The periods after lunch went a bit better for Eric, and he did feel greatly relieved by the report that Julie had no intention of dumping him and that Arthur Curtis had no intention of trying anything with regard to trying to take Julie from him. That knowledge seemed to relax him greatly, as Julie was the first girl he'd ever met where their relations was more than a school project or someone he just so happened to know the name of. Julie was special and he never wanted to lose her, though there was the underlying fears and knowledge that he was never the strongest or most attractive boy in the world, particularly after the incident in Middle School with regards to being bullied. It had made him draw within himself with the only other people that he'd talked to beyond his family were some people on the internet with regards to science fiction forums.
Thus, finding Julie's attention to him as precious was very important. He never wanted to lose her and the joy that she had brought into his life, as she was beautiful to his eyes and she'd been interested him. From the very moment she saw him, as Julie had told him. It was something that made him feel very special personally and made him fear that Arthur would remove that. The assurance that he was still special to Julie made him feel better, and in its own odd way the prospect of having Arthur as a friend also felt very good as well. That left him to go through his normal classes with some more confidence and he thought nothing more of it. The biggest thing as the school day ended was a run in with Nate in the hallway after Eric had collected his things from his locker. His older brother had Alex and Ben with him as well.
"Hey, Eric, you doing better?" Nate asked, sounding a bit nervous.
"Yeah," Eric answered, a bit puzzled as to why Nate was nervous and almost completely oblivious as to the fact that his older brother and his parents HAD noticed Eric's own nervousness with regard to the situation with Julie and Arthur, "I'm doing good... Arthur, Julie, and I were able to figure things out over lunch. I... uhh... turns out I got nervous over nothing."
"Jealousy's a mighty bad thing to let control you," Ben commented, "Especially with weres. With all the hormones that we run on... it can be pretty easy to make REAL mistakes as a result of that."
Eric nodded to the older neighbor boy. He noted that Ben also looked a bit concerned as well. It made him wonder if the fact that he hadn't slept well the previous night had really shown through that much. After all, while Ben wasn't Frances, it wouldn't be impossible to assume that Ben hadn't learned some things from his adoptive mothers. Eric then managed a small smile, which raised a sigh of relief from Nate.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," Nate said to him, "anyway, we have practice for the Thanksgiving Day game... and I have all the positions and formations and things to learn... We'll be back after practice."
"Okay," Eric nodded, "I'll let mom and dad know."
Eric then waved as his brother and his friends made their way toward the gym where they'd be getting ready practice for Moon Lake's Thanksgiving Football game. With them on their way, Eric then made his way down to the front doors where he found Julie and Arthur waiting for him. Julie smiled to him as she held her hands in front of her and Arthur nodded. Eric managed to smile back as he approached them. He was about to say hello to Julie when a voice came from behind him which made him jump.
"Hey, Eric!" came a playful female voice from behind him.
Eric gave a small jump and turned to see Spencer Lawson coming out of the school's front doors toward the group. She had a fairly friendly looking smile and came forward rather confidently toward them, though privately it did leave him rather nervous. He knew that Spencer was new to Moon Lake, like he was, but he also knew that she was a female were of some type, though he thought he caught scents that were similar to his mother's as a werecat and his brother's as a werewolf. However, he found that he wasn't real good at identifying all the various were species by scent. He glanced back over his shoulder to find that Julie had a small frown, which was another reason for him to be nervous.
In his first meeting with Spencer, she'd given him a very forward "hello," which had left him very puzzled and even aroused to a degree. A lot of that may have been because he was a bit fearful of losing Julie to Arthur at the time, but it was still very forward and in the end he'd never been given the time to explain that he was in a committed relationship. He remembered his parents advice on what to "do" with regards to Spencer, but because of his class scheduling, he really hadn't had the time to discuss things with Julie with regard to the situation. And so far, it'd seemed like he'd been in some kind of odd comedy where he kept running into each other at odd times. He'd seen Spencer in the halls from time to time, much like he'd even seen Nate in the halls from time to time between classes, but he also knew that Spencer was at least a Sophomore and thus had higher classes than he did.
