I made a hesitant phone call to Allie, checking if she had new information and asking for a ride once she mentioned driving around the city, and she picked us up from Barbie’s home a few hours later after a bit of painting. Piling into a surprisingly nice car I wasn’t sure how she owned, the two of us had spent a short time trying to decide how to go about riding. Me in the front seat, we’d barely made it one block before I had a hand held back at a forty-five degree angle to grab Barbie’s own.

  Allie thankfully thought we were being cute, and laughed as she admitted, “you know, you’re lucky I needed to pick up a few packages around the city before I went into the office today.”

  “Honestly, I can’t thank you enough,” I muttered awkwardly, letting out a small laugh at realizing how desperate I’d probably sounded on the phone, “I really need to find a car. It’s starting to get a little ridiculous how much I’m relying on others.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, my first…I want to say two years, working for The Lady?” Allie started, clicking her tongue, “she was making Misha pick me up and bring me into work on the days he came in, and on the days he wasn’t she’d have one of her other agents do it instead. I think that Samuel werewolf went straight from the hospital to my house more nights than he got to go straight home. Sometimes they’d do it after school if it was a day I was going after, had all my friends convinced Misha was my older brother, they were so fucking weird about him.”

  “Can’t say I blame them,” I muttered, not really having any room to talk from how much I’d enjoyed the behavior myself when he’d been around. He was a relentless flirt, not the worst looking and I knew he’d definitely made his way around some of the groups I’d been in, even if he probably shouldn’t have. The compliment got me a weird look from Allie once, and Barbie seemed to think it was actually a little funny as I tried to save it and ask, “well, at least I assume he never actually hit on you in that case. Might have made a few of your friends a little worried.”

  “See, I thought he hit on me once for about five minutes,” Allie giggled, covering her mouth as she drove and surprising me slightly, “he always asked me about school, The Lady made me finish High School if I wanted to work for her. Anyway after I’d been out of school for a few months he picked me up, The Lady needed help with a…well a thing,” Allie stressed, nodding back to Barbie, “and he was asking me about my plans for life, if I was looking for someone to date, how he might know someone interested. Told him I wasn’t interested in him, and you would have thought he was going to die of embarrassment trying to explain he wasn’t saying that. Turned out he was trying to set me up with some guy he knew around my age; we were both into writing.”

  “Well, at least he had some standards,” I admitted with a small laugh, hearing Barbie giggle from the back seat.

  “You girls call your boss The Lady?” Barbie asked as though it were the funniest thing in the world, “how much of a bitch did she need to act like to earn that title?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story,” I said, not exactly sure how to even explain it myself past she was just The Lady to everyone. I’d heard a single fey once call her La Madame de Richmond and had several seconds of confusion from that alone. “Just a nickname, you know? Little bit of a fun thing to call her.”

  “Kinda cute,” Barbie agreed, giggling at the fact, “so you two work together? Mary mentioned you do a lot of odd jobs around her office.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m her secretary,” Allie answered, making me cringe a little as I worried how Barbie would see that. She thought I didn’t even have a GED, would it look fucking suspicious if I had a secretary? Even if she fucking believed that, how did it look that I was making my secretary drive us to the store?

  Actually wait, was this unethical of me to do?

  Barbie luckily seemed to think that was funny as well, and leaned forward in her seat as she asked, “oh, any gossip about Mary? Come on, anything fun or embarrassing?”

  Allie let out a humming noise, and I had the sinking realization she would answer as she turned back and told the girl, “I woke her up with pizza once and she wiggled like she was wagging a tail; she does that whenever she’s excited.”

  “I did not!” I protested, my face burning as I hid my face in my free hand.

  “She did the same thing when I brought her breakfast this morning!” Barbie agreed, laughing uncontrollable at the fact.

  “I don’t wiggle like that,” I half-heartedly declared, my face hidden in my arm at this point while they were agreeing to everything. I didn’t wiggle like I had a tail, even in wolf form I barely wagged my tail except when I was particularly happy.

