Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
“ Y ou’ve got this, Stella. I believe in you. You can do it.” Lucy’s voice on the phone was far too chipper. Far too high-pitched. Far too something Stella couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“What’s with all the cheerleader-y lines? Are you doing toe-jumps in your living room?”
Lucy laughed. “I assure you I’m not. But this was all my idea, to make popcorn balls and trail mix for the trip. I just feel bad that I’m leaving you to make treats without us.”
She didn’t sound like she felt bad at all. In fact, she sounded like she was working too hard to sell the reason she couldn’t be at Stella’s apartment tonight—that she was on a deadline to get this cover illustrated and off to the publishing company asap. Which somehow involved Eric, because suddenly, he wasn’t coming tonight either.
“It’s totally fine,” Stella assured her. “I’ve been shirking my duties as maid of honor, so this will be a nice way for me to make up for it.”
“Except, I’ve been the one who insisted on planning everything.”
“True.” She chuckled. “You have been a bit of a control freak.”
“Hey now!”
Stella suspected the reason her cousin had wanted to plan and take care of everything had something to do with the upcoming construction at the salon and the preparations that went along with it. She hadn’t wanted Lucy to have to call and reschedule all the appointments they’d had to cancel so that was the added cherry on top of her stress sundae. And speaking of sweet treats…
“Wait…you had all the supplies. Do you need me to come get them?”
“Nope,” Lucy said—and yep, she definitely heard a smile through the phone. “They should actually be on their way to you right now.”
The words had no sooner come out of Lucy’s mouth when there was a knock at her apartment door. “Oh. Did you have them sent over here or something?”
“Or something,” Lucy said, and now she could hear her smile and her brows waggling over the line. “Have fun.”
Stella looked down at her phone, her home screen staring back at her after Lucy had disconnected the call. That was weird. Setting her phone on the end table, she walked to the door, not at all expecting what—or who—she saw when she opened it.
“Nate?”
“That’s me,” he said, his deep voice a total one-eighty from Lucy’s mousy squeaking a minute ago. He held up reusable grocery bags filled to the brim with food and supplies. “And I think these are for you.”
“Yeah.” She swallowed, unable to look away from the massive amount of flannel in front of her. Stella was tall, but Nate was at least six-foot-five, if she had to guess. “I was expecting these, just not from you.”
He took a step forward, and she half expected him to duck to enter her tiny apartment. His shoulder grazed hers as he stepped through the doorway, and he smelled like a sexy pine tree—you know, if pine trees were actually sexy. She’d never really stepped on a Christmas tree farm and thought the smell was particularly romantic, but something about the way the scent radiated off his body had her wanting to run to the nearest forest and chop down the first one she could find.
He stood in the apartment, which was a direct contrast to everything about him. It was tiny while he filled out the space. Where it was decorated with bright yellows and pinks, he stood out like a storm cloud in his dark flannel and nearly black jeans. “One of the joys of being Eric’s best man is also being his errand boy, apparently.”
“That’s funny. Lucy just called and asked me to make the popcorn balls and trail mix without her. Looks like we’re both getting put to work tonight.”
Nate froze halfway to the small kitchen, his back to her. She watched his broad shoulders raise and lower with his deep breaths, and the crinkle of the bag handles in his hands was the only sound in the quiet apartment. “Lucy’s not coming tonight?” When he turned to face her, his face had tightened harder than his fists. Was Lucy’s absence something that irritated him? If anyone should have been irritated, it should have been her. She was the one who had to make three dozen popcorn balls by herself, after all.
“No.” She walked to him, taking the bags from his hands as he stared blankly into the kitchen. She pulled out a couple boxes of popcorn and cans of peanuts from the bag. “She said something about a looming cover deadline.”
“Ha!” he barked, the forced laughter echoing through the tiny apartment, despite the large area rug she’d added that Eric claimed would keep the echoing to a minimum.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, failing to see the humor in this situation.
He shook his head as he rubbed his chin. It was a nervous habit of his, she’d noticed. Something he always did when he first cut a new client or was forced to make small talk with one of hers at the front desk. “My brother told me he couldn’t come over tonight because they had a dinner with Lucy’s boss and that I was supposed to stay and help you with something because last time you tried this, you started a fire.”
“ Almost ,” she stressed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I almost started a fire. Besides, that was years ago—when we were both in college.” She rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “Gosh, you accidentally hit thirty minutes instead of three on the microwave and char the popcorn a little one time, and it’s all anyone can remember.” Okay, that lump of stuff had been looking at charred in the rearview mirror, but Nate didn’t need to know that. “But the big takeaway is that there was no flame.” Just a lot of smoke. “People need to get their facts straight.”
