“ C raig. I... Do you have any coffee pods for the machine?”
“Uh, no. I stopped at The Pine Loft this morning. Wanted to treat myself.”
“Ooh. Any special occasion?”
Minerva Johnson sits down on the edge of the counter that separates my desk from the hospital corridor, navy blue scrubs pulled tight over her hip, showing me the generous curve of her bottom.
I shouldn’t look. She’s a colleague. A co-worker.
A long-time work friend. Her full name is Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom, but it should have been Venus because she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.
“It’s my birthday. The big three-five,” I finally manage to say, hoping I didn’t just zone out and stare at her for as long as it felt. And the big three-five? Who says that?
“It is? Happy birthday, hon!”
Hon. She called me hon. She’s a nurse in the small geriatric department at the hospital.
I lead the even smaller social work department (me and two other people).
Minnie probably calls everyone hon out of habit.
I try not to drool—and drool is a real possibility.
If I had a tail, it would be wagging right now, but fortunately, as a wulver, I have the head of a wolf but the body of a man. (Mostly.)
Humans are oblivious to the supernatural around them, which is why Minnie gives me a critical stare and says, “You’re looking sharp, birthday boy. No gray in that beard yet.”
Beard, she says. She’s not the first person to compliment me on my fur as if it’s a beard or tell me I have “shampoo commercial hair.” I wish she’d see the real me, muzzle and all.
If she did, it would be so much easier. She could scream, faint, reject me, and I could stop dreaming that one day she’ll say something like—
“Craig? We’ve known each other for a few years, right?”
My ears prick forward. “Five years, I think.”
“We’ve done a lot of crazy things together. This hospital has seen some weird ass cases.”
Orcs. Mummies. Dragons. She doesn’t realize that some of the stranger cases have been a case of the supernatural, not science. I just nod and chuckle. “Sure have.”
“And we’ve been through a lot. Snowed in for triple shifts. Stuck elevators. Escaped dementia patients. Lobbying for them to put a real nursing home in Pine Ridge at every town hall meeting since...”
“—2020, after the old Pine Hall Senior Living Center’s roof collapsed and the owner decided a big retirement home like that wasn’t feasible,” I say, reaching into my satchel.
“But listen to this article in the paper. The lady who wanted to turn the old Hilltop House into a B&B is buying that broken-down old Victorian place by the elementary school and turning it into an assisted living place! It’s not a full nursing home, but—”
“Would you let me give you a birthday present?” Minnie blurts.
I blink. Are we going out for lunch? Does she want to buy me something from the vending machine? “Well, that’s so sweet, Minnie. But you don’t have to do that.”
“No... No, it would... It would kind of... It would be like—Would you go to a wedding with me?” Minerva rushes out the words, slamming her palms down on the counter and leaning over it. Her breath explodes in a short puff, and then she seals her perfect, full lips tight.
“Huh?” I stop rooting around for the newspaper in my bag and stare.
I thought there would be more heavenly harp music and ripple dissolve effect the moment my dreams came true.
“Look, let me start over. My cousin Gerri is getting married at some swanky resort island in the Florida Keys. I need a plus-one, or my mom and aunts are going to be on my single ass for five days straight. Plus, I may have kind of already said I had a boyfriend. Maybe. Definitely.”
She’s adorable when she’s desperate.
Minnie puts her face in her cupped palms with a groan.
Her masses of brown sugar ringlets fall free, soft waves and curls that bounce, and it’s all I can do not to bury my face in them and pull in her scent.
Wulvers may be mostly human in appearance, but in some ways, we’re very different.
Scent is our love language, and I have been addicted to Minerva Johnson since I first caught her sweet aroma of coconut, shea butter, and gardenia.
“Your boyfriend can’t go?” I ask, privately ready to take a bite out of the ungrateful jerk. There are millions of men (okay, me) who would climb Everest to be with Minnie. He’d better be donating a kidney to a dying orphan to stand her up when it’s obvious she needs him.
“No, Craig! I lied ,” she moans, a bitter laugh in her voice.
“I lied twice in a row. I told my mother I was on-call last night and was getting beeped, and then I lied and said I had a boyfriend, and now she and my father are waiting to give me the third degree on Facetime tonight. When they find out I lied, they’ll practically fling me into the arms of an orthodontist from Ann Arbor.
