Ava Ross woke up to the sun shining through her window and onto her face. Squinting, she held her right hand in front of her face as she sat up in bed. She stretched her arms above her head with a yawn before glancing at her phone on the nightstand next to her bed. She grabbed it and tapped on the screen to check the time.
“8 AM,” she said quietly to herself. “A bit earlier than I wanted to wake up, but I guess I’m up now.”
Ava pulled the covers off her body and got out of bed, walking over to her closet to choose her clothes for the day. Once she had finally settled on an outfit and gotten dressed, she opened the door to her room and began to walk down the hallway towards the stairs, only to stop when she heard her parent’s voices. At first she was a bit confused, as her mom and dad were never usually up this early unless one of them had work. But then she remembered the events of last night: Connor went on a date with Ryan and her parents got worried when he wasn’t home before curfew.
When she got to the top of the stairs, she was about to walk down to get some breakfast when she heard Connor’s voice. Not necessarily wanting to intrude, Ava decided to wait at the top of the stairs out of view for a few minutes.
“So how did your date go last night?” Diana asked. “Do anything fun?”
Ava heard Connor laugh nervously. “Well, I...uh...don’t think I should go into full detail about last night…but aside from that, Ryan and I went out to dinner and took a short walk in the park on the way back to his house.”
“Well I wanted to make it feel like an actual date and not just...you know…” a different voice said. Ava immediately recognized the voice as Ryan.
“So you went through with it then?” Kent asked. “You’re a Were now?”
“Yeah, I’m a Were now,” Connor responded.
“Connor’s a Were!” Ava thought to herself, not wanting to reveal that she was eavesdropping yet again.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Ryan spoke up. “If you don’t mind Mr. and Mrs. Ross, would it be alright if Connor came back to my house around noon? Since Connor is a Were, specifically a Werewildcat, he needs to become a member of a pride. My father wants to go over the details with him since he’s willing to sponsor Connor as a pride member.”
“I see…” Diana responded. “Well, if it’s a requirement, I’m perfectly okay with that.”
“As am I,” Kent added. “But on one condition.”
“Yes sir?” Connor asked.
“If you decide you want to stay the night again, please text or call us this time.”
“I promise I will, dad,” Connor said, laughing a little. “I’m going to go put this stuff down on my room. You want to stay for a bit Ryan?”
“I can check with my parents, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” Ryan responded. “Of course, only if that’s okay with you Mr. and Mrs. Ross.”
“That’s perfectly fine with me,” Kent responded.
“I don’t have any problems either,” Diana added.
“Great, come with me then Ryan,” Connor said.
Ava heard the two of them begin walking towards the stairs. Quickly and quietly, she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door so as to not get caught eavesdropping.