“I concur. Like my brother and your cousin, for instance.”
“What?”
He leveled her with a stare and put his hands on his hips. “They lied to us, Stella.”
“Oh yeah…that.” She thought back to the phone call, Lucy’s chirpiness making a little more sense now as the pieces clicked into place. Wait…was Nathan the “perfect guy” Lucy had in mind for her? “Do you think they’re setting us up?”
Nathan’s head reared back, his jaw dropping so low it almost touched the collar of his shirt. “No way,” he responded like Stella had suggested his brother and her cousin were actually aliens sent from another planet to destroy Earth.
Obviously, her cousin had put on some serious rose-colored, heart-shaped glasses here, because Nathan was all wrong for her. Her eyes roamed over his broad chest and the jeans he looked like he’d been poured into. She’d always envied the natural wave to his dark hair, the way it always looked so effortlessly styled, though she knew he never did anything to it. He came in one day out of the pouring rain, and within the hour, he’d gone from drowned rat to Hollywood-heartthrob status.
But that was it. There was nothing else about him that said perfect bachelor for Stella. Unless she thought about the times he’d stayed after work with her to count inventory, long after everyone else had gone home. Or when he’d swooped in to help lift bins to the overhead shelving in her office. And the way he’d agreed to come over tonight on his night off to help her with something, though he had no idea what that something was. But it was something she noticed, because when she thought of all those wonderful things about him…well, why not Nate?
Her stomach fluttered and flopped, a lot like it had when he’d stared at her while she put her frozen dinner on his face last night. But she’d been worried about him then. So, what was the reason now? That she was concerned he was wasting his time here tonight? And then something hit her. “Your face.”
His brows scrunched to the center of his forehead as he looked at her. There wasn’t a trace of last night’s injury anywhere to be seen. “What about it?”
She threw a bag of the popcorn into the microwave—careful to not set the timer for a half hour—and took one step toward him, her eyes fixed on his face. Her fluffy slippers scooted across the tile floor. Had she known she was having company tonight, she would have opted for something besides her oversized sweatshirt and leggings paired with slippers that looked like they were crafted from genuine Muppet fur. Only, she was expecting company tonight—Lucy. This outfit had been fine for hanging out with Lucy, so why did she suddenly want to change now that Nathan was here? This was ridiculous. She had much bigger mysteries to solve at the moment.
Standing toe to slipper with him, she moved her face closer, not quite believing what she saw—or, in this case, didn’t see. “You’re healed.”
He leaned back, shaking his head. When he’d stood in the doorway, she’d noticed the cold air had nibbled on his cheeks, making them the softest shade of pink. Now, his skin was as white as the ghost cookie jar on the kitchen island. “It was nothing.”
But there’d been blood. Lots of it. And his nose was swollen even before she’d stuffed the tampons in it. There was even a tiny cut across his cheek where her ring had gouged him. “It wasn’t nothing. How did you…?” Her hand rose to his face before she even knew what was happening. The pad of her thumb brushed his skin where the gash had been, and he jerked his head back.
“I’m sorry.” She pulled her hand down like she’d touched fire and gotten burned. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he answered, his voice as gruff as the stubble on his face. “It didn’t hurt. I just did what you said…with the ice. That, uh…worked really well.”
I’ll say . There was literally no sign that she’d punched him less than twenty-four hours ago. And she was sure of that, what with the way she’d been staring at him in the last few minutes, noting every faint line, every fleck of gold floating in his chestnut-colored irises. And dang, there was that weird feeling in her stomach. Maybe it was time to lay off those frozen dinners she always ate. They were obviously wrecking her digestive system.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Well, I should probably let you go,” she said, backing away from him and turning to check on the popcorn. The smoke detectors weren’t beeping, so this was already going better than the last time. As for the fire spreading through her entire body, well that was another story.
He walked into the kitchen with long, slow strides, the clunk of his lug-soled boots following her to the kitchen island where he stood and looked at her. When he placed his hands on the counter and leaned forward, she swallowed hard because…when had he rolled up his sleeves? And why had his forearms never looked like this at the salon? It must have been the lighting in her apartment. A new kind of mood lighting. Something they didn’t have at the salon, because she would have noticed two Christmas hams with hands at the ends. And wow, that was a strange visual. Though, they did look juicy.