Or Annapolis. It doesn’t matter, somewhere that’s not here. ”
My ears twitch, and I clumsily pat Minnie’s shoulder as she heaves a shuddering sigh, facedown across my counter. I’ve often dreamed of her being facedown across any surface, but in my dreams, she’s always way happier about it.
I cough and straighten myself up. “So, your birthday present would be to take me to a tropical island resort, pay for everything, and all I have to do is hang out with you? Geez, Min, like that would be hard.”
Minnie’s head bobs up and she bites her lip, her eyes wide and teary around the edges of their deep, coffee-brown depths.
Oooh. I’ve had some dreams where she looks up at me like this, too.
“Don’t joke. I know I should just fess up and let my mother have a heyday with lectures and guilt-tripping, followed by a sun-filled week of family matchmaking,” Minnie moans, collapsing down again, her head pillowed in her arms.
“I’m not joking. It’s a great present. I haven’t taken time off in years except for a sick day here and there. My parents are always telling me to go on holiday more often.”
“You should! And you... you probably want to go visit your parents in Scotland?” she asks faintly.
“I don’t, not at the moment. They’re planning to come visit over here this summer, anyway. I think a luxurious resort in Florida sounds like an amazing birthday gift.” I dare to reach out and take her hand in both of mine. “Thank you, Minnie.”
For a full ten seconds, she just presses her fingers tightly into mine, but then the worried words come back at high speed.
“Wait, did you catch the part about being my fake boyfriend?”
“Aye. Yep.” I cough. I was raised in Scotland, but my accent has faded over the last fifteen years. But when emotions run high, words, phrases, and a trace of a brogue still come out. At least I didn’t call her lass.
“For all five days, Craig. Not just a night or at the wedding.”
“Grand, grand. What’ll I have to do? Sit next to you? Tell you how stunning you look? Put my arm around your shoulders and get you another drink? Dinnae we do that at the Christmas party?”
“Oh, Craig! I could kiss you!” Minnie leans over and plants a kiss on my furry cheek, almost sending me into orbit. “My cousin just got a teaching job and her mom—that’s my Aunt Belinda—is also a teacher. Two of my other aunts are teachers, too.”
“Riiight?” I draw out the word. Am I missing something here?
“The wedding is in six weeks.”
“So we have time to get our stories straight,” I chuckle, beaming.
I can’t tell you how much I love this. Can’t explain how nice it is to catch each one of Minerva’s worries like a fierce fish, then dispatch it and watch her eyes gleam with joy each time I do.
Her cherub-like cheeks are permanently creased in a happy smile at this point.
“I know a lot of guys would think a resort would be all nightlife and clubbing, but in my family, they'll expect us to either be setting off alone for romantic walks on the beach or acting like sun-starved tourists with everyone, doing something like deep sea fishing off the Keys.”
I try not to let out a whine. “Deep sea fishing? You know how I love to fish. Love it.” It’s in my blood.
No, like literally. The first wulver (the child of a fae and a werewolf) was born by the river and lived in a steep cave above it.
To teach the local folk of the Shetland Isles that he was benevolent (something not all fae or werewolves could claim), he would take most of his catch and leave it on the windowsills of widows and poor folk.
Even today, hundreds of years later, I cannot wait to fish, but even more, I can’t wait to drop my catch off at the retirement home or gift it to a recently discharged patient.
Unlike the first wulvers, my catches are presented cleaned, cooked, lightly battered, or in a lemon-butter sauce, and usually with a side of green beans almondine and an applesauce cake for after.
“You do love to fish. But—you’ll have to wear a suit. Probably a tux. I’m a bridesmaid. You might have to pose for pictures.”
“Don’t all people pose for pictures on their vacations?” I shrug and cross my arms. “Minnie. I want to go. Any objection you have, I’m going to beat it. It’s—it’s nice to go somewhere outside of work sometimes. Maybe we can even talk about something other than bed sores or staffing turnovers.”
She smiles at me. A howl bubbles up inside of me, and I fake a hiccup to quell it.
“I’d like that. A lot. You really wouldn’t mind playing along? Pretending to be something you’re not for almost a week?”
I shake my head, hoping the sadness in my eyes is hidden by my broad smile. “I don’t mind at all,” I reply quietly. And I wish it wasn’t just make-believe. I wish it was real...