It was almost third period, and Julie still hadn’t seen Eric today. She was starting to wonder whether or not he came to school, when she spots him at his locker. She sneaks up behind him, trying not to giggle and give herself away.
“Guess who?” Julie asked, wrapping her arms around Eric’s head, covering his eyes. Even though he didn’t like the morning gesture, she kept doing it. Maybe her persistence would pay off someday.
“Mark Harmon?”
“Nice guess but no.” Julie said, a bit surprised Eric was in such a good mood. He wasn’t known for being a morning person.
“What’s up, you seem to be in a very good mood.” Julie comments, moving her arms from around his head to his waist. The sensation brought butterflies to Eric’s stomach, and he quickly removed Julie’s hands from his body, keeping one hand in his. The last thing he needed was to get hard in the middle of the school hallway. That’s almost as embarrassing as coming to school naked, or when you call a teacher “mom” by accident.
“Am I? Didn’t even notice.” Eric says.
“Really? You’re grinning like a hyena. Is that normal to you?”
“Not really.” Eric said.
“Then what is it? Eric, I know you pretty well, you don’t just staring grinning like the Joker for no good reason. And what’s with the….” Julie continued to ramble, but Eric wasn’t really paying attention to what Julie was saying. His focus had shifted to Spencer, who was walking down the hall with Nate. Which gave Eric an excuse to walk up to her and say hello. Julie followed close behind, curious who this new girl was wit Eric’s brother.
“Is she a werewolf? Or is that just Nate’s scent on her?” Julie thinks to herself. Her sense of smell isn’t as developed as other were, which means she has a harder time
“Hey, Eric right?” Spencer said when she caught sight of Eric and a smaller, sandy blonde girl. Her eyes were bright blue, and that along told Spencer she must be a sea-based were.
“Ya, I see you met my brother Nate.” Eric said, looking at Nate for an explanation.
“Spencer’s in my Latin class. And my Algebra II, and my Chemistry class.” he said, a bit smug. Eric tried to ignore the jealousy biting at his stomach.
“You’re taking a lot of higher level classes, I assumed you were a sophomore or freshman,” Eric said to Spencer.
“I should be a sophomore, but my parents though it would be easier to transition to a new school if I wasn’t getting overloaded with classes. I already took Chemistry, and Algebra II back in Virginia.” Spencer said indifferent to the whole situation. She had zero interest in academics. Sure she enjoyed learning, to an extent, but she did not enjoy the constricting nature of school.
“Smart and pretty, you’re the whole package aren’t you? Did you skip a grade back in Virginia?” Nate asked.
“Against my will, but ya. Onto a new subject, whose the blonde behind you Eric?” Spencer asked, watching as the girl shifted nervously. She gave off a distinctly “fishy” smell. Not fishy in a bad way, but fishy nonetheless. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to come to the conclusion that the blonde was some sort of aquatic were.
“Mermaid from the looks of her,” Spencer thought, running her eyes over Julie’s figure. While she was perfectly fine with Julie, and her nearly perfect body, Julie was not so fine.
Julie didn’t know what it was about Spencer, but something told her to be afraid of her. Maybe it was the overall image one got when looking. From the messy, almost unkept black hair that just brushed against her shoulders (which, like her father, she had cut to her liking since leaving the military academy), to the brown eyes with flecks of golden. Even her wardrobe screamed “danger”. She had on dark gray jeans, a pair of her father’s combat boots from when he was a Navy cadet, and the same hoodie Eric had seen her in earlier that morning.
“Oh, sorry. This is Julie Stovall, my girlfriend. Julie, this is our new neighbor, Spencer….”
“Lawson. Spencer Lawson.” Spencer finishes the thought and offers a hand to Julie.
“You don’t mind my asking why your name is Spencer do you?” Julie asked, genuinely curious. Thankfully, curiosity killed cats, not weremer.
“She was named after a relative.” Eric quickly replies. That earns him stares from the others. Julie because she wonders when Eric picked up that piece of private information. Spencer because she didn’t expect Eric to remember. And Nate because he was fulfilling his duties as older brother, and making life generally unpleasant for him. The look on his face made it clear that his mind was drifting “below the belt”.
“I can’t believe you remember that.” Spencer says.
