Page 36 of When Hairy Met Stella

“Okay…” she said, drawing out the word and buying herself a second to navigate this bomb that he’d dropped. She had questions. So many questions she didn’t know where to begin. This wasn’t something she’d read in any of her teen magazines years ago. They focused on things likewhat to do if your man is cheating, notwhat to do if your man…isn’t human.“Is that why you’re gone every morning when I wake up? Are you…shifting?”

“No—well, yeah…it’s complicated.” He turned to face her, running both hands through his hair so roughly she worried he might yank it all out. But if he was a werewolf, wouldn’t it just grow back? Or did it not work that way? Darn her for always reading Lucy’s romance book recommendations and not more paranormal thrillers. There was so much she didn’t understand, andTwilighthadn’t prepped her for this moment at all.

While he paced the length of the balcony with his hands on his head, the muscles in his upper back bulged and moved with the action. And the hands that had once held hers now sported tiny tufts of hair across the knuckles. Wow, had the signs always been so obvious? They’d worked together for over a year now, and she’d never suspected a thing.

“Okay, well…how can I help you right now?”

His head snapped in her direction, and his jaw hung open as though the cord cinching it tightly moments ago was severed. “Help me?” His eyes narrowed with the slow shake of his head. “You want to help me?”

“Yes,” she answered with a firm nod to sell the response. She didn’t know a lot of what was going on right now, but she did know one thing: Nate had been there so much for her in the past year, especially lately, so she was going to be there for him…whatever that looked like. “Why wouldn’t I?”

His throat bobbed slowly, and she was pretty sure there was a sheen of moisture covering his eyes and sparkling in the moonlight. This had obviously been a big revelation for him, andshe wanted to help him through it, to be the rock that he had been for her so many times before. Though, by comparison, she was more akin to a pebble, but that was better than nothing, right? “The last thing you should want to do is help me.”

“Well, it’s not.” Without the consent of her brain, her feet took a couple tentative steps in her direction. And when he didn’t back away, she closed the space between them a little more. “How many times have you helped me? It’s honestly the least I can do.”

“Except, helping you didn’t put my life at risk.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked as she cocked a brow. “I mean, I vividly remember nearly climbing you like a tree on that aerial course, which could have ended very badly for both of us.” She’d meant for it to be a joke, but the intensity of his stare only strengthened.

“Not for you. I would have never let anything happen to you.”

“I believe you. And that’s how I know you’d never hurt me now.” She reached for his hand, noticing the dusting of hair had disappeared. “Or ever.”

Their eyes connected, his tugging something deep inside her, something that sent warmth throughout her chest.

And then came a blast of cold air.

“You don’t know that.” He jerked his hand away, breaking whatever spell had fallen over them. “You’d do well to stay away from me.”

“And see, that’s our biggest problem here.”

“Bigger than me being a monster?”

She shook her head. “Well, the first issue is to get you to quit calling yourself a monster.

“But I?—”

“Nope,” she said, putting a finger to his lips that did their job of shutting him up but also made every fiber of her body stand at attention and shout,Yes, we like this!at the tops of their lungs.It was all very distracting, especially when his hand came up and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

“I don’t wanna hear the monster word again. But the other issue,” she continued, her finger still pressed to his lips, “is that I don’t want to stay away from you. Because all along, you’ve been telling me to be myself, to stop hiding my dreams, my feelings. But what about you?”

He released her wrist, and she missed the warmth immediately. “What about me?” He tossed his arms out to the side. “How can you even compare us, Stella? You’re light, beauty, and goodness. You radiate positivity and joy in a way I could only ever dream of. You give, and you give, and you give, and people are better for having known you because of it. And I…”

“You what?”

His broad chest rose and fell with an enormous breath as a weak, pensive smile tugged at his mouth. “Watching you be yourself has made me feel alive in a way I never knew. But me being myself…it could kill you.”

“But not tonight.”

His brows furrowed, like that was the last thing he’d expected her to say. Honestly, she wasn’t sure where the thought had come from, herself. But hearing him talk like that, like she’d meant something to him in that way, turned something in her. Something that had her wanting to grab his face and kiss him senseless because that was the only way she could express what she was feeling right now. Words? What were words, anyway?

“What do you mean,not tonight?”

“Tonight, you’re not a werewolf. You’re Nate.”

“They’re one in the same, I’m afraid.”

“Tonight, you’re Nate—my friend. No, that’s not right. You’re a man I’m…”

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