Page 28 of When Hairy Met Stella

“And here I thought Hannah was the queen of puns,” Nate said with a chuckle as he looked at Johnny and Angie, their faces sticking out of their pea pod costumes.

“You’re not wrong,” Hannah said as she waddled closer in a square-shaped costume with splashed of bright colors all over it and the wordsFun Dipstretched across the center.

“But Hannah would never say the same pun over and over.” Max stepped beside his wife, putting his arm around her shoulders. “My wife’s got range.”

Johnny scoffed. “I’ve got range.” He put his hands on his hips, the action ten times more ridiculous coming from a pea pod. “I can’t believe I’m taking heat from a…” He squinted as he looked at his best friend. “A tampon, is it?”

“No!” Max groaned, throwing his hands in the air. “Obviously, I’m a Fun Dip stick.”

“A fun dipstick?” Angie asked, her lips twitching as she fought to hold in a laugh. “What even is that?” Johnny flashed his wife a thumbs-up. Clearly those two were rubbing off on one another.

“Would you two—” Max stopped and shook his head. “I’m the sugar stick you use to eat Fun Dip,” he answered, gesturing to Hannah as she curtsied in her sack of a costume—or as close to a curtsey as she could with the way the costume restricted her movement. “In what world do I look like a tampon?”

“I dunno, Maxine,” Johnny began as he stroked his chin playfully. “You better just stick close to Hannah if you wanna sell this costume, because otherwise…”

Nate zoned out. All this talk of feminine hygiene products made him a tad uncomfortable. Not because the items themselves made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t embarrassed by reproductive biology. Just last week, he’d run to the convenience store on the corner when Lucy had an emergency at the salon, and neither she nor Stella had beenpacking, as they called it.

No, this conversation just reminded him of the night Stella had decked him—right in the nose—which naturally reminded him of when his costume had gone uphernose…right before he’d kissed her.

What was he thinking? And how many times in just the first two days of this trip had he been chest-to-chest with this woman? He didn’t want to tally that right now because the answer would not make him happy. If his mission was to keep from touching her, he’d failed. Miserably.

Whathadmade him happy was the way he’d helped her across the aerial course, working together and watching her confidence level rise—until she nearly fell.

Always the protector, how hadn’t he anticipated the near catastrophe? Why had he been so…distracted? Was it the gleam in her eye, made more noticeable by the way it shimmered in the soft sunlight? Or the way she held her neck high, as if to sayI can do this, though it only made more visible the smooth skin of her neck—a place he so badly wanted to press his lips?

All of the above.

A woman’s voice snapped him back to the present. “You two can follow me.”

“Where’d everyone else go?” Nate asked, noticing only Stella and a woman he didn’t know standing with him. She wore a Halloween version of an ugly Christmas sweater with alternatingghosts and skeletons lined across the front. Attached to the sweater was a name tag that readJosie.

“Josie gave them their assignments, and they went to their stations already. Where were you, Nater Tot?”

“I…I don’t know,” he responded with a shrug. “We don’t have our assignments yet, do we?”

Stella moved closer, and when she put a hand on his upper arm, he flinched. And so did she? Had she felt that too? Whatever it was. Every time she touched him, it sent shockwaves throughout his entire body.

“No, Josie is going to take us to our station now. I meant, where were you—just now?” They took a couple steps on the path, her hand still tucked around his arm, her eyes never looking at where they were walking. “Are you okay? It is the costume?”

“Huh? No, not at all.” He tapped the brim of her floppy hat. “I’m actually enjoying being dressed up.” And he’d meant it. Though he’d never embraced the holiday before, he was starting to see all he’d been missing. Or maybe having her look at him in costume the way she had—her cheeks full and rounded as they called attention to a smile that made his chest tingle—made him enjoy the holiday a little this year. He would have donned any costume—even Max’s tampon garb—just to have her look at him that way again.

“Yeah. I was just thinking about something. No worries.”

Her hand trailed down his arm, a line of warmth following its path. And when she intertwined her fingers with his, a ball of heat overtook his entire body, which wasn’t ideal, since he ran a bit hot anyway. But he didn’t care—unless, of course, his palm began to sweat.

With her free hand, she pulled a few Goldfish crackers from her purse and offered them to Nate with her open palm. “Are you sure? You look very worried.”

I was. I still am.

But worry felt inadequate somehow, like he needed a word more intense, more dire than that. He’d almost shifted in front of Stella on the aerial course this morning. In fact, heshouldhave shifted. And that had himwaymore worried than the word conveyed.

It wasn’t like he’d had a choice. Acting quickly was the only way to save her. And yet, it was nearly his undoing, what with all the adrenaline pulsing through his veins. But he’d known better, and he should have been more careful, just like he always was—or at least how he’d been lately.

“I was just thinking about our morning together.”And how I could have killed you.

Though he had no idea how, he’d stopped before he fully shifted. Normally, he blacked out when he turned into a werewolf, not knowing what he was doing or who he might hurt. So, from the moment he sprang to rescue Stella to the time he held her in his arms, the details of the in-between were hazy at best. Though, the memory of her body melting into his was as clear as the cloudless sky above them on the perch.

But so was the look of shock when she’d seen his hands. Or at least, he thought that was what she’d seen. The fact that she hadn’t mentioned them or asked about them was a mystery he couldn’t solve—not that he really wanted to.

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