“I told Eric I’d help you, and I don’t break promises.” He said it with such authority. Not in a bossy way. In fact, she was confident if she told him to leave, he would. Except, she didn’t really want him to leave. Not just him, though. She just didn’t want to be alone. Would she have felt the same if Mrs. Nesbitt from across the hall had offered to make popcorn balls with her tonight? No comment. But Nate was a hard worker. Of course she’d want him to help her tonight. And as she looked at the ingredients spread out on the kitchen island, she knew she would take all the help she could get.
“That’s sweet of you to want to stay.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m something I’m not.” The slight edge to his voice sliced through the air.
“Do you have something against the word sweet? Or against sweets in general? Don’t tell me you don’t like candy.” She watched his lips twitch, and her insides bubbled like champagne. It was a personal challenge of hers, getting this serious and brooding man to smile once in a while. She didn’t remember how it started—probably from her desire to make everyone happy. All she knew was the little smirks and half-smiles she got from him were as delicious as the chocolate chips she plucked off the pumpkin bread from Mountain Brew. She always ate them first because she believed every meal should begin with chocolate—even dessert.
The lip quiver was as close as she ever got, but no one else was ever treated to the smile he fought to hide.
“I like candy just fine. I’m just not a sweet guy, that’s all.”
“Mmm-kay. Whatever you say, Nater Tot.” She turned to the stove but not before she saw his lips dance once again. Another chocolate chip to enjoy.
Once they’d popped all the popcorn without indecent or need of a fire extinguisher, she heated the sticky mixture that would hold the balls together.
“Now, once I pour this over the popcorn, we have to wait until it’s just cool enough to touch, but not too cool because then it will harden, and this project will fall apart faster than the balls themselves. Got it?” She looked over at Nathan, who might as well have had a notebook and pen in his hand and taking notes for as intently as he watched her. A hard worker and a good student—she’d hit the popcorn ball-making lotto.
“So how big do we want to make them? As big as a fist?”
“Maybe as big as my fist—definitely not yours,” she said, eyeing his hands. “You’ve got some big paws there, Nate the Great.”
The tips of his ears turned red as little beads of sweat prickled his forehead. Was he self-conscious about his hands?
“Your hands are great, Nate.” She hadn’t meant to rhyme, and complimenting his hands wasn’t really on her agenda of things to do tonight. But when the corner of his mouth pulled higher up his face than she’d ever seen it go, she didn’t care that she’d just sounded like a babbling idiot.
“I’m glad you like them,” he said with a chuckle. A chuckle, people! That was like a half dozen chocolate morsels. She was so happy she wanted to take his imaginary notebook and pen and scribble I made Nathan Myers chuckle in my kitchen and make a note in the calendar app on her phone so she could relive this day in history for as long as she could.
“Let’s put them to work, alright?”
He nodded once, watching her pour the mixture over the popped corn. She stirred with a large wooden spoon, coating the entire contents of the bowl.
“Okay,” she said after sticking her finger in the bowl a couple minutes later. “I think we’re ready to roll. Literally.” And what do you know…another teensy-weensy smile.
They each dipped their hands in the bowl of cold water she’d filled and got to work.
Standing across from each other at the tiny kitchen island, they reached into the larger bowl, pulling out wads of popcorn. She was much faster than he was, rolling four balls in the time it took him to roll one, which wasn’t the worst thing, considering his contributions looked more like hot dogs than baseballs.
“Nate, look here. Try pushing the sides in a little more to get a more rounded shape. Like this.” She held up her latest creation as he nodded.
“Right,” he said with a conviction his fumbling hands didn’t echo. It was obvious he didn’t know his own strength, mashing the balls together so tightly she heard crunching each time he tried to form the treat.
“Why don’t you come around here and try it with me,” she offered, thinking maybe that if he stood next to her, he might have a better view of her hands.
But he’d clearly misunderstood.
“What—” When he came behind her and reached his arms around her and into the bowl so their hands touched, words died on her tongue. Heck, she might have died for a second. Because all of a sudden, they were reenacting the classic scene from Ghost , and Stella was wondering if she’d crossed to the other side and became one. She was so lost in the moment that she imagined hearing the chorus of “Unchained Melody . ” Wait…she wasn’t imagining it. She was humming it.
Mortification washed over her like a downpour without an umbrella, and there was only one thing for her to do—clear her throat about a dozen times while faking a cough that made her sound like a malfunctioning leaf blower. That was better than humming the soundtrack to one of the most romantic scenes in cinematic history, right?
