Page 1 of When Hairy Met Stella

Chapter

One

“This is not…ideal.”

Nathan stared at his hands, his breath frozen in his chest. Two glassy eyes peered up at him. How could they look so dull? So motionless?

So lifeless?

The body in his arms felt limp and heavy, its appendages drooping within inches of the ground as the head lulled back. It was cool against his fingertips and seemed to be getting heavier with each passing second. The matted hair covering its back pricked his palms like needles on a cactus. He swallowed hard, willing the energy that popped and tingled in his body to still. But like the body in his arms, it didn’t listen.

Why was he doing this, anyway? It certainly wasn’t in his job description. And no one would have blamed him if he’d skipped out, especially if they’d known why. But that was just it—they didn’t know why. So, he sucked it up, continuing the task at hand—inhis hand?—just like he’d happily agreed to.

“Need some help?” a voice called from the other side of the room. Who’d said that? The whooshing of blood through his ears drowned out any discernible clues as to who’d offeredtheir assistance. Lights bounced around the room from passing cars, as though their drivers had no idea the turmoil that grew incrementally with each second he stood here, holding this, this…

“I’m good,” he croaked, unable to take his eyes off the body in his arms. Or the blood on his hands. What a lie. If he was reallygood, why was he reacting like this? Why did it feel like someone had poured concrete over his boots? Probably the same reason he couldn’t quiet voice in his head, the one that asked the question he didn’t want an answer to:Is this what I look like?

Of course not. He was a barber, so of course his hair looked better. Right? Though, he’d never seen himself when…

He shook his head, but all it did was swish around the thoughts in his head like glitter in a snow globe. What if this was how other people saw him? Not that he’d ever let them have the chance—not again, anyway.

“You gonna do something with that, Nater Tot?”

The sound of his nickname snapped him from his trance. It was a sound so welcome it almost made him smile.

Almost.

There was only one person who called him that ridiculous name, but he would have known that peppy voice anywhere. “Sorry, Stella. Yeah, I was just about to deal with it,” he responded, turning to face his boss.

His boss.

There she stood, a ray of sunshine personified, her bright smile illuminating an otherwise dimly lit space. Where everything else in the room had grown fuzzy around the edges and faded in color, she was as clear as a cloudless October sky. Her hair was on top of her head in one of those buns that looked effortless yet polished, which was just like her—so effortlessly perfect. So effortlessly Stella.

He took a steadying breath—unsure why exactly he was so unsteady in the first place—and nodded toward his hands. “This is just so…”

“Sad?” She shrugged then tucked a loose strand of her golden hair behind her ear. Her shiny gold hoop earring winked at him in the light. “Yeah. But take it easy on him. He’s had a rough year locked up in storage.”

“I’ll say,” he mumbled.

“Blame Crafty Cathy’s. Everything was already so picked over. But we won the window-decorating contest last year. Maybe these guys are our good luck charms.” Stella tousled the fake werewolf’s hair, her fingers grazing Nathan’s arm in the process. Now the hair on the werewolf and the hair on his arm were both standing at attention.

“How about I take this.” Nathan’s brother came up beside him. He pulled the plastic beast from his arms and propped him in the storefront window. Eric was the only one in the salon who could have known what Nathan was going through—well, maybe except for Eric’s fiancée, Lucy, who peered at both through rounded eyes from the front desk.

But she wasn’t a werewolf. He and Eric were. And while Lucy’s love had mostly cured Eric, leaving him with the power to shift at will and not be under the control of full moons, Nate had remained the same. Perhaps because he was immune to the love spell that had saved his brother.

Or maybe because he wasn’t worthy of love in the first place.

He watched Lucy and Eric, laughing as they tangled themselves in a strand of black, glittery garland—on purpose, he suspected.The joy on their faces caused his stomach to sour, but not because he wasn’t happy for his brother. Quite the opposite, actually. He just realized that would never be him. At one point, he thought it could have been him. Heck, itwashim once upon a time. At least, he’d thought so at the time. But whoeverspouted that mumbo jumbo about being better to have loved and lost than to have never found it…well, love had obviously never dropkicked them in the pants before.

Spoiler: it hurt.

“So, you wanna talk about it?” Eric offered, separating himself long enough to come wrap an arm around Nathan’s shoulders. It was weird in a way, having his younger brother be the voice of reason. The one with the sage advice to give. Nathan was used to being the one in charge. The protector. Like so many things in the last year, this was yet another thing that had changed.

“What’s there to say? That monster in the window is hideous, and people in town for Fright Night will love it.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Obviously, but Hairy Stylez was a hair salon, not a therapist’s office. Stella claimed she was half hairstylist, half therapist to her customers—not that Nate could relate to that. As a barber, most of his clients weren’t really the type to bare their souls during their twenty-minute appointment. And just because her clients divulged way too many details about their lives didn’t mean this was the place for Nathan to word-vomit all over the checkered tile floor. This was his place of work, after all.

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