“Yeah, um, I do.” He took a breath, gathering himself for the coming ordeal. “I’m a werewolf. And I’m okay with that, most of the time. That is, I think I’m pretty well-adjusted. But I’ve met this girl. Woman. My girlfriend. And she’s great.” A wistful tone entered his voice. “She’s more than great. I—I really want to ask her to marry me.”
“But—” I prompted. There was always a but.
“She doesn’t know I’m a werewolf. And I don’t know how to tell her. On top of that I want to introduce her to my pack, but I don’t know where to even start with that. I have a pretty good pack, they’re good people…”
“But—”
“I shouldn’t complain, my alpha pair are really laid back, as long as we don’t run around killing anything they let us do pretty much what we want. They encourage us to do what we want. But sometimes I could use, you know, a little guidance.”
“They sound like the parents who provide the beer at their teenagers’ parties.”
“Funny you should mention beer. I mean, um, what I really want is some advice about how to tell my girlfriend what I am. I shouldn’t ask her to marry me until she knows that.”
His voice had become clearer, more confident. And familiar. It was the line about the beer that did it. His alpha pair, providing the beer for the parties.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Where are you calling from?” The monitor said “Bob from Westminster.” Westminster, the suburb of Denver. Right. I knew him.
“Um…” he said, the anxiety back in his voice.
“Listen, caller from Westminster, could you stay on the line just a second? Thanks. And now I’m going to break for station ID. I’ll be back in a couple of howls.” I made a desperate waving motion at the window, and my engineer Matt cued up station ID and PSAs, and the ON AIR sign dimmed. Then I took my caller off hold and talked through the headset.
Bob? I didn’t think so. “Trey, is that you? Tell me that’s not you.”
“It’s me.” The man sighed, his secret revealed at last.
“What are you doing calling me on the show? On the air? You can talk to me anytime you want. Why didn’t you just call my regular number?”
“You’re not exactly the easiest person to pin down. If you’re not working, you’re traveling, or you’re wrapped up in some plot. It never seems like the right time to sit down and talk, or you’re too busy, and, well. I figured this was the one time I’d get you where you’d be ready to listen.”
Hearing this from Trey didn’t quite feel like getting kicked in the gut, but it was close. I leaned my head on my hands, glad he couldn’t see me slouching, tail between my legs.
“Wow. Okay. Message received. I’m really sorry, Trey. I hadn’t realized I’d been so … so…” I couldn’t think of a word for what I’d been. I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend he was this serious about. “I’m sorry. But your girlfriend. That’s great. I’d really like to meet her.”
“If you think you can pencil me into your schedule.”
“Fine. I get it. I’m a bad den mother.”
“Kitty, I didn’t say that. I just…”
I waited for him to finish the thought, but he didn’t. “Look,” I said. “Name a time. We’ll get together—”
Matt’s voice cut in through my headset. “You have a minute, Kitty.”
Of course I only had a minute. I closed my eyes and sighed.
“Trey, I’m not sure if this is irony or just a stupid joke, but I have to get back to the show now. I’ll call you.”
“Sure. I’ll take my answer off the air.” I could hear the smirk in his voice. At least he waited for me to hang up first.
I watched Matt count down to the next segment and the ON AIR sign lit. “All right, thanks for waiting. The question we have is how to tell your significant other that you’ve been keeping a pretty big secret. The answer: very carefully. How you tell depends a lot on your significant other, how well you know them, and how well they’re likely to take something like this. But I’ll stand by the answer I always give in cases like this: if this person really loves you, she’ll stick by you and be willing to work it out. Normal human beings really