Lila Carpenter rode in the front seat of her brother's pick up truck, directing him to Lance Knight's house as her new boyfriend followed with what could be loaded in his car.
As the pick up truck pulled into Lance's driveway, her brother Rick looked at the place in disbelief. "This is it?" he asked, staring at the one floor, modest house with a two car garage before them.
"Yes. Why?" wondered Lila.
"My place is bigger," observed Rick, thinking about his two story house with extra bedrooms because of his large family.
"That's because I got the better Knight brother," Lila said with a smile, before unfastening her seat belt and getting out.
In the open bed of the pick up was her computer desk, chair, a nightstand, a couple of lamps, and a freestanding armoire*.
"Well, should we start unloading or wait for lover boy?" asked Rick.
"What's your problem?" Lila asked him pointedly.
"If he's true to you and you're sure about this guy, nothing. But I know how badly your last boyfriend treated you, which is why you moved in with me after you dumped him."
"Lance is different. So I'm 28 and he's 32, which makes him a couple of years older than me. Doesn't mean a dang thing to us weres, but that also makes him more mature than Zach ever will be. Besides, I know you've had some bad dealings with the Knight family in the past over auto repairs you've done for them, but Lance is definitely a much better man than Benton Knight," pointed out Lila. Or are you more concerned about losing your built in babysitter now that I'm moving out again? she wondered.
"Well, if he's so great, then where is?" asked Rick, while leaning against his pick up.
A couple of minutes later, as Lance's fuel efficient hybrid parked at the curb to his place, Lila waved at him. Lance could not help but smile back at his new girlfriend.
Granted, by some people's standards, everything between them might have been moving a bit fast, yet Lance didn't care. His feelings for her were genuine and it was rapidly getting to the point where he couldn't picture himself with anyone but her, if they hadn't already reached that plateau.
"Sorry I'm a bit late. Had to get these made," he said, holding up a set of spare keys to the house. "Grey is to the house, and red is to the garage because it matches your motorcycle. Why don't you try them out?" suggested Lance, while handing Lila the key ring.
Lila never said anything about the ring only having an 'L' attached to it, because it was too soon to question when it would be 'LK' for Lila Knight. Instead she just gave Lance a kiss on the cheek and ran to the front door as Lance approached Rick at the back of the pick up truck as her brother was opening the tail gate.
They were about to start unloading when Rick saw his sister enter the house. With that he turned to Lance and said, "Just between us, man to man, if I ever hear of you so much as harming a whisker on my sister, you will have a lot more than just an angry were-tigress to contend with. Understand?" he growled.
"Perfectly," said Lance, calmly. "Ready for me to help unload?"
Between the two of them, they brought the armoire* inside to Lance's living room. "Okay. Lila's personal stuff will go in the master bedroom with mine. Her professional stuff will go into the home office I have set up in the middle bedroom, and what we can't figure out at the moment will stay here in the living room."
Rick looked around. For a guy that was supposed to be worth millions, Lance Knight didn't have much in the way of living room furniture beyond the basics: a sofa, end table, and a small entertainment center with a modest flat screen set. "Wait a second. That's only two bedrooms. What's the third?" he asked.
"Frieda's, but I haven't had a chance to meet her yet," said Lila, before going out to grab what she could from Lance's car.
"Who's Frieda," asked Rick, eyeing him suspiciously.
"My niece. She stays with me sometimes, especially when my brother and his wife go on overseas trips so she doesn't miss any school. Why?" asked Lance in return.
"Oh," was all Rick would say, before he motioned for Lance that it was time to move the armoire* into Lila's new bedroom.
MEANWHILE...
Frieda Knight was still staring at the monitor screen display its random images for her bi-polar disorder test and managed to supress a yawn. What she really wanted to do was relieve herself of some of the sexual tension that had built up in her body from feeling her friends and lovers Eric and Spencer go at it most of the afternoon and evening, but was told not to move during the testing.
She took great comfort in the emotional and romantic bonds she shared with them, as her thoughts at time drifted away from the monitor images to tomorrow night during the werepanther meeting with them... and beyond.
Yin... yang... whole... she thought happily, as the test continued.
IN THE MONITORING ROOM...
"Everything all right?" the assistant asked Doctor Abigail Robinson.
"Yes. We'll have to finish the test to make it official, but Frieda Knight definitely doesn't have bi-polar disorder. However, I can't help noticing at times there appears to be evidence of two other distinctive brain wave patterns in her MRI scans," said the Doctor.
"Are you sure?" asked the assistant, as he began looking back over the readouts for himself.
"It's inconsistent, but at times quite prominent. Her father said something to me earlier about an unique bond between his daughter and two of her friends that at the time I dismissed as teenage shenanigans, but now I'm not so sure..." said Doctor Robinson, as she started going back over key moments of the test for herself, not realizing that she was staring at physical proof of the special link between Frieda Knight, Eric Anderson, and Spencer Lawson.
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*Provided I spelled that right, a free standing cabinet that can be used to hold clothes.—tmw.