Page 45 of When Hairy Met Stella

Chapter

Thirteen

“Aaahh,” Stella moaned as stood on the patterned carpet, the sunlight from the window of her room nearly blinding her. The joints of her body creaked and moaned like sound effects for a haunted house as she shuffled to the mirrored vanity.

“What happened to you?” she asked the image in the mirror. Her hair was a wild mess of tangles, sticking out every which way. She licked her palms and patted down the flyaways before Nate could get a glimpse of her looking like she’d been struck by lightning.Nate…where was he?

Her eyes moved to the perfectly made bed, one he’d either not slept in or fixed with unmatched precision before she woke. He hadn’t made his bed the whole time they’d been there. He also hadn’t been in their room a single morning when she’d woken either. Why had she thought things would have been different this morning?

And why was she in her room?

Last night, she’d done her super gesture—mega gesture?—whatever Lucy was telling her people did in the romance novels she read. She’d shown up for Nate, told him how she felt. Theykissed each other senseless under the dark, cloudy sky, and he’d confessed that he’d fallen for her too. She’d promised to stay with him and then…fallen asleep?

That certainly explained how she’d woken in her room with no recollection of getting there. Had he carried her to their room and…left? Had he turned into a werewolf and run away?

She sat at the vanity and rubbed her chest, the thought of not seeing Nate again bringing tears to her eyes. She busied herself, grabbing the giant tote filled to the brim with wedding day hair supplies—enough hairpins, ties, and products to fix the hair of the entire bridal party.

As she rifled through the bag, she wondered if maybe she could have done more last night…like stay awake. But he’d promised she could stay with him. Maybe he’d only said that to appease her so that the minute she nodded off, he could dump her and run.

None of these thoughts were doing her any favors this morning. Not when she had HOW MANY heads of hair to fix before the ceremony. She grabbed a comb from the tote and tried, with a lot of force and a few curses, to pull it through the rat’s nest on her head.

“Dang it,” she grumbled. “Where’s my detangling spray?”

She’d packed almost the entire salon in her bag, so it had to be there. And it was. But what wasn’t there was the heavy-duty hair spray.

“Dang it again.” She plopped the tote on the table and stood. This was a problem. Doing hair for an outdoor wedding without that spray wasn’t going to work. She could see it now: Lucy and Eric saying theirI dos, a gentle breeze blowing a strand across her face just when the photographer snaps a photo. Nuh-uh. Her cousin wasn’t getting a mustache on her watch.

She glanced at her watch. If she left now, she’d have time to drive to the salon and still make it back in plenty of timeto get started on everyone’s hair. Grabbing her keys and purse, she glanced back at the room one last time before walking out the door, her eyes snagging once again on the bed where Nate should have been. She’d talk to him soon enough. But for now, she had some hair to fix.

It had beena week and a half since Stella had been to the salon. Not too long, but when you considered she practically lived here, it felt like a lifetime to her.

She put her key into the back door and was surprised when it opened without her turning it.

“Huh,” she said as she slowly walked in. The construction workers had messaged her yesterday, saying they’d finished everything. Had they left the salon unlocked all night? Or maybe they’d come back to get their equipment. Though, there were no other cars in the lot besides hers. Had the salon been burglarized?

“Hello?” Her shaky voice echoed through the dark hallway as she walked closer toward the styling area. Throwing the lights on would have helped, but it also might spook off whoever was here, and she knew someone was here because she heard…whistling? Rather bold, she thought, that someone would literally be whistling while they worked to rob her salon.

Her salon?She’d never thought of it ashersbefore, but for the first time, it didn’t make her break out in a sweat when she thought of it. This place was hers, and as such, she needed to defend it. As she passed her office, she grabbed two bottles of mega-sized hairsprays, the best she had when it came toweaponry as any scissors were in the main section of the salon, where the whistling and clanging was coming from. Whether she was going to spray them in the perp’s face or clunk him over the head, she wasn’t sure. She’d know when she saw him…she hoped.

Steadying herself with a breath, she took a step forward, noticing the lights to the styling and reception area were already on. But that wasn’t all. The air she’d breathed to steady herself now froze in her lungs as her eyes roved the space.

The checkered floor that looked more at home in a fifties diner was now a marbled white with swirls of gray, polished to a shine she could almost see her reflection in. This wasn’t work she’d approved for the construction workers. They’d only been hired to fix the pipes, which were in the walls and possibly the ceiling, depending on how much they had to replace.

But then her eyes snagged on other areas of the space. Gone were the dull chrome handles and knobs on all the fixtures. They’d been replaced with shiny brass. The walls of the room were no longer a dingy, scuffed off-white but the faintest pink color. Then there was the desk at the reception area that had been swapped for a white one with marbling that matched the floors. And it sat underneath the sparkling light of the most gorgeous chandelier she’d ever seen—the chandelier she’d picked out and kept in the stack of papers on her desk. A stack no one had seen except…

“Oh, jeez,” a gruff voice echoed from behind. She didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“Nate,” she said on a whisper, her throat closing with more emotion by the second. She turned to look at him, taking in his burly form. But it wasn’t until she noticed the streak of pink paint across his cheek that the tears she’d been fighting to hold back cut loose. “Did you do this?”

His feet shuffled across the new floor as his eyes followed, like he was worried he’d done something wrong. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I thought I could get it finished before you saw it.” His arms crossed his middle as his eyes rose to meet hers.

“I just— I can’t believe it. How did you find time to do this?”

He shrugged. “I told you I have a lot of energy in the nights leading up to the full moon. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Something nice?” She shook her head. “Nate, this is way more than something nice.”

“So, you like it?”

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