In My Mother Runs with Wolves, the story is about Maddie, not Samar. Samar is just a friend. A friend who likes Maddie a little too much. A friend who longs to have a story of her own. This Valentine's Day, she will.

This story was contributed by Zoe Blessing.

Ever feel like a side character in your own life? I mean, it's my life, right? It should be about me, Samar Tucker, the mixed-race girl with issues. But those issues pale when compared to the outlandish drama that is my best friend's life.

Maddie is... more complicated than I am. She's embroiled in a world where people can turn into wolves, and these other people are trying to hunt them, and is it any wonder I feel like a side character? I don't fit in that world anywhere.

Which might be why I'm on this flight to Atlanta. I need to feel normal again, like the world hasn't gone crazy with stalkers and werewolves. My grandmother is celebrating her seventieth birthday this weekend, so Dad wanted to fly in to show some love. Given that it's also Valentine's Day weekend, I don't need any further excuse to stick around in California. I don't need all the pink-infused, romantic garbage reminding me of that time I misread the signals and tried to kiss Maddie.

Ugh. The sooner I forget that, the better.

After exiting the plane, we look for Uncle Anthony. Instead, I spot Alicia Keys holding a cardboard sign with TUCKER scrawled in black marker.

Okay, no, that isn't really Alicia Keys. I mean, why would a huge pop star be our chauffeur? And why would we have a chauffeur at all?

"Dad, where's Uncle Anthony?" I ask.

His brow furrows as he checks his phone. "Apparently he's unable to come, so he sent Jayla."

"Jayla? Who's Jayla?" My eyes wander back to the pop singer lookalike. "He's not dating underage girls now, is he?"

Dad spies the sign and raises his eyebrows. "I certainly hope not."

We approach the girl. Her eyes light up when she sees us. "You're here! Awesome." She lets the sign drop to her side. "I'm Jayla." She holds her hand out.

Dad shakes her hand even though we've never heard anything about her before.

"Davis and Samar, right?" She moves over to shake my hand. "You have such pretty hair! Just like the photos they showed me."

Just like the photos who showed you?

"Th-thanks," I stammer, still confused about what's going on. Plus this girl is pretty. Perfectly braided cornrows line her head and dangle down past her warm brown shoulders. The red tank top she wears proclaims SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND and sports a little cupid flying above the letters.

Most interesting of all, though, are her eyes. They're light brown, almost golden. A lot like Maddie's eyes.

Nope, nope, nope, I chastise myself. I will not remind myself of the silly crush I had on my best friend. Also, I will not wonder if she's a wolf.

"Any bags to claim?" she asks.

Dad shakes his head no.

She points at him. "Smart traveler. Come on, my chariot awaits."

Dad and I exchange glances as we follow. Who is she? I mouth.

He shrugs.

I follow Dad's lead and refrain from asking questions, which allows me time to admire her well-rounded backside.

I shouldn't be admiring her well-rounded backside. After all, she's—who is she anyway?

In the parking lot, Jayla stops next to a bright green Ford Fiesta. A pink Lyft sticker clings to the windshield. "I call it my lean green Lyfting machine." She produces a remote from her pocket with a flourish and unlocks the car with a button press. "I love that. My last car was a rust bucket that liked to eat keys."

Her smile is infectious, and I can't help grinning back.

Once we're inside the car with Dad in the front seat and me in the back, Dad looks at the Lyft sticker. "You're not going to charge us, are you?"

She grins at him. "That would be weird, right? But no, Anthony said he'd give me twenty bucks."

"That doesn't sound like him," Dad says with a small amount of suspicion.

"Ha," she replies, completely unfazed. "Maybe so. I think he's trying to impress my mom by being extra nice to me."

Ah! Our first clue about her identity.

She guides the car out of the lot, and we are soon rolling through the streets of Atlanta. Not long afterward, a snore emanates from Dad's slumped form in the front seat.

Jayla smiles into the rearview mirror. "Long flight?"

"It was all right. Cars put him to sleep unless he's driving." After a pause, I add, "MawMaw says anytime he would get fussy, they'd put him into their station wagon and drive around the block. Be asleep in minutes."

"Your grandmother does love her stories. What about you?"

"Oh I don't have interesting stories, and I have trouble falling asleep."

"Everyone has stories," Jayla says as she changes lanes. "Whether they're interesting or not isn't up to you."

