Can I Pet You…

So I'm sitting in the Inkitt cafeteria today. You know the one, just down the hall from about fifty thousand offices where all the Inkitt writers work. Side note, if you don't have your office yet, call HR. They told me they've been behind on assigning spaces. Just ask. They'll bump you to the front of the line.

Anyway.

I'm poking at my jello. Today's flavor is Billionaire Dom Dark Darkness, Fortune 100 flavor, whatever that means. I just finished my steak tips, always over rare for some reason, something to do with the vampire crowd apparently. So I'm sitting there poking the jello and it pokes back. Darkly.

I look around the cafeteria. Werewolves everywhere. They dominate the whole seating area, organized by pack and roman numeral hierarchy, and honestly it is a LOT to figure out who can eat with whom. Inkitt asked them to wear color-coded name badges to sort out rank and mates and partial mates and who's searching for a mate of which status, and they did, they're wearing them, but it basically turned into a rainbow name tag situation for everyone and I cannot make sense of any of it.

Then I notice this werewolf sitting alone. White. Very fluffy. Lone wolf, except I'm told they don't love that title. Maybe a cast-off alpha with gamma tendencies. Maybe a scorned beta who just wanted fifteen minutes of quiet. I looked at the jello. Looked at the wolf. Looked at the jello.

Wolf. Definitely wolf.

I pushed my tray to the side, grabbed my unopened pudding cup, and went over.

The white werewolf saw me coming. Rolled its eyes. Growled. "Please, can I just have some time to my..."

Nope nope nope nope. I put the pudding cup on the table like an award. Sat down. Bounced once because I was excited about making a new friend.

"I didn't ask you to sit."

"I know! It's okay, I kind of come on fast when I see a new friend."

"I'm not your..."

"Friend? I know, not officially. We should change that. Here, pudding. It's like Christmas but better. Oh wait, is there a special wolf day you all celebrate? Like a birthday? You have birthdays, right?"

The werewolf looked at me with what I can only describe as exhausted patience. "Look, ma'am. You are a ma'am, right? Not a shifter, not one of those body-snatcher types?"

"Person. Totally human. Title, writer. Human writer. She, her, girl. Sometimes multicolored hair girl, although that's not accurate every third month."

The werewolf put up one half-paw hand. "Girl. Human writer. I just want to..."

"Rude. That's the first one. I'm not a 'girl,' I'm more like a woman who tries to be a girl. It's not my fault, I didn't choose to turn thirty."

"You literally just said your pronouns were... oh god. They told me about you. They said stay away from the pink and purple girl. I didn't know what that meant but now..."

"Okay, rude again, that's two. I brought you pudding. I could have eaten the pudding. But it's elk flavor, it says right here on the label, and I thought, because I was being POLITE, that you might like some elk pudding. It's not my favorite but it's better than last week's flavor, which was downright inappropriate. I mean vanilla is one thing, but to call it..."

"STOP." A growl. Then, quieter. "Thank you. For the pudding. That was... nice." A long sigh. "I'm going to assume you're alpha level. Certified?"

"Huh? Alpha?"

"Yes. Like certified. Boss level. Pack project manager."

I thought about it. "Okay I don't know what that means, but tell me, because I genuinely want to understand. There are so many werewolves here and it's complicated, who's in charge, who's being shared, who's on the outs, who's switching packs. I met a werewolf last week, at least I thought it was a werewolf, and it just barked at me. I spent ten minutes talking to it and it turned out it was just a dog. Like, woof woof dog. I think it was a labrador. Or a labrapoodle."

"Labradoodle."

"No, that can't be right."

"It's right. Trust me. Like a werepoodle, but labrador-ish. Labradoodle."

"Ohhhh. Well that makes total sense."

The werewolf stared at me. "So I'm going to assume you're not an omega, alpha, or any kind of anything. You're just actually here to give me pudding."

A pause.

"And try to cheer me up."

I bounced twice. "Yes! Exactly!"

The werewolf rolled its large eyes again. "You are something. I'll give you that. Does this approach, just sneaking up on people, does it actually work for you?"

"Okay, rude, that's three, you need to be nicer."

"...Sorry."

"And yes," I said, pointing out across the cafeteria. "It works just fine."

I pointed at Jim. Tentacled creature, three tables over. "Hi Jim!" Jim hunched tighter and threw a tentacle over his face.

"And there's mmrrcclampZ64." I waved. The green six-armed being with rubber prosthetics on each hand turned away and pretended not to see me.

Then I found my people. Table of women in hockey shirts and beanies. One was holding a hockey stick. I waved. The whole table lit up and waved back. One of them waved the hockey stick.

"See? Friends."

The werewolf already had its head in its hands.

"Well the girls like me. Except the one with the black eye. She thinks I'm a Red Wings fan. Whatever that means."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to say hi. You looked sad."

The werewolf looked at the pudding for a long moment. "Hi," it said. Politely.

Then, quieter. "I do like this flavor. You know they only serve it on Mondays?"

"You're welcome," I said, like things were now settled.

I stood up. "What's your name?"

"Rindy."

"And rank?"

"Technically between mates. Third in line for... well. Third in line."

"Right then."

Silence.

I bounced once. "Can I pet you?"

"No. But thank you for the pudding."

"Anytime. You have a nice day, okay?"

"I will."

I turned to leave.

"Oh. Kira?"

I stopped. Waited.

Rindy laughed. "Can I pet you?"

I snorted. An undignified, completely involuntary snort. "No, silly. That's not how it works."

"Right," Rindy said, perfectly blank. "Have a nice day, Kira."

I skipped back toward my tray.

Glanced right.

Jonathan. Richly dressed, gold phone, leaning against the wall with three women competing for his attention. He saw me. Turned around. Started walking the other direction. The three extremely beautiful women glanced back over their shoulders as they huddled around him and followed.

I chased them down the Inkitt halls.
More later.