  “You do,” the two women agreed in sync, and I knew immediately I wasn’t winning this fight.

  Eventually the car pulled into a small parking lot near our destination, and we all climbed out of the car as Allie took up a large backpack. I watched her for a moment, not sure what to say, and slowly muttered, “thank you for the help.”

  “It’s not a problem, I have to go nearby and pick up some papers,” Allie admitted with a small shrug, “I think those pictures you were looking for should be in tonight or tomorrow, sorry they’re taking so long. The restoration of the video’s just more in depth than we thought, and the college sent me the wrong year of photos twice now.”

  “It’s fine, I’ll probably be busy until tomorrow afternoon at least so the time’s not a waste,” I admitted with a small shrug, the three of us starting down the sidewalk.

  “I’ll leave you two to your date, my stop’s just up here,” Allie said, smiling as she jogged up ahead to a door, calling back, “nice meeting you, Barbie! You let me know if you need any more gossip on Mary!”

  “Will do, nice meeting you too, Allie,” my girlfriend — or, well, I guessed she was my girlfriend — called back. Gods I’d never had a girlfriend before, that was a weirdly fun thought all things considered.

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  We went into a small shop nearby, and Barbie held onto my arm like it was a vise as we walked through aisles. My cheek rested on top of her head, and my fingers interlaced with hers even as I didn’t feel like ever letting go. The wolf wanted to draw her closer, kiss her here in front of everyone, show her the passion I felt.

  Not able to fully resist, I quickly kissed her forehead, and the woman rolled her eyes as she kissed my cheek back. We both held in our giggles, and we kissed one another before we were even halfway to our first stop.

  A brief kiss, I think neither of us wanted to clog the aisles, it nonetheless put a dumb smile on my face even as Barbie teased, “you’re very affectionate, you know that?”

  “It’s been…you know, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten to act this way with someone,” I admitted hesitantly, letting out another fucking giggle. “Been like a year and a half since I was dating anyone, and like…well, it was a lot different then, and this just feels…nice.”

  “I get it, weirdly enough,” the woman admitted, a coy smile crossing her lips, “I…well, it’s a bit complicated, but I don’t have a lot of experience with dating. Always was like, too worried to get this close to someone, but…I don’t know, you just make me feel safe for some reason. Like, if something happened I feel like you’d be able to protect me, you know?”

  Something about that felt ironic, me being a werewolf, and at the same time I had a strange amount of pride from the thought. I wasn’t a monster to her, I wasn’t a creature lurking in the dark, I was something she felt happy and safe around. The wolf was her guardian, and if anyone tried hurting her I could rip them apart without a moment's hesitation.

  Would she have been happy if I killed her dad, sad as he seemed to make her?

  No, no that wasn’t a fucking first date question what the fuck was wrong with me, that wasn’t a thing half-ones thought about.

  Eventually we came to a large selection of lace ribbons, and Barbie spent the better part of twenty minutes going through them. Observing the pattern, the size, the color, comparing them to a small swatch of fabric she’d brought with her. After a few minutes I’d considered going to see if there was anything fun yarn related, and decided against it as I instead stayed close to the girl and watched her work.

  There was something beautiful in passion for a craft, not something you saw much of in the Purists. Crafts so rare, which weren’t about just building simple shelters and killing things, I’d forgotten how beautiful creativity was. Passion put together into the idea of wanting to make something from nothing, to make it a reflection of the creator.

  It made me feel a little ashamed I never decorated my own garments properly.

  Towards the end of Barbie’s search I started to look through myself, wondering if it might not have been a good decoration to one of my outfits. Maybe a little lace on one of my skirts, or an overdress, just something to add a little flair to my outfits.

  “See anything you like?” Barbie asked, holding onto my arm once more as she tossed a ribbon in her basket.

  I chuckled, shaking my head as I hesitantly admitted, “just thought it might be nice for a project. I don’t really see anything that sticks out to me just yet though.”

  “I have to say, I do love the dress, though a little lace would do it some good,” Barbie admitted with a slow click of her tongue, “I am biased though. I’ve always liked some lace on a girl.”

