Alex and Angelica (7th in werewolf series)

Chapter Eight

"He looks different." Mrs. Wallis said to Betty Lou , who was just sitting down beside her and laying her Garfield bingo bag on the table.

"Who?" Betty Lou asked.

"Him." Mrs. Wallis replied, pointing one wrinkled, crooked finger at Alex.

"He finally took that green stuff off his head." Betty Lou said after several moments of careful inspection.

"Well yeah, any dingbat with two eyes can see that." Mrs. Wallis grumbled as she straightened her bingo cards. "There's something else. His smile looks different."

"You two ladies aren't sitting there talking about me are you?" Alex asked from his chair several feet away. He could hear every word they were saying of course but they obviously didn't realize that as they shook their heads and did their best to look completely innocent and wide-eyed.

"Of course not." Betty Lou said quickly.

"Yes they were." Hubert said from the table behind Betty Lou. Betty Lou rolled her slightly yellowed eyes and turned to face him, her blue hair bobbing.

"You couldn't hear a nuclear attack, Hubert, so how in the world do you know what she and I were talking about?" she demanded and Hubert flushed angrily and then glared down at his bingo boards while grumbling under his breath.

"Trouble in paradise?" Alex asked as he got the balls ready to start the game. He remembered that Betty Lou had always had the hots for Hubert and had never had an angry word to say to him.

"That grumpy old coot said I'm too old for him to consider dating. TOO OLD! Just because I'm a few years older than him. Well I hate to tell him but he just missed out on some of the best sex he'll ever have." Betty Lou exclaimed, pulling a bright pink dauber from her bingo bag. Alex closed his eyes and swallowed his vomit, wishing he could scrub the image Betty Lou had just given him from his mind with a wire brush and bleach.

"You do look different." Mrs. Wallis said as she tapped her chin with her bright red fingernail and studied him. "Do you have a girlfriend?" Alex was surprised by the question and he just sat there for several long moments before finally giving a small nod.

"Yeah, Mrs. Wallis, I think I do." he replied. He told himself that the only reason he said yes was to keep Mrs. Wallis from mentioning her daughter again, but then why was he helpless to stop the goofy grin that came to his face and the image of Angelica's smile that came to his mind?

888

Alex ran his hands expertly over the strings of his acoustic guitar. It wasn't often that he pulled it out and blew the dust off of it since it didn't fit his rock star image, but there was a song that he wanted to practice here in the privacy of his bedroom.

If he was to market the song, it would be considered country music and that's why he didn't play it in front of his friends. They wouldn't understand why a rocker like him had written a country love song. He had written it when he'd been sixteen. It was a song he had written for the woman he fell in love with someday. It was about not knowing where she was but telling her that this was her song to listen to until he was able to find her.

His voice rang out, rich and pure, as he sang the lyrics and the sound of the guitar filled the air. He finished the song and then sat there in the silence of his bedroom and wondered why he had had such an urge to play that song again.

"That's different." Todd said walking into his room. Alex sat his guitar down on the floor and looked at his friend.

"I'm going to buy you a place of your own so you'll stay out of mine." he said but the smile on his face, took the edge off his words.