Moonlight Desires

Chapter 3

Becky considered herself blessed that she had a dreamer and a doer for parents. When it came to tough career advice, she usually went to her mother, the pragmatic one, but when it came to werewolf matters, her father was the obvious choice. Not only was he the one who passed along the gene, but when it came to shifting and pack politics, he suddenly developed the ability to balance practicality with personal desires. After Seth had asked her to shift together on the next full moon, Becky had tried to sort through her conflicted feelings on her own, but since she couldn't go to Charlotte or any of her other friends like she normally would, she had to think of a way to broach the subject with her father.

Long before she called her father, Becky had decided not to mention Seth at all. Her father had met him briefly backstage during a United Kingdom tour, but they weren't well acquainted; he knew that she and Seth were good friends, however, and she didn't want that skewing his advice. "Hi, Dad." Becky's eyes had shut the instant her father answered, and she felt herself relax. "How are you? Have time for an astronomy question?" It was a good way to ask if he was able to speak freely about werewolf matters without using some ridiculously obvious code phrase.

"Ah, Rebecca." When he said her full name, it was like he somehow added an extra musical syllable and she loved to hear it, even when it meant she was about to get a lecture. "I'm well. How are you? Yes, I saw that the last full moon was on a taping night. Did you have any trouble?" He always made a point of cross-referencing her wrestling events with the lunar cycle.

Becky said a silent prayer of thanks for the segue. She wasn't sure how she would have brought it up on her own, but maybe now that he had, she could make it sound more casual. "The venue changed at the last minute because of a tornado," she reported, "so I had to scramble to find a new shifting site. But on the up side, I ended up learning that there's another werewolf in the company."

Her father's surprise was palpable. "Really? Is it a new hire? Wouldn't you have noticed before?"

"You'd think so. I'm not sure how I missed it. I guess I'm so focussed on full-moon nights," Becky confided, "that I tune everything else out."

"Fair enough, I suppose." Her father cleared his throat. "Is it another wrestler? Anyone I've met?"

Even though she had already decided not to reveal Seth's secret, she still had a moment of hesitation. Who he was to her did have bearing on deciding whether to shift with him, but if things went badly, she didn't want her father to hold it against Seth either. "I don't want to say," she hedged. "You know I love you, Dad, and I trust you, but I didn't get their permission to share their identity."

"I understand." Becky could hear him take a sip of tea. "So how did the discovery unfold? Did you smell them after they'd shifted?"

"No. We ended up going to the same place to shift, actually. I got there first and it seemed safe, but then I noticed a car so I went to investigate." It wasn't entirely true, but she didn't think the details she was leaving out were vital. It wasn't like Seth had stalked her or threatened her. "I took off as soon as I recognized them, but then we ran into each other at the next event and eventually talked."

"I see." During conversations like these, Becky's father was almost like part priest, part therapist, both giving guidance and pointing out details. Becky had hated it when she was younger, but now that she knew Seth had grown up with hardly any direction at all, she knew she should appreciate it more. "And how do you feel about this? Do you think you can trust them?"

Becky nodded to herself. "Yeah, I think so. They've been with WWE since NXT started, and they've always been nice to me, so I don't think they'd expose my secret now. They want to shift and run together on the next full moon, though, and I'm not sure I should."