I think about this insight. Dad can talk football all day long with his brother, but I have to stifle a yawn when he tries to explain to me what a first down is.

"Too many thoughts inside that big, beautiful brain of yours?"

My eyes snap to hers in the rearview mirror. Is she flirting with me?

"That's what keeps you from sleeping, right? Too many thoughts?"

I push away the stupid wishful thinking. She's just making conversation. Once upon a time, I thought Maddie had been flirting with me, but it turned out she never had those kinds of feelings for me at all. Jayla's right. I do have stories, but I'm not about to rehash one of the most embarrassing moments in my life.

"Yeah," I answer, my voice sounding a little sadder than I intend. "Way too many thoughts."

At the next stoplight, Jayla turns her head around to pin me with that golden gaze of hers. The colorful beads at the ends of her braided cornrows clack together. "You don't like your thoughts?"

I can't look away. "Not when they get me into trouble, no."

She raises an eyebrow with interest. "What sort of trouble?"

My gaze falters and I look down at my lap. "The kind that teaches you lessons."

"Ah, those." She pauses thoughtfully. "So, I go to Georgia Tech, right?"

"You do?" My mouth hangs open. The average high school GPA of students admitted into that university is 3.95. Don't ask me how I know that.

"Right," she says absently like it's no big deal. "And this one professor has this magnetic charm..." Her eyes turn dreamy.

The car behind us honks, causing Jayla to swivel back to the steering wheel and proceed through the green light.

I know all about magnetic charm. Maddie has that.

Stop thinking about your best friend, I chide myself. That's in the past now. I've moved on.

At least I think I have.

"So anyway, this professor likes calling on me a lot, and I start wondering what it would be like to have a torrid love affair with a hot humanities professor. Know what I mean?"

"With a teacher? Ew."

She laughs. "She's not, like, eighty or anything. She's gotta be maybe thirty, max. Her skin looks so soft." She steals a glance at me. "A lot like yours."

The breath has left my body. This woman is freely admitting to ogling her female college professor. She also seems to be hitting on me.

Nope! Nope. Not going there again.

"Does that shock you?" she asks, curiosity sparking through the rearview mirror.

"N-not in the way you think."

A slow smile spreads across her face. "Interesting."

Wait, why are we on this subject again? Weren't we talking about life lessons? "Did you act on those feelings?" I ask.

She seems to lose her train of thought. "What?"

"The hot teacher. What did you do?"

"Oh." She lifts a nonchalant shoulder. "Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"I mean I chickened out."

"Oh." What was the point of this story again? "I guess it would be unethical anyway. The whole teacher-student thing."

"Yeah, there's that," she agrees.

I wait for the moral of the story, but she's fallen silent. "So what was the lesson you learned?" I ask.

She waits until the next red light before turning her mischievous eyes to me. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"Nothing lost, either," I murmur.

Jayla faces forward again. "I suppose."

I can hear the disappointment in her voice, and it makes me feel... I don't know. Am I being a coward? I never thought of myself as one before.

Dad stretches, nearly thumping Jayla's head with an elbow. "Why aren't we there yet?" he mumbles.

"Complaining about my company already?" she teases.

They start chatting, and when the conversation turns to the Atlanta Falcons football team, I stop paying attention.

***

"We're here!"

Jayla's cheery voice alerts me they've finally stopped talking sports. We retrieve our bags from the trunk and head to MawMaw's front porch. Jayla follows closely behind us, a small, wrapped gift in hand. I can hear Ella Fitzgerald belting out from the stereo inside. Sounds like the party's already started.

Dad opens the door without knocking and is immediately swallowed into a bear hug from one of his cousins. The next several minutes are a blur of hugs and greetings, whereupon we find out Uncle Anthony is still picking up MawMaw's birthday present.

"Procrastinator," Dad mutters.

"That boy is going to be late to his own funeral."

I recognize that voice behind me, effervescent as always with love and mirth.

I turn around. "MawMaw."

She envelops me in a warm embrace. The smell of cornbread lingers on her apron.

"Why are you cooking on your birthday?" I reprimand.

Her eyes crinkle with amusement. "Child, have you met me? Party ain't the same if I don't get to feed nobody." She holds me at arm's length to get a good look at me. "How's my future nuclear physicist?"

I laugh. "I don't think nuclear energy is the future, MawMaw."

"Never you mind. I'm still proud of you. Davis says you're a straight-A student."

