Page 52 of Business or Pleasure

Her hands fly to her mouth. “Goodness, it is you! I’m Tamara—I’m the owner here, welcome! Anything I can help you find? Or”—she cranes her neck to see what I’m carrying—“looks like your girlfriend already picked out some of our bestsellers!”

“Oh—she’s not—”

“I’m not—”

Tamara gives us a wink. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” Then she lets out another gasp. “You must be so busy with the reunion coming up! I screamed when I heard the news, scared my husband half to death.”

“We’re really excited about it.”

I beam, loving every second of this.

“Can I get a photo? I’ve always wanted to have one of those celebrity walls, but, well, we don’t get quite as many famous people in here as I’d have hoped. You might be the first!”

“How lucky,” Finn says in a flat voice. “Of course.”

A gleeful Tamara whips out her phone.

“I’m going to kill you,” Finn says through gritted teeth.

“With the spiked dildo or the leather flogger?”

“Whatever’s the slowest and most painful.”

“Sounds kinky.” I nudge him as the shop owner aims her phone at him. “Now smile.”

THE NOCTURNALS

Season 2, Episode 18: “Something Wicked, Something Wild”

INT. OAKHURST BIOLOGY LAB—DAY

PROFESSOR DONOVAN sits at a lab table behind a microscope, surrounded by test tubes, beakers, and X-rays. CALEB RHODES leans casually against the table while OLIVER HUXLEY waits nervously next to him.

PROFESSOR DONOVAN

As all of my experiments have shown, there’s nothing that could alter her DNA and completely erase the canine part of herself. It’s simply an irreversible process, I’m sorry to say.

CALEB

That’s what I’ve been telling him. I’m just not the best with all the sciency stuff. And I don’t mind being a werewolf. In fact, I think I kind of kick ass at it?

Caleb attempts to howl, then dissolves into a coughing fit.

Well. Most of the time.

HUX

It’s not for him. It’s... for someone else.

CALEB

Have you even asked her, Hux? Maybe you should start there, huh?

HUX

Well, no. But you think if she had a choice, this is really what she’d pick?

CALEB

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