  “Oh, well, maybe I should definitely consider some,” I chuckled, shaking my head even as Barbie picked up a roll and held it up to my dress.

  She looked it over it for a long time, tilting her head before picking up another, then a third, and a fourth before declaring, “this one, decorate the neckline of your shift a little. You’ll give it a more professional look,” she switched to whispering, kissing my cheek, “and look better lounging around in it.”

  I giggled at that, rolling my eyes as I tossed the roll in her basket and told her, “I’ll pay for my stuff when we get there.”

  “Ah, a milf and a gentlewoman,” Barbie declared dramatically, making me roll my eyes even as I wondered why I was still liking her so much.

  “I have a friend who’s going to fucking fall in love with you,” I muttered with a rub of my eyes, knowing exactly how Lord was going to react to this.

  “Oh, competition for my heart, whatever shall you do,” Barbie declared dramatically, leaning her head on my shoulder, my cheek resting against the top of her head.

  “Well, I guess I need to do something over dramatic to keep your attention,” I admitted, clicking my tongue as though I was in deep thought, “as soon as we’re not in this store I’m going to pick you up and kiss you, that work?”

  “You really can’t go five seconds without wanting to kiss me can you?”

  I felt a little embarrassed about that, nodding hesitantly as I asked, “is that a problem? I can pull it back or-”

  Barbie gripped my chin and anything I had that was resembling a thought in the moment disappeared. She gripped me just tight enough I let my head be pulled down to her level, and she kissed me for a brief moment before answering, “I like the affection, you’re like a little dog.”

  That felt weirdly insulting, but I nodded all the same with a strange sense of pride for it. A warm feeling in my chest as I shifted in place and asked, “did you need anything else while we’re here?”

  “I got what I needed, and honestly I just liked having an excuse to go out with you,” Barbie admitted with a demure smile, bowing her head as she shifted in place, “you need anything? I know you mentioned sewing stuff and all that, you need to pick up patterns or anything?”

  “I was thinking of getting some yarn, I was wanting to make something cute for the summer,” I admitted hesitantly, blushing as I tried to not admit I was thinking of what I could make her. A scarf for winter might have been nice, and very cute for her. Still, I was curious about something she said and asked, “you can buy patterns?”

  “You… you don’t know you can get patterns,” Barbie said, frowning as she looked me over for a long time, “a…sewing pattern. You use those right?”

  “Well, yeah, but like…” I stopped, trying to think of how to explain it before finally asking, “you can buy those?”

  “Where do you get yours?” Barbie asked, laughing into her hand in disbelief.

  Well, the correct answer there was “a ghost from the 18th century had been teaching me to measure and cut everything,” but that didn’t sound like a good explanation. Instead I shrugged, and hesitantly admitted, “I got taught how to make my own. I didn’t realize it wasn’t something that you didn’t need to like, figure out or have someone else teach you.”

  Barbie stared at me blank faced for a long time, before seeming to go through all the five stages of grief in the span of several seconds. Her eyes staring off into the distance, she finally admitted, “you know if you keep this up I’m going to be really close to loving you.”

  The words caught me off guard, and my face felt like it was burning even as I looked down and admitted, “you know, I think I’m pretty close to it myself.”

  It was Barbie’s turn to seem flustered, and she looked completely away from me as she hesitantly said, “I…the place, the…patterns. Patterns. Yeah, you can get them here, or like, online if you prefer that sort of thing. They might not fit you, you’re pretty big, but I can, you know, teach you to resize them. That would be nice.”

  “Yeah, that sounds nice,” I admitted, stepping beside her as I took my turn to hold onto her arm, “how about you show me, we can see if there’s anything my style.”

  Barbie nodded and we started through the store once more, and I had to hold in my laughter. This was ridiculous, I was confronting my dad tonight and revealing I was alive, and I was walking around a craft store clinging onto a girl I barely knew. What was wrong with me?

  Well, a lot was wrong with me actually, but fuck it I was here to enjoy myself.