From Maryse:

I'm gonna be about 10 minutes late… Mom and Rachelle got in a fight again… Don't eat all the pizza without me!

I rolled my eyes at Maryse's text message. It was so typical of her. She was always late, for one reason or another. She usually blamed it on her mother and sister, Rachelle, fighting.

"Oo, who texted you?" Summer squealed from across the "clubhouse." When I was about seven, my dad built this huge shed in our backyard, and he was so excited about it because he thought that he would have room to store all of his power tools and he could use it as a workshop for little "odd jobs." But my seven-year-old self was convinced that it was a playhouse for me and my friends, and so, before he could move his tools into it, I asked if Summer, Maryse, and I could have a sleepover in it, just once. Naturally, "just once" turned into millions of sleepovers, and the sign on the front that proclaimed "Tool Shed" had to be painted over. Summer, Maryse, and I christened the shed "SMC Headquarters" (for Summer, Maryse, and Catie; real original, no?) and repainted the sign. Needless to say, my dad never got the toolshed of his dreams, but we sure got plenty of use out of it.

"Just Maryse," I told Summer, tossing her my phone. "She's gonna be late." Summer just rolled her eyes as she read the text from our third amiga, before throwing my phone back at me and winking as she grabbed her third slice of pizza.

We were having our Annual Thanksgiving Break Sleepover. It had been tradition for about six years now. We would all gather in the clubhouse and eat too much pizza, drink too much soda, and spill all of our deepest darkest secrets. It's really funny how after so many years of being best friends, you come up with all sorts of traditions and rituals. The Annual Thanksgiving Break Sleepover was only one of many customs we had.

I grabbed a slice of pizza from the box and chowed down. If I had been a hungry girl before, being a wolf only made me a thousand times more so. I ate far more than the average teenager. It was positively ridiculous (luckily, thanks to my wolfy metabolism, I hadn't seemed to gain any weight from all my excessive eating).

"So, you got any juicy secrets for tonight, C?" Summer asked, her mouth full of pizza.

Truthfully, I didn't (unless you count the wolf-thing, which I'd decided against telling them, just yet, as Brady had suggested), but I simply shrugged my shoulders and smiled mischievously." You'll just have to wait and see." Summer was about to open her mouth to say something when Maryse appeared in the clubhouse doorway.

"Well, I'll admit, I have a lot of new secrets that'll make even Summer's skin crawl!" Maryse exclaimed, plopping down her sleeping bag and her overnight bags. Summer and I laughed, and Maryse came to sit beside me.

"Oh, is little miss Maryse finally getting naughty?" Summer smirked.

"Maybe… you'll have to be patient though, S. I'm not saying anything about anything until at least midnight!" Maryse teased and pulled a bottle of bubbly apple juice from her bag. "Anyone want some?" she said, holding it over her head.

"I'll have some," I smiled and handed her my cup. She returned it to me, filled to the brim. "Thanks, Mare. So, what should we do first?"

"I'm fine with just eating," Summer said, reaching for the chips.

"I'd like to watch a movie," Maryse countered, shifting her long black curls behind her.

"Well, we can do both," I told them, crawling over to the TV that I'd begged my dad to install forever ago, at least a year before he left. I pulled out the DVD case and passed it to Maryse who began to call off different movie titles.

"I say we watch The Proposal, ," Summer interjected, examining her chipped fingernail polish. Maryse rolled her eyes. "Again? We watched that last sleepover," Maryse whined. "What about Pride and Prejudice?" she asked, holding up the DVD. "Or Titanic?" Summer made faces for both of Maryse's choices and grabbed the DVD case.

"How about 27 Dresses?" Summer suggested, but the suggestion was quickly shot down by Maryse, who claimed that we watched that movie "nearly every time we had a sleepover and the cuteness of it wore off after the third viewing." I had to agree with her on that one.

Maryse and Summer were as different as different could be, in looks and in personality. Summer was tall- not as tall as me, but only about an inch or two shorter. She wasn't fat, but she wasn't really slender either, simply in between. Her hair was naturally sandy-blonde, but she had started dying it when she was twelve to a much lighter faux-shade of blonde. Summer had a tendency to be loud and a little crude, and she said what she wanted to, but people still thought of her as charismatic and liked to be on her good side. There were no boundaries for Summer. She got what she wanted when she wanted, and boys were no exception to this. Maryse, on the other hand, was small- only 5"1'- but curvy. She was the beautiful one of our group of friends, with her wild black curls, almond-shaped gray-green eyes, and charming smile. She had strong features and a soft voice. Maryse was very opinionated and liked to debate and question everything, which made Summer and I laugh and roll our eyes. A lot of people were a bit intimidated upon first meeting her, but that impression was quickly forgotten once they got to know her. She was a true sweetheart, with a love of all things fantasy and romantic.

I think a bunch of people honestly wondered how the three of us were friends at all. Sometimes, I even wondered this, just because of how different the three of us were. But our differences somehow just… worked. We were closer than sisters and knew each other like the backs of our hands. I couldn't have asked for anything more, when it came to my best friends.

"How about She's The Man?" I suggested, knowing full well they'd both agree to it. No matter how many times we watched that movie, it never got old. It was one we always agreed on.

"Sure thing," Maryse smiled, and Summer nodded in agreement, just like I knew she would. I put in the DVD, and we laughed and ate the whole duration of the movie.

Author's note: Maryse, Summer, and Catie are incredibly strong characters for me. When I'm writing them, I swear it's like they're sitting around me, talking to me, and honestly telling me their stories. I haven't really ever written characters that were quite that strong or close to me. So it's really pretty neat. Anyway, I have the next chapter written so I'm hoping to post it later tonight, after I've edited it a bit. Hope you're enjoying the story so far :)