Henry

"Oh my goodness, did you see that girl?" my aunt whispered in a not-too-low voice to Annie's mother. "Poor thing, she seemed all beaten up. I swear, I sometimes don't know what is going on with these humans.."

I looked up to see which girl she was referring to when I found myself face-to-face with said girl. B.

She gave me a horrified look before she quickly bent her head down, in silent agreement to never have met me before. She looked awful, for lack of a better word. She had clothes on that clearly, or at least hopefully, was not hers. They reeked male wolf, so I supposed it was that Vidar's or something. Her hair was wet, her hands bruised, and her lip was cracked. If it weren't for the fact that she was both walking and standing on her own, I would have thought someone had beaten her up. She looked awful, awfully good.

I wanted to... something, but what? There wasn't anything reasonable to do in this situation so I thought the better of, it and ran after the rest of my family. 

It was the last day at school, and my father had invited some of the more prominent families in the pack to dinner at Patty's to celebrate summer and the oncoming Gathering. He was in a good mood.

Our warriors had been training tirelessly since we got back from the Prospect with the information about the Gathering. We were right now the third pack in rank in the Prospect, but my father somehow seemed convinced that we would rank number one or two before this summer was over. We would have to win over either the Prospect pack, which would not happen, or over the second pack in rank – the Dark Mountain Pack. They were slightly bigger than us, and it could be an even match.

I wanted to join in the tournament and the pack fights, but my father said it was too risky. Not that he didn't think I would do poorly, just in case something happened. It was a too big event to let me partake only to brush up my ego. Apparently.

When we entered the restaurant, I noticed that our company would take up most of Patty's, and I quickly found myself tugged towards a table by Annie.

"Here, come sit with me," she kissed me on the cheek, and I smiled towards her, noticing the difference between a clean, smiling Annie and a wet, cracked lip, B. Not that I was comparing, of course. Why would I do that?

We sat down, and I dragged her closer pecking a kiss on her cheek, slipping my arm around her back. I could feel her stiffen in surprise at this sudden attention, but only for a couple of seconds before she leaned in and met my lips.

"What can I get you to drink?"

I let go of Annie and turned towards the waitress. Of course, it was B who stood there, taking notes on whatever whoever wanted to drink.

I cleared my throat and moved my arm away from Annie's back in one smooth movement. According to me.

B had changed clothes and from what I could smell, taken a shower and looked.. good? Great. Wonderful. Gorgeous. Cool. Decent. She looked decent.

It was now my turn to order, but contrary to her treatment of everyone else, with smiles and eye contact, she only met my eyes for a couple of seconds before she stared out into the abyss or at least out in the restaurant.

"Yes?"

"I'll have a soda, please, thank you."

She acknowledged my order with a faint smile towards the door and nodded.

"Thank you. I will be back shortly with your order," she said and left.

"Was that the dog-girl from the other day? The one with the blonde boyfriend?" Annie whispered to her friend Skylar sitting opposite her.

"I think so."

"She is new. She registered for school the other day," Tate grinned widely, acutely aware of the value of gossip amongst our circle of friends.

He turned to me.

"Didn't she-"

I shook my head and gave him a stern look, but it was too late. Annie had already noticed.

"Didn't she what?" she looked between Tate and me, and since he already was high on power from his inside information, he ignored my glares or simply didn't see them and continued.

"She kind of threw herself at Henry and didn't take it well when he didn't respond to her the way she wanted."

"What a bitch!" Annie was fuming. "I knew it the first time we met, with the dog! She was eyeing you all the time. And her poor boyfriend.."

Uhm. Poor was hardly the word to use about him, but I couldn't say that, of course.

"Let's not make this a big deal," everyone stared at me, I wasn't known to turn another cheek to whatever trouble I could find, so my behavior now was uncharted territory for us all.

Annie huffed, and I could already sense that she was not going to let this go. And, when the girl came back balancing a tray with our drinks, Annie was already in fight mode. As B placed our drinks in front of us, Annie stared at the glass in front of her.

"This is not what I ordered. Take it back. I want a Pepsi."

B looked confused but quickly retook the glass.

"My apologies. I'll be right back with your Pepsi."

She hurried away and returned promptly with a glass of Pepsi in hand.

"Here you go, your Pepsi."

Annie took a sip.

"This is Pepsi."

B frowned.

"Yes?"