"Yes, ma'am." Though not as straight as she thinks.

"Well then, you can be whatever you wanna be." She crushes me to her ample chest one more time before turning to greet the next person.

The small house is crowded, and it doesn't take me long to seek a little quietude. I park my butt on the bottom step of the staircase and lean my head against the cool wood banister.

"Mind if I join you?" Jayla sits down next to me without waiting for an answer. "So, I was wondering what you thought of the new head coach for—" She starts laughing when I groan. "Kidding! I'm kidding. So, nuclear physicist, huh?"

I can't help smiling. "MawMaw thinks 'rocket scientist' is too cliché, so she says nuclear physicist instead." I start waving my finger in the air the way my grandmother does. "Doesn't take no nuclear physicist to figure that out."

She laughs again. "You sound just like her." After a pause, she asks, "What do you see in your future, then, if not nuclear science?"

The question shouldn't surprise me, but it does. Somehow I've managed to spend most of my life with people telling me their problems and dreams. Few of them ever ask me about mine. "I think maybe aerospace."

"Ooh, I like it! You'd make a totally hot NASA engineer."

My stomach flutters. She's flirting with me, right? Then again, Lydia at school is always saying weird things like that to people, and that never feels like flirting. It's just part of her personality.

The music switches to Nat King Cole.

Jayla closes her eyes and sways to the music. "I love his voice. Like butter in my ears."

"Gross," I say with a laugh.

"Yeah." She wrinkles her nose. "I heard that too. I meant smooth. The man's voice is smooth."

"You're pretty smooth yourself." The words are out of my mouth before I realize it.

She opens her eyes. "You think so?"

I duck my head, fighting off a blush. What made me say that? Time to change the subject, and fast. "I heard the Falcons are going to trade one of their players to, uh, some other team."

She bursts out laughing. "You are so cute."

I feel my face getting hotter. Or maybe it's the house getting hotter. Something is definitely hotter around here.

"Samar?"

"Yeah?" I dare to peek up at her.

All teasing gone, her brown-gold eyes are intent on no one else but me. "I like you."

My own eyes widen at the admission. Is she saying what I think she's saying?

No, probably not. She just likes hanging out with me. She feels this cozy connection we have. As a friend.

I straighten a little. "Cool," I say lightly, not quite meeting those amazing eyes. "I like you too."

"Samar."

I look at her again.

"I mean, I really like you."

My mouth goes dry. "Oh."

She smiles warmly and reaches over to tuck a curl behind my ear. "You really do have nice hair."

I gulp. My heart is racing past the speed of sound, rocketing me into the mesosphere. I must be up there, because I'm having trouble breathing. Jayla likes me likes me? As in romantically?

"You're overthinking again, aren't you?" Her smile is kind and patient, but still dazzling.

"I kind of am." I drop my gaze to my knees. What am I supposed to say? I do like this girl. I'm attracted to her. She's attracted to me. I kind of want to kiss her, but isn't it too soon to want that?

A conversation I once heard between Dad and one of my brothers comes to mind. "The ball is in your hands," he'd said. Always with the sports metaphors. "Either you run with it or pass it to someone else. Now, passing might be easier, but then someone else gets the points. If you want the points, you gotta make the run. No guts, no glory."

Maybe I'm not supposed to say anything at all.

"It's all good," Jayla says, leaning back to rest on her elbows. "Don't worry about it. Let's—"

No guts, no glory.

I lean over and kiss her.

All thoughts vanish. Her lips are soft. Full. Perfect against mine. Her hand cups my face as she kisses me back, sending thrills up and down my spine.

This. This is glory.

Glory feels awesome.

I want to feel like this all the time.

When we finally pull apart, I can't help grinning like a breathless, happy idiot.

"I knew you had it in you," she says, panting a little.

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. Call it instinct." She winks at me with those golden, wolf-like eyes.

What are the chances... no. I will not think about wolves today. The past doesn't matter. I just kissed a girl. A smart, charming, radiant girl, and it felt really good. Happy Valentine's Day to me.

I think I'll kiss her again.

***************

Zoe is a web designer by day and superhero by night. Novelist. She meant to say novelist by night. She lives in San Diego, California, where she enjoys ice cream, practicing acts of kindness, and writing whatever strikes her fancy. To keep up with her latest news, sign up for her infrequent mailing list at http://zoeblessing.com. Read more from Zoe here.