives at risk. Dating humans is, apparently, against his kind's rules. They would kill us both if they found out."

She stared with clear disbelief. Her mouth moved but she didn't speak. Finally, she shook her head and raised a palm between us.

"Okay, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." She turned and looked out over the city while gripping the railing of her balcony. After a few moments of silence, she turned her head to look at me again. "Whatever happened to ‘I need some time on my own to clear my head'? You said that just last week."

"I know." I nodded. "This just goes to show you how much I loved what happened between me and him, out in the woods." I shrugged sighed and then joined her at the railing. "One kiss. I mean, one set of kisses and he completely changed my mind. I'm in trouble here. I can't stop thinking about that kiss. About him."

"Then, it's quite clear if you ask me," Erica voiced her opinion with a sharp nod. "There's only one clear-cut choice. Start things up with him."

"It's not that simple," I disagreed, squeezing my lips together. "He's…"

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to interrupt you again," she said, raising her voice over mine. "It is that simple. Mon, you just told me you got so turned on that you'd have had sex with him in the middle of a forest , for crying out loud. You! Miss Prude, "no sex until at least the third date". That means there's a lot of heat between you. Hell, I sure don't remember you saying anything like that about your ex."

I tried to come up with an argument for that, but I got nothing. Finally, I sighed again, bowing my head.

"You're not wrong, but what if… this gets us into trouble?" I countered, looking at the traffic down below. "Are a few steamy moments worth dying for?"

"Nope," Erica murmured, leaning her forearms on the railing. "They most definitely are not, but I'm standing here looking at you now and, Stacy was there, remember? She told me how he looks at you too, which makes me wonder. I mean, I doubt it's just physical attraction. I think the way you're acting and what she said that I'd know if it was. I've certainly seen that a lot."

"If it's not just physical attraction, then what in the world is it?" I asked, managing by some small miracle to keep my frustration out of my tone.

"Ah, Dr. Greenwell…" she sighed, placing her hand on my shoulder. "You are always thinking, always analyzing every situation… not everything needs analysis, Monica. Sometimes, you have to trust your gut. I'm not going to mention his second nature, shape, or whatever the hell that is. I'm just going to reiterate the fact that you've found someone who can make you drop your panties at the drop of a hat. That's as rare as seeing a four-leaf clover. Don't let him get away."

"Get away…" I chuckled, clutching my chin. "He's not my prisoner. He's…"

"Hot, hot, hot," she interjected yet again. "I know. I was there, remember? He's super-hot and he likes you, which makes me wonder. Why aren't you up on that mountain, fucking his brains out?"

I laughed. "Some things never change, do they?"

"Never, honey," she smiled as she rubbed my shoulder. "Go get him. I'll try to visit you this weekend. I can't wait to see for myself if your story's true. Honestly, I think that there was something in those herbs that messed with your brain."

"Thank you, Erica," I nodded in appreciation, ignoring her last comment, because I was unwilling to engage with it. "It'll be nice to have you guys over again. Goodnight."

Lighter? More cheerful? Clearer? All of the above.

On my way out of her building, I thanked my good luck for having such a terrific friend. It wasn't the first time I had done that. It wouldn't be the last, either. Erica Morrison had pulled me out of a few emotional ditches in the past. For all her crudeness, she dared to be someone I wasn't. Decisive. Impulsive. Willing to live in the moment and worry about the consequences later. Would I find the courage to pursue Raul? I had no idea, but, after I chatted with Erica, I no longer felt so negative about the whole situation.