"I wanted a PepsiMax."

Everyone was dead silent as the girl stared at us in confusion but swallowed and retook Annie's glass again.

"I see. One PepsiMAX coming right up," she emphasized the MAX part of the word.

Annie smiled smugly as she left.

"What's next? Coke?"

I wrapped my arms around her again. This had to stop. I leaned towards her and murmured in her ear.

"Just decide what you want so we can get rid of her."

Annie's smile widened, and she nodded vaguely. B returned and placed a new glass in front of Annie.

"Your PepsiMax."

Annie gave her the sweetest smile and knocked the glass over. The brown liquid ran down the table and down on the floor between us.

"Oups."

She looked down at the pool forming between our chairs and then innocently back at B.

"You better get that."

Fury flashed in the blonde girl's eyes, but she only nodded, took the knocked-over glass, and turned around. The door swung open, and a blonde guy entered, sweeping the room before his gaze found B earning her a smile and a small wave. She smiled back, gave him a small wave, and left to get a mop and a new glass for Annie.

Six pairs of eyes turned towards the new guy. He was about our age and sat down in a booth in the corner where he had a good view of the room. I hadn't seen him before, but the whole town seemed invaded by blonde people these days. Blonde guy leaned back in the seat and glanced over at us, tilting his head at our obvious inspection of him, raising his hand to his forehead in a mock salute to us.

B came back with a towel in hand, sweeping away the remnants of the drink from our table. Then she left and came back with a new glass for Annie. She had just turned when Annie cleared her throat.

"Uh, excuse me. The floor?" she glanced down at the floor between us, and I was sure B was going to lose her temper, but again she only nodded and went to get the mop.

This was getting out of hand, and I wanted Annie to stop. I also felt responsible for the situation since I was the one who had lied about why she slapped me. It was for her own good; I knew that and she actually HAD hit me, but this was not deserved. I leaned into Annie again.

"Stop this now."

B came back and kneeled between our chairs to mop the fluid off the floor. Annie leaned over, and before I could stop her, she had moved her glass to the edge of the table and deliberately knocked it over just where B was drying up the old spill. Before it hit her, though, Trevor grabbed hold of her, and they both fell over on the floor behind us. The soda ended up on the floor, and a furious B got ready to lunge at Annie. Her glance fell on me for a couple of seconds, making her stop in her action and slowly take Trevor's held-out hand to help her up from the floor.

She smiled faintly towards him, brushed away some dust from her skirt, corrected her hair, and grabbed the mop.

"Thank you."

She quickly started mopping again, this time as far away from Annie as she could while still removing the liquid from the floor. Trevor got back in his seat on the other side of Annie and earned some surprised looks from the gang.

"Whatever," he murmured and glanced towards the blonde guy in the corner.

I followed his look and saw that the guy was half-raised from his seat staring at us. B went over to his table placed a hand on his arm and shook her head, and sat down opposite him. His gestures informed everyone at our table that a lively discussion was going on, but she said something that made the guy slowly sit down again and limit his movements to glares in our direction. B got up and returned to our table. She was all courteous and professional. However, the only one who got a genuine smile was Trevor, who seemed more nervous about the guy in the corner booth than any of us, even though he was the one who actually had helped the girl.

The rest of the evening went by without any complications, but I did notice that Annie made an effort to kiss me, hold me, or do something possessive whenever our waitress was around. I even thought I could detect a faint smile of amusement from B at the end of the evening when Annie's display had been a little too obvious. I didn't mind Annie's actions though, the sooner I got into that groove, the better. We were destined for each other; everyone knew that. I just sometimes forgot.

The blonde guy in the corner kept glaring at us, but with Trevor on the other side of Annie keeping track, I could relax and enjoy the rest of the evening.

We decided to walk back to pack territory and run the rest of the way and had just reached the school when Trevor realized he had forgotten his phone. He told us not to wait and that he would catch up, but when he hadn't returned ten minutes later, I repeated his words and told our friends not to wait and that we would catch up with them later, and returned to Patty's. I expected to bump into him on my way there but found myself outside Patty's without seeing him. I did see him now, though, sitting at the blonde guy's table chatting with him and B.

I straightened my clothes, ran my fingers through my hair, reached for the doorknob, and then I stopped. I couldn't. Could I? Instead, I sat down, leaning towards the outer wall of the restaurant, and waited.