Falling for my best friend's dad

Cecilia I toss and turn until the sun rays tickle a nerve in my forehead too strongly, forcing me to wrinkle my eyelids as I slowly pull myself awake. I suppress a groan because of a light headache I feel when I open my eyes. Ah, it's because of the sleepover. I blink thrice before I shoot up from the bed in a straight position, regretting it terribly the next moment when my head sways. But right now isn't the time to worry about it. I turn to my left and shake Nora, my best friend c*m the person responsible for pulling us into this sleepover disguised as an all-nighter despite promising us only a few hours of the movie. Gosh, how can we all be this irresponsible, and that too, barely two weeks before Christmas. We only have a few more days on us before we finally hit the 2-week mark. "Nora, wake up! The sun is high in the sky," I shake her arm, but she doesn't budge. This stubborn girl! I try waking up Ella next, but both of them are sleeping like sleeping beauties. I am about to haul them up from the bed when I suddenly halt, not finding Grace on the bed. There were four of us last night, right? Cheering to our girlhood and quality time? Then where is Grace? The sheets rustle when I change position and get on my knees. The mattress dips under my weight, and I attempt to wake Nora once again when I hear the sound of water running. Upon straining my ears, I hear the sound of a shower running, which makes me snap. That wicked girl! "NORA!" I yell, closing my hands around both of her arms and shaking her like my phone when it vibrates. Finally, her eyelids flutter open, and she stares back at me with her deep blues drowsily. A color that never fails to mesmerize me. "Ugh, Cici, let me sleep." She turns to her right and buries her face in the pillow. I hold back my exasperation, completely awake by now. "No, Nora. Wake up. Today is the submission day, don't you remember? We need to get to the office. Grace is already in the shower. Come on!" The reason why I am not able to sit still is that, firstly, we have a lot of work to do at the office. We are assigned to the planning team which is responsible for planning out the whole Christmas party, which is very important, and this isn't it. Our team head, Juliana, has divided us into two different teams for the festival. Both teams have to come up with the party theme, and whoever wins will get their dream promotion. We have been working at it for more than a week, and I can't let our team lose at all. I am in Nora's team. She is our creative head, and we are competing against Grace, who is our rival team's leader. We are all friends, but we are also serious about the competition. No one can be more serious about the competition than me. I know, I lack the credibility to say so since I reluctantly agreed to the sleepover, falling the night before the most important day, but I am not lying. I must bag this promotion that is dangling at the end of this contest because of my uncertain position in the River Claw pack. I need to solidify my position and earn a good amount of money. I am grateful to Nora for befriending a foreigner like me. The pack isn't exactly friendly to me, someone who has left their old pack for personal reasons that aren't something I can broadcast to everyone. I haven't even told Nora yet, and being a sweet friend, she didn't pressure me either. Thanks to her high status in the pack, being Alpha's daughter, I didn't face blatant discrimination and prejudice, but I know that I can't keep relying on her forever if I want to continue living in this pack. Now that I have come to like the River Claw, I want to strengthen my position as a pack member. Getting promoted to a position in the inner team of the office that works directly for the pack's welfare will help me. I will be able to earn people's trust that way and carve a place of my own among the other pack members. That's why I can't have the sly Grace slip out first. We can't be late for the morning meeting. If she reports first, then the scales will tip in her favour naturally, since Juliana loves punctuality. Damn it, I knew the sleepover was a bad idea, no matter how relaxing and fun it was. I ignore Ella, who is still snoring loudly. She is in the human resources department anyway. The debate about changing the Human Resource department's name to the werewolf department comes to mind as I try one last attempt to wake Nora up. I pour some water in my hand from the nearby jug and sprinkle it on her. Her face distorts, but she ends up waking up anyway, "Cici! What are you doing?" She growls irritably, but that's a good amount of consciousness for me to alert her again. "Nora, we only have a hour and a half to get ready for the morning meeting! Grace is already ahead of us. Get up!" I try not to yell in her face, but I am loud enough to snap her back into her senses. She blinks stupidly before her switch flips, and she straightens up. "Shoot, was it today? s**t!" She curses and yanks away the comforter. I nod, happy to find her getting back to her senses. Despite being Alpha's daughter, Nora works fairly in the office, wanting to earn merit through her skills and that's why this promotion is just as important for her. "Yeah. We can't waste any more time. Let's get ready. Got any spare room where I can freshen up?" I ask since this one was clearly engaged. Damn, Grace Miller. I love her and admire her skills, but I want that promotion. Bad. "Huh, yeah, there is. You can use the room beside mine. It's empty around this time," Nora answers, appearing cluttered. Well, she will be. We slept at the crack of dawn after all. Seriously, it's scary how competitive Grace is. We are in the packhouse, and I too have begin to live here, but I am still not familiar with the layout considering it has only been a month since I moved here. "Alright, I am leaving. You get up too, and don't you dare sleep on me," I say sternly before I get off the bed and pick up my overnight bag. My dress for the office is in there. "Yes, yes. I am following right after you," she says while slowly slipping out of bed. "Alright, I will finish quickly." I don't waste a second in twisting the knob and getting out of Nora's bedroom after confirming that she isn't going back to sleep, even if she is moving like a turtle because of the lack of sleep, only to halt for a split second as I notice Declan standing guard outside. "Morning." He greets me in a gruff voice. I nod, acknowledging it, "Good Morning." His sharp grey eyes hover on my face for the smallest of seconds before he goes back to staring in front, his expression back to a cool indifference. He is Nora's personal bodyguard and a strong warrior. He was wary of me at first, but over the days, he just started viewing me indifferently, as if my presence didn't matter at all. But, still, sometimes I find him looking at me intently as if he is still analyzing me, testing me, whether I am a danger to Nora or not. Having done with our short conversation, if it can even be counted as one, I slip into the room beside Nora's. It's empty just as she said, and so I don't waste any more of my precious time before disappearing into the bathroom. I twist the shower's knob and let the water wash away last night's fatigue. Or should I say the fatigue piled up from last week's preparation, or the last month's escape that I planned hastily but firmly? As soon as my mind links to last month, when I was still in the StarMoon pack, unpleasant and unwanted memories that are still fresh start roaming before my eyes like scenes from a movie I hate. My fingers start trembling, and the relaxing shower starts resembling the nightmares I can't escape from until I hurriedly turn off the shower. My breathing becomes ragged as I crouch down and hug my knees. I am beginning to go into a panic attack as I replay the scene of Issac cheating on me with his ex Josie, before he turns the pack's opinion towards me, volatile with just a few words. I close my eyes shut as I try to drown them just like the water flowing down the drain, but it's not easy. Still, I do what I always do. I pick up my crumbled self and clench my fists. I can fight my demons. I can. I repeat shakily before I slowly begin coming back to the tiles, bathtub and the showerhead around me. That's right. It's all in the past. It won't happen again. I say to myself before I dry myself with a towel, and reach for the bathrobe next. However, there isn't any on the rack. Feeling a little disoriented, I hold the towel against my chest and step outside, only to freeze up when I come across the giant man huddled up in the chair, his size straining against its edges beside the bed, working on some bundle of paper with glasses sitting on his face, before he stares up at me with the familiar deep blue irises, which I am not a stranger to.