Chapter 26
HAISLEY
There were often little lulls in baking, and at the second one—when a bar cookie still had twenty minutes to go and the dishes were all washed up and dried—Haisley turned to Tristan and gathered her courage. “I have more questions.”
Tristan was putting away the potholders they weren’t using, and he looked up from the drawer. “What about?”
“You’re a shapeshifter. And you said that I’m your mate, whatever that is.” Haisley knew she sounded annoyed. “It seems obvious that you still have a lot of ‘splaining to do, still.”
Tristan gave a cautious half-smile. “I suppose I do. You’ve been very patient.”
“Cookies always come first,” Haisley said. It was hard to be mad at Tristan when he was so good looking and nice. “And, I’d like some proof of these wild claims, if you don’t mind.”
Tristan looked like his brain went to a very different place than hers had, and he stepped forward as if he might kiss her.
Haisley was pretty sure she was going to have to deck him with a baking tray again, which would be unfortunate, because she’d already dented her favorite cookie sheet, but he seemed to realize at the last moment that it wasn’t the mate part of his outrageous claims that she wanted him to demonstrate.
“I’d have to take off my clothes.”
Maybe he hadn’t realized which part of this she was asking him to substantiate after all. Haisley grasped behind her for a tray. Her fingers found a metal trivet. Good heft, but no reach.
Tristan held up his hands and spread his fingers in a gesture of surrender when she brandished at him. “You don’t have to watch, I’m not saying that! It’s just that I’m a lot larger as a panda. I’d split all my seams,” he stammered. “These are nice clothes, I don’t want to ruin them.”
“Can’t you just magic your clothes along with you?”
“Only magical shifters can do that.”
“As opposed to non-magical shifters,” Haisley said dryly.
“Well, we’re all magical, I guess,” Tristan said with a little chuckle. “Mythical shifters. Like, dragons or mermaids. And there’s this one otter at the resort who can take her clothes with her, but no one is sure how or why.”
Haisley blinked at him. “Dragons and mermaids?” How had she gotten to the point where otter wasn’t a surprise?
Tristan nodded.
“Are there fairies? Gnomes?” Haisley felt a little disconnected, like anything was possible.
“Not that I know of. There’s a mage, though. He’s a dragon.”
“Oh. Okay.” Just a dragon.
“Can I show you now?” Tristan crossed his arms and grabbed the bottom of his shirt suggestively.
Haisley slowly nodded, then turned around reluctantly when he went ahead and pulled off his shirt.
She had a brief glimpse of his stomach, as muscled as his arms, and had to imagine the rest as she heard him unzip his pants and pull off his shoes.
She stared fixedly at the trivet she still held and tried not to let her brain fill in too many gaps.
“I’m not going to be able to speak to you,” Tristan cautioned, when she heard him stepping out of his pants with the rattle of a belt buckle. “But I’ll still be me. I won’t hurt you.”
Haisley heard a stool scoot on the kitchen floor, and then there was a huff. And another. She turned slowly.
Tristan was a panda bear.
Haisley had still been half-expecting this to be some kind of elaborate joke. Maybe a hidden camera sort of thing, or a gotcha moment where he’d be dressed up in a fursuit or a black and white flannel onesie.
But no, he was actually a real and whole panda bear.
He was, as warned, a little bigger as a bear than he was a man, and most of all, “You are adorable!”
Photographs of pandas couldn’t capture the sheer plush of their fur, or the curious character of their expressive and comical faces.
Tristan’s paws were enormous, the size of dinner plates, and he had them on the counter before him.
He picked one up and turned it to give a very human shrug, wiggling his ears and licking his own nose.
His clothing was folded neatly on the stool that he’d shoved aside when he shifted, and Haisley felt like her knees were weak enough to need to sit there, so she moved them to the counter so she could.
“Can I touch you?” she asked, when they had stared at each other for a few moments.
Tristan—Haisley had no doubt that it was him—shoved off from the counter and thumped down on four legs, then walked up to her like he was a dog expecting pets. A really big dog, with a coat of fur like a buffalo.
Haisley touched his head cautiously. His fur was coarse and dense, more like sheep’s wool than a stuffed animal, and it had a spring to it that suggested inches of depth.
Tristan huffed again, and his breath was warm over Haisley’s other arm.
“I just want to hug you,” Haisley admitted.
“You look like the giantest, cutest teddy bear ever.”
To her alarm, Tristan sat back on his haunches and lifted his front feet into Haisley’s lap. They were heavy even without most of his weight on them, and his whole head was right there for hugging.
Haisley knew better than to approach wild animals. She spent plenty of time telling tourists that they shouldn’t try to pet the moose that frequently wandered through the yard.
But Tristan was not a wild animal, and Haisley could not resist. She leaned her head onto his and snuggled him close. He snorted and rubbed his face into her. “How are you so cute?” Haisley asked. “I mean, you were before, but this is next level!”
The timer for the cookies went off then, startling them both, and Haisley very suddenly had a lap full of very naked man.
“Sorry, sorry!” He scrambled back as Haisley pushed away and nearly toppled herself off the back of the stool. “Let me just…”
They both reached for his clothing, Haisley to throw them at him, and they tangled together in his unfolding pants. Tristan snatched them over himself, and Haisley turned away to silence the shrill alarm, trying to keep the burning memory of his gorgeous body at bay.
She heard him dress behind her as she got the bar cookies out, careful not to turn too far as she put them on the cooling rack.
Her hands didn’t shake, but it felt like her whole core was trembling a little.
It had been a long time since she’d seen a naked guy that wasn’t on a book cover, and she was embarrassingly interested in seeing more of him.
And she’d seen enough that she knew he was pretty interested in her.
“Sorry about that,” Tristan said. “Let’s just…ah…how long do those need to cool?”
“Not as long as I will,” Haisley blurted. She was immediately mortified and cast around for something else to say. “Let’s put the baskets together while we wait.”
Tristan, keeping a polite distance again, helped her divide the cookies and arrange them with parchment paper in each of the take-out boxes that Haisley had for him.
“These are wonderful,” she said. “But they’re…missing something. A Christmas ornament would finish them perfectly.”
Tristan looked chagrined. “They turned out like sh—uh, excrement, and I don’t mean that in a poetic way. They look like literal turds.”
Haisley fussed with the arrangements of cookies. “They can’t be that bad. They really would finish up the look of the boxes. If we had pretty boxes, it would be one thing, but these are just take-out boxes. They need bling. Are you sure you can’t salvage the ornaments?”
“I’ll show you,” Tristan said firmly. “Wait here.”
Haisley finished washing the last pan as he dashed out of the kitchen. She heard him creaking up the stairs, and a few minutes later, she heard him sneaking back down. She reminded herself that it was ridiculous to feel so excited to see him again. She barely knew him.
But he was magic, and she was his mate.
Which he still hadn’t explained at all.
“Oh,” she said, when he sheepishly showed her the ornaments. “Oh, you weren’t kidding. They even have a swirl on top.” She tried very hard not to laugh, but they were brown, and lumpy, and looked very much like a handful of poop emojis.
“It’s a hat,” Tristan said, clearly mortified. “Well, it was supposed to be.”
“Oh, we can do something,” Haisley said, rushing to comfort him. “It’s the color, mostly. We could paint them!”
“Do you have paint?” Tristan said hopefully. “That might actually do the trick.”
Haisley smiled slowly. “You know, you aren’t the only one with magical secrets up your sleeve. I’m going to show you something amazing. Go put on a coat and meet me out back at the garage.”