“You two met before?” Julie asked.
“Uh, ya. I ran into her one morning.”
“Literally ran into.” Spencer muttered, unheard to Eric but not Nate or Julie.
“So, how do you like Moon Lake so far?”
“It’s different. Nice to be in a place that doesn’t have Humvees patrolling the streets. And nice that there are other weres besides myself, my parents, and the weird spinster werecat Mrs. Gundersen.” Spencer said. The bell sounds and the four quickly say goodbye and rush off to their next class. Nate and Spencer in one direction, Eric and Julie in another.
“Why didn’t you mention there was a new girl moving in?” Julie asked once they were far enough away from Spencer and Nate, who were busy laughing.
“I don’t know, never came up. Should I have said something?”
“I guess not.” Julie said. Though in the back of her mind, she was wondering why Eric hadn’t said anything. She looks down at their hands, intertwined in each other’s, and her worries fade away. For now at least.
---------------------
“What’s Eric’s girlfriend like?” Spencer asked, after she and Nate were a respectable distance from the two lovebirds.
“She’s nice. Haven’t really spent a lot of time with her. Why do you ask?”
“She just seemed a little… squirrelly.” Spencer said after pausing to come up with the right word to describe Julie’s expression. Threatened would be a better word, but Spencer doesn’t want to start something. She’s known Julie all of what, five minutes? And she seemed like a nice girl, despite her weird behavior.
“Maybe she’s just having one of those mornings,” Spencer thinks.
“It’s not her fault. She and Eric have been having problems lately. Romance doesn’t come naturally to him. Julie’s his first real girlfriend.” Nate said, ducking around a corner to avoid the oncoming surge of freshmen, still lost even though it was mid-November. He quickly grabs Spencer, who was busy staring out a window.
“What about you? You have any girlfriends?” she asks once away from the crowds.
“Is that an offer?” Nate asked. He didn’t feel any initial attraction to Spencer, but he couldn’t deny that she was attractive. Her hybrid status made her even more intriguing (she told him during class). Before she told him, Nate thought she was a werewolf like himself. But she was more like the best of both worlds. Werewolf and werepanthress all rolled up into one nice bundle.
“No, my dad would kill me if I got another boyfriend.”
“Why is that?” Nate asked, holding the classroom door open for her. It was still early, most of the desks were empty. The few students there were talking amongst themselves. But all took notice when Nate and Spencer walked into the room. A few of Nate’s friends gave him sly looks, to which he subtly flipped them off.
“Mostly because the last one was a total ass.” Spencer said, taking a seat behind Nate.
“Understandable. I wouldn’t want my kid dating an ass. But just to clarify, are we talking an actual ass, or a really lousy boyfriend?” Nate half joked. With weres it was possible to date an ass (were donkey that is).
“No, just a lousy boyfriend. I guess I should have known better, Rottweilers are known for being aggressive dogs.” Spencer said.
“Your boyfriend was a weredog then?”
“Ya, a lapse in judgement on my part.” Spencer said. Jeremy hasn’t always been a total ass wad. When the two first started going out, he’d been a complete gentleman. And then, seemingly out of the blue, he decided to treat Spencer like she was a doormat.
“Why? What’s wrong with weredogs?”
“Nothing, but they do have a tendency to either be clingy or overprotective.” Spencer says.
“You sound like you’ve had a lot of experience…”
“Remember when I told you I got myself kicked out of every military academy I was sent to?” Spencer said, giving Nate a knowing look. He gets the message. Spencer’s been around the bases a few times. And to Nate, who hasn’t been able to make it past second date, that’s impressive. Especially when one takes Spencer’s age into account.
Their teacher walks in shortly after the second bell rings. He immediately takes notice of the new girl behind Nate. He calls her up to his desk to give her some papers, and a textbook. Spencer introduces herself, as politely as she can given that this teacher has chunks of a breakfast burrito in his teeth and is spraying them everywhere. When Spencer sits down, Nate slides a package of tissues to her.
“Ya, he does that to everyone. Kinda a right of passage for his students.” Nate says, smiling. Spencer nods, and tries to wipe as much of the cheese and steak off her face before turning her attention to the lesson.
“Oh the joys of quadratic equations” she thinks.