Chapter 4
The next morning, I woke to the smell of coffee and something burning. I rushed to the kitchen to find Milo attempting to cook bacon, with limited success.
“Morning!” he said brightly, waving a spatula that had a piece of charred bacon stuck to it. “I’m making breakfast as thanks. Or trying to. Your stove is complicated.”
“It’s a standard stove,” I said, taking the spatula from him. “You just have the heat too high.”
“Oh.” He peered at the knobs. “Numbers are confusing. In the wild—with my pack—we cook over fire. No numbers involved.”
I adjusted the temperature and rescued what bacon could be saved. “How’s your hand?”
He flexed it. “All better. We heal quickly.”
“Convenient.”
As we ate breakfast (slightly burned bacon and surprisingly good coffee), Milo peppered me with questions about my life.
How long had I owned the store? Did I have family nearby?
What was my favorite food? It was like being interviewed by an enthusiastic journalist with no concept of topic transitions.
“What about you?” I finally asked. “Why did you decide to get a job among humans?”
His expression grew more serious. “Our pack is changing. The younger generation wants more integration with the human world. The elders are resistant. I volunteered to be a sort of… test case. Learn human ways, bring knowledge back.”
“So I’m your field study in humanity?” I teased.
“Not just you,” he said earnestly. “But yes, kind of. Is that weird?”
“Milo, you turn into a wolf. We crossed ‘weird’ a while back.”
He laughed, then glanced at the window where sunlight was streaming in. “The full moon will rise at 8:37 tonight. I’ll need to shift before then.”
“Should I… leave? Give you privacy?”
He looked surprised. “No need. It’s not like getting undressed. The shift itself is just a change of form.” He hesitated. “Though after, wolf-me will be naked when human clothes don’t fit, so…”
“Right. I’ll have a blanket ready.”
We spent the day in surprisingly normal domesticity.
I called the part-timer who covered Milo’s full moon absences to handle the store, then showed Milo my collection of graphic novels.
His excitement over my first editions was endearing, his careful handling of them at odds with his usual clumsiness.
As evening approached, his energy changed. He became more restless, pacing the apartment.
“It’s starting,” he explained, rolling his shoulders. “The pull of the moon.”
“Does it hurt?” I asked. “The changing?”
“No, it’s more like…” He searched for words. “Like the feeling when you’re about to sneeze? A building pressure, then release.”
At around eight, he stood in the center of the living room. “I should shift now. You might want to step back a little.”
I moved to the kitchen doorway, giving him space but unable to look away.
Milo closed his eyes, his breathing deepening. Then, in a fluid motion that my eyes couldn’t quite track, his form blurred and shifted. Where my small, fidgety employee had stood moments before, there was now a reddish-brown wolf with those same intelligent amber eyes.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “That was… incredible.”
Wolf-Milo made a sound that seemed pleased, his tail wagging slightly.
“Can you understand me like this?” I asked.
He nodded, padding closer.
“This is so weird,” I said, cautiously reaching out. “Can I…?”
He pushed his head into my hand in clear permission. I sank my fingers into his fur, which was even softer than I remembered from carrying him the night before. He leaned into the touch, making a sound almost like purring.
“You’re not as intimidating as I’d expect a werewolf—sorry, wolf shifter—to be,” I told him, scratching behind his ears. “You’re actually kind of… cute.”
He made an indignant noise, pulling back to give me what could only be described as a glare.
“What? You are! You’re like, wolf-sized but smaller than most wolves I’ve seen in documentaries. Compact.”
He huffed, turning in a circle before settling on the couch, somehow managing to look offended even in wolf form.
“Oh, don’t pout,” I laughed, sitting beside him. “I meant it as a compliment.”
The evening passed peacefully. I read while wolf-Milo alternated between watching me and dozing. Occasionally, he’d make a small noise to get my attention, communicating surprisingly well through expressions and gestures.
Around midnight, I yawned. “I should get some sleep. You good out here?”
He nodded, already curled up comfortably on the couch.
“Goodnight then,” I said, hesitating before giving him one more scratch behind the ears. “See you in the morning.”
In my bedroom, I changed for sleep, unable to stop thinking about what I’d witnessed. The transformation had been beautiful in a way I couldn’t articulate—natural and fluid, like watching water change to ice but accelerated to seconds instead of hours.
And if I found wolf-Milo cute, human-Milo was…
something else entirely. I’d always registered that he was attractive in an unusual way, but watching him move around my apartment in borrowed clothes, seeing him relaxed and in his element talking about comics, had awakened something I wasn’t quite ready to examine.
I drifted off thinking about amber eyes in both human and wolf faces, and the way Milo’s laugh seemed to brighten every room.