Werewolves & Wisteria by A. L. Tyler

kind of like getting to see the drool spot on your pillow in the morning.”
    I cocked my head. “I don’t drool. And I change in here.”
    “You have a closet and a bathroom,” he said incredulously. “Change in there. You really need a third room for changing?”
    I didn’t respond, and continued to stare him down.
    “I’m kidding, Annie,” he said. “That’s fine. Of course, people are going to talk when they see you leaving my place late at night. No one has ever believed that homework excuse.”
    I made a face, pointing him toward his stairs. “The people who know me, and what a perpetual nerd I am, have never had any trouble believing it. Goodnight, Vince.”
    He smirked at me as he went down the stairs, but then stopped, resting his arms on the landing.
    “So what is this, then?” he asked.
    “What is what?” I asked absently, pulling a pair of pajamas from a drawer. It was getting too cold out to keep wearing jogging pants and a camisole, which was my usual routine.
    “Are we dating?” he asked. “What is this?”
    I stood up straight, and then turned back to him, shocked that he could talk about it like it was something to be discussed in the light of… any light, actually. And he wasn’t even embarrassed.
    “You live in my basement,” I said, confused.
    He nodded, and his gaze wandered for a second. “Right. Well, goodnight, then.”
    “Do you want to date?” I asked before he could disappear. “I don’t know what that looks like. I’ve never done that before.”
    I thought he was going to say something snarky and inconsiderate, like how I really was a huge nerd, or how we might as well because neither of us was ever going to get a date given our current predicament, or how he was actually planning to ask my blessing to make a pass at Martha in all of her low-cut sheer glory, but he didn’t.
    “Yes,” he said. “I would. And I think it looks however you want it to. Is that okay?”
    I didn’t know what to say. I had thought about dating Vince, and what it would be like, at least a dozen times. Somehow, I had never imagined this moment, or what I was supposed to say. I never thought he would be asking me from a hatch door in my bedroom floor, either.
    “Yeah,” I said finally. “That’s okay.”
    We stared at each other. I still didn’t know what to say.
    “I’ve got a week left,” he said. “Before Charlie says I’ll be going downhill again. We could watch a movie or something, no homework. My place, tomorrow?”
    “Sure,” I said quickly.
    “Great. Goodnight.”
    “Goodnight.”
    And he disappeared into the hatch, closing it as he went. I stood in my bedroom, wondering what that moment would have been like if I had never met Charlie. It might have gone better. Or, it might never have happened at all. Vince and I were two people inclined to go with the flow instead of taking huge risks, and Charlie knew that. The only way we would have ended up in any sort of dating situation was if we were forced into it.
    For example, if he ended up living in my basement.
    I went to my little library, and cracked the door just a little. Charlie had been spending more time in there since Martha’s arrival, and I found him curled next to an open book on the chaise.
    “Thank you,” I said, half defeated. “I know you don’t like werewolves, but—”
    “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he said shortly. “I’ll move the stairs tomorrow. And we have to do something about Martha.”
    “What?” I asked. “Charlie, she knew Kendra. There’s no other explanation.”
    “There has to be,” he said, moving to sit up. “This doesn’t sit right with you, either. I know it doesn’t.”
    “She can help us.”
    “She keeps saying that she’s going to help us,” Charlie reminded me. “She never says how she’s going to do it. Her friends, the ones that are going to help Vince, don’t exist outside of theory right now. She talks about breaking my curse like she