"Who are your friends?" Spencer asked as she came up, looking to Eric, though her eyes also drifted to Julie as well. The three were all weremers, though Julie and Arthur had their natural weremer's fish-like scent masked by some dab of perfume and cologne. Her parents had told her that weremers tended to do that as many other weres didn't always respond well to the fact that a weremer's natural scent often carried a "fishy" scent to it.
Eric felt a small lump in his throat and gestured to Arthur and Julie and introduced him, "this is Arthur Curtiss. He's a Freshman, like me... and this is Julie Stovall..."
"His fiancée," Julie spoke politely, yet firmly, and held up her necklace for Spencer to see.
She was also a bit puzzled as she thought she smelled werewolf, werecat, and wereleopard/panther on the new arrival. It puzzled her, as while there were plenty of mixed were-species couples, their children usually took after one parent or the other and usually related to the gender of the child. With Eric's parents at present, any future daughter between Martha and William Anderson would likely be a werecat while any future son would be a werefox. Yet, Spencer Lawson had a scent that mixed three different were-species together, which she couldn't explain, as the mixture was not as though she had been with a werecat, werewolf, and wereleopard/werepanther. Her scent was as though those scents were perfectly mixed. She was even further surprised when Spencer gave a puzzled blink and tilted her head to a side.
"Fiancée?" Spencer blinked, "aren't you a bit young for that?"
"Legally... yes," Eric admitted, "but... for weremers it's a bit more complicated than what the law says. For the moment, it would be an "unofficial" engagement... but I've come to love Julie very much and that once we turn eighteen it would become an official engagement."
"That makes no sense," Spencer answered, "My parents didn't get engaged until they were in college."
"They likely weren't weremers," Julie spoke, "a weremer can see their one true love. No other were can, and from the moment I saw him... I knew Eric was the one for me."
Julie again shook the pearl necklace that Eric had given her.
"And when he gave me this, as far as weremers are concerned, we were engaged," Julie finished.
Spencer frowned and sighed as glanced between the three of them. Eric looked a bit nervous, but from what the blonde had said on their engagement, Spencer guessed that he was nervous about being accused of cheating on the blonde girl. Julie didn't really look angry or anything truly negative, but she did look firm. Arthur looked a bit puzzled, like he was still trying to figure Spencer out. Eventually she looked back to Eric.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" Spencer asked, "after I go and embarrass myself?"
"You kinda didn't give me much of a chance to say so," Eric answered weakly, getting the sense that Spencer was upset and he really didn't want to make enemies with anyone and particularly with new people. He'd guessed that from what Spencer had told him at their first meeting that she had never been around other weres before and simply jumped at the opportunity.
He only watched as Spencer gave a heavy frown and turned to walk away for the moment. It sort of looked like she was either really depressed by something or frustrated as she seemed to look down at her feet for a moment. She began to walk away when Eric spoke up.
"Look... I'm more than willing to be friends," Eric spoke, "give you something that you didn't get going between Army bases."
"Naval bases," Spencer corrected, "the Seals are part of the Navy."
Eric shrugged. He could remember seeing plenty of patriotic parades that ultimately included military units and flyovers for sporting events on TV, but he'd never put much focus into the military.
"Still... having friends is always good right?" Eric asked to her.
"Yeah..." Spencer managed as she looked over shoulders and noted Eric standing beside Julie, "maybe we could be good friends... with benefits."
That left the trio of weremers staring blankly as Spencer moved off. The new girl might have been a bit "deflated" with Julie's revealing of her relationship with Eric, but she did seem to recover fairly well. The ending of "with benefits" also came across as a bit odd, and a part of Julie's own mind wondered if Spencer had been referring to HER as well as Eric and she really didn't know what to say in response to that. She looked over to Arthur and then Eric, both of who looked just as puzzled as she was.