Page 4 of When Hairy Met Stella

She looked at him over her shoulder, her body blocking whatever she was doing at her desk. She bit her lip, and he didn’t know why, but he felt a tingle in his own. “I didn’t want you to bleed out.” Her voice was soft, flat, and he didn’t miss the droop of her head. For all the gusto she’d displayed when she shoved the tampon up his nose, she’d done a complete one-eighty in a minute’s time.

“I’m not going to bleed out.”Even if I was, I could keep that from happening. You know, if you left the room for longer than a minute.

Was she…worried about him? Something warmed in his chest at the thought. But of course she was worried about him. Probably worried she’d violated some workplace protocol, and he was going to threaten a lawsuit for a broken nose. That was quite a wallop she’d given him, though he’d deserved it.

Should he have told her he’d made it halfway home before he realized he’d forgotten his phone on the front desk? Yes. Should he have maybe popped by her office and let her know she wasn’t the only one in the building? Also, yes. Though, in his defense, that was what he’d been doing when she’d punched him. But then…he’d just watched her.

The truth was, he’d watched her a lot since he’d started working at the salon. He’d watched her come back from lunches with her now-ex boyfriend, her shoulders slumped as she trudged through the door. He’d watched her become a little more like herself each day after she’d dumped him.

He’d watched her because he couldn’t help it. The crush he’d harbored pretty much since the moment he’d met her was something kept at bay, what with her relationship and then subsequent breakup followed by herI don’t want to be in a relationship ever againspeech. In fact, he was pretty sure his crush was over, that he’d tamped it down so far and for so longthat it couldn’t still be a factor. And yet, here he was, nursing an injury all because he still couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

“Maybe I should take you to the hospital, or I’ll just…let me get something else,” she said before ducking out of the room again.

Nate groaned as he tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling once again, wincing as he bumped the wall behind him.

How had he gotten here? It'd started innocently enough. He’d only come back here because it sounded like someone was in distress. Or dying a slow and painful death. How was he to know that was her singing voice? Sure, she was forever be-bopping around the salon, snapping her fingers and rapping to songs like “Baby Got Back” and “Hot in Herre.” Now he understood why she stuck to songs of the mostly spoken-word variety.

He couldn’t look away. And not in the way that people couldn’t look away from a train wreck. No, this was something different. Hypnotizing. Watching her long blonde hair trail like ribbons of gold with each whip of her head put him in a state he’d never been. Strange, he was in no hurry to break out of it.

And then he saw her face—well, just the side of it. But enough to show the smile that didn’t meet her eyes. Not even close. Like her mask had slipped just the tiniest bit, just enough for him to notice that right now, she wasn’t as effervescent as she seemed day in and day out at the salon. That maybe she was, as the song repeated,fake happy.

His muscles hardened, the first sign that his body was taking the reins, gaining control of whatever was about to happen, because this was his kryptonite—wanting to fix people.

Only, he couldn’t.

That was why he was always trying to prevent disaster—he was of no use once it struck. He was nothing like his brother. Not by a long shot.

He clenched his fists, two balls of tightly wound tension fighting the impulse to shift—something that always happened when he thought someone was in danger. Only…she wasn’t in danger, unless you counted whiplash or damage to her own eardrums. All likely in this scenario, but nothing that should have wound him up like this. So, why this sudden impulse to save her?

“This oughtta do,” she said with a smile closer to the one he’d gotten used to seeing on a daily basis. She walked over with a container of something and knelt next to him again.

“Is that…?” He tilted his head to the side to read the side of the box. “Is that your dinner?”

She shrugged. “It was going to be, but you need this a lot more than I do.”

He was just about to argue that the frozen chicken fried rice had more business being in her stomach than on his face when she pressed the ice-cold box to the side of his nose. The frosty burn combined with his sore skin, and he took in a sharp breath.

“Oh, did I hurt you again?”

“No. It doesn’t hurt.”

Liar.He felt pain alright. Just not in his face. There was this strange twisting in his gut, something he wished he could ignore. But between that and the fluttering in his chest, he wondered if maybe she was right, and he really needed a doctor.

“That’s good, then. Let me just…” She raised her hand to his cheek, her soft skin snagging on every sprig of stubble on his face. “Look at me, Nate.”

Her voice was quiet, softer than the lovie he’d had—and accidentally tore to shreds—as a child. The warmth of her fingertips seeped through his skin, a soothing contrast to the frozen dinner she held to his face with her other hand. His breathing slowed, and it wasn’t his imagination, but hers didtoo. He felt it on his face, the spicy pumpkin and vanilla scents swirling around him with her every exhale.

She leaned closer, her eyes unblinking, holding his with such intensity he had no chance of escaping their grasp. Had they always been this shade of cerulean blue? She held up a small flashlight and moved it from eye to eye, back and forth, and he realized it wasn’t so bad getting taken care of like this. In fact, he very much liked it, which was not a good thing.

He closed his fists, letting his fingernails bite his palm. The memory of his shredded Winnie the Pooh bear should have been enough to snap him from…whatever this was.

He swallowed, an attempt to buy himself a second to pull the increasingly thickening air into his lungs. Were they having…a moment? He mentally ran through the list of reasons why they couldn’t, why they shouldn’t, have any moments besides the boss/employee moments they usually did. Why their conversations needed to stick to schedules, supply orders, and holiday hours.

But when she inched forward ever so slightly, the reasons blurred like his vision temporarily had after the swift blow to his head.

“You’re good,” she chirped, shooting up from the floor like a Roman candle launching into the sky on the Fourth of July. “I don’t see any signs of a concussion.”

“Oh,” he responded, hating the disappointment that laced the world’s shortest sentence. Because what was disappointing? That he didn’t have a concussion? He wasn’t so sure, seeing as his mind had been playing tricks on him from the moment she started examining him. “I didn’t know you had medical training.”

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