“Why don’t you grab the nuts, chocolate pieces, and raisins and dump them in that bowl over there, and then you can start bagging up the trail mix. There’s not much popcorn left to work with, anyway.” The bowl was still pretty full, but a lot of it had gotten crunched during her hand seduction. But getting him on the other side of the kitchen—creating a little extra space—was necessary.

It was good.

It was a lie.

Because what she really wanted was Nathan behind her again, mashing the heck out of popcorn in a bowl. And that was bad.

And not just for the popcorn.

“Geez,Nate. What did that golf ball ever do to you?”

Nate glared at his brother, who was dressed like a Nike golf ad threw up on him. He sported a matching sky-blue hat and polo combo, and did he actually have—? Yep, he really had club covers and some towels hanging off the side of his golf bag in—you guessed it—the same pale blue. Gone were the days when he and Eric would come to the range at night to hunt balls missed by the grounds crew, a way for them to work off some of their restlessness before the approaching full moon.

“You’re supposed to hit it as far as you can, right? Isn’t that the point of this?”

“Well…” Eric squinted as he looked out over the fading green grass as a couple rust-colored leaves skittered across. “The idea is to practice your swing. And the way you’re hacking the ball, you don’t have much…finesse to your approach.”

Nate turned to his brother, pointing his club at him. “I’m a little frustrated this morning, so excuse me if I’m not finesse-y enough for you.”

“Finesse-y? Is that a word?” his brother asked, his faux interrogation fooling no one. Something about his brother’s face made him look extra smackable this morning, but Nate never retorted to violence. Not even when he shifted. “Did you not sleep well last night?”

No, he hadn’t, but not for the reason his brother likely suspected. In the ten days or so leading up to a full moon, Nate was restless. Eric used to be too. That was why they’d visited the driving range together those nights. But now that his brother didn’t shift with the moon anymore, he didn’t have that problem. The reason he had tossed and turned all night had nothing to do with the moon.

“I guess I stayed up too late helping Stella make treats for the trip.”

Eric’s head slowly turned in his direction, and a creepy smile that reminded him of the Grinch’s occupied half his face. “How late are we talking?”

“Knock it off,” he said as he punched his brother’s shoulder, still not resorting to violence, for the record. Just relaying the message that whatever his brother was implying was so far from reality it wasn’t even funny. “It wasn’t like that. We literally just made treats, and then I left.” He punctuated the sentence with a sharp nod and then stepped toward the tee. He hoped his brother hadn’t gained any new powers. If he’d recently become a mind reader, Nate was in trouble. He’d intentionally skipped over the parts where she’d caught him staring at her, or when he’d stood behind her and their hands tangled in the mix of popcorn and whatever that warm gooey stuff was that she’d poured over it.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Because as much as he’d tried to deny it, he felt…something. And no, not in that way the people were always talking, saying they felt a connection or a tingle or whatever else Eric read in those romance books he was always devouring. Whatever Nate felt wasn’t something he could put into words. And he’d tried—most of the night, actually—Googling random facts about werewolves, trying to figure out if these sensations meant he was dying or…feeling things. Either way, he was done for.

Thwack!

“And now I don’t believe you.”

Nate heard his brother’s words through the silence as he watched his ball coast past the two-hundred-fifty-yard marker. “What don’t you believe? That all we did last night was make treats? I’ll be happy to show you the haul. With as much as we made, you’ll see there was no time for anything else that you’re insinuating. Besides…”

“Besides what?”

Nate rubbed his toe along the corner of turf that stuck up from the ground. He knew his brother better than anyone. But still, he felt like he needed to ask. “Was last night a set-up?”

“Huh?”

“Last night…did you and Lucy make something up so that Stella and I would end up at her place alone?”

Eric crossed his arms over his chest. “And what gives you that idea?”

“The fact that Lucy told Stella she was on a deadline, and you told me you both were having dinner with Lucy’s boss.”

Eric lifted the ball cap off his head, running his fingers through his dark hair before plopping the hat back down. “Two things can be true. She had to finish a cover, and then she showed it to her boss over dinner.” He shrugged before placing a ball on the tee. “He loved it, by the way. Thanks for asking.” He grinned before he smacked the ball into the air.

“Nice shot.”

“Stating the obvious.”

“Stating the obvious would be me telling you my ball went about fifty yards farther, but whatever.”

Eric tipped his head back as he laughed, and Nate plopped down on the wooden bench.