“Are you okay?” he asked as his head came around, putting his face centimeters from hers. Even though her eyes were watery from…whatever that was, she could still make out way too many features of his perfect face.
“Yeah. Great. Never better.”
He repositioned himself, his front against her back, and all seemed right with the world once again—you know, as long as she didn’t serenade him again with her humming. “Okay, then. Let’s try this again. This better?”
His warm breath shot chills down her spine, and she fought to regulate her breathing just so she could answer his question. Is this better? Uh, yeah. She couldn’t say that, of course, for so many reasons. But literally, she couldn’t say that because talking required cohesive thought, and right now, she couldn’t find a single one. Her brain was mushier than the popcorn mixture their interlocked hands kneaded over and over, which probably wasn’t good for the finished product, getting mangled like this. It definitely wasn’t good for Stella either, but here she was, holding onto this moment like it was the last pumpkin loaf of the season, and someone was battling her in tug-of-war for it.
“What are you doing?” a voice like sandpaper floated from behind, breaking her from her daydream. She stood ramrod straight, hoping he hadn’t noticed her stroking his humungous hands or her leaning into him like a cat against a piece of furniture. And good gravy, was she seriously sniffing him like a drug-sniffing dog? That wasn’t her fault. It was the darn sexy pine trees.
“Uh, er, um, um, um…” Oh yeah, let him think you were meditating while making popcorn balls. Seems practical.
“ Just…can you tell me what you’re doing so I could maybe do the same?”
Well, I’m rubbing, sniffing, and practically laying against you, so if that’s something you’re interested in doing to me, I’m not gonna say no.
“Oh, for sure.” She moved away from the bowl with her hands up like she was under arrest. Why? No one could say. But just when she thought the most embarrassing thing she could do with her hands tonight was what had happened in the popcorn bowl, she shot him with not one but two finger guns. Because go big or go home, right? Oh, how she wished she could have gone home, but she was already there. And it wasn’t like she could throw him out, not when he’d been so gracious to stay and help and not when there was still so much for them to do. Then, she had an idea.
“Why don’t you grab the nuts, chocolate pieces, and raisins and dump them in that bowl over there, and then you can start bagging up the trail mix. There’s not much popcorn left to work with, anyway.” The bowl was still pretty full, but a lot of it had gotten crunched during her hand seduction. But getting him on the other side of the kitchen—creating a little extra space—was necessary.
It was good.
It was a lie.
Because what she really wanted was Nathan behind her again, mashing the heck out of popcorn in a bowl. And that was bad.
And not just for the popcorn.
“Geez, Nate. What did that golf ball ever do to you?”
Nate glared at his brother, who was dressed like a Nike golf ad threw up on him. He sported a matching sky-blue hat and polo combo, and did he actually have—? Yep, he really had club covers and some towels hanging off the side of his golf bag in—you guessed it—the same pale blue. Gone were the days when he and Eric would come to the range at night to hunt balls missed by the grounds crew, a way for them to work off some of their restlessness before the approaching full moon.
“You’re supposed to hit it as far as you can, right? Isn’t that the point of this?”
“Well…” Eric squinted as he looked out over the fading green grass as a couple rust-colored leaves skittered across. “The idea is to practice your swing. And the way you’re hacking the ball, you don’t have much…finesse to your approach.”
Nate turned to his brother, pointing his club at him. “I’m a little frustrated this morning, so excuse me if I’m not finesse-y enough for you.”
“Finesse-y? Is that a word?” his brother asked, his faux interrogation fooling no one. Something about his brother’s face made him look extra smackable this morning, but Nate never retorted to violence. Not even when he shifted. “Did you not sleep well last night?”
No, he hadn’t, but not for the reason his brother likely suspected. In the ten days or so leading up to a full moon, Nate was restless. Eric used to be too. That was why they’d visited the driving range together those nights. But now that his brother didn’t shift with the moon anymore, he didn’t have that problem. The reason he had tossed and turned all night had nothing to do with the moon.
“I guess I stayed up too late helping Stella make treats for the trip.”
Eric’s head slowly turned in his direction, and a creepy smile that reminded him of the Grinch’s occupied half his face. “How late are we talking?”
“Knock it off,” he said as he punched his brother’s shoulder, still not resorting to violence, for the record. Just relaying the message that whatever his brother was implying was so far from reality it wasn’t even funny. “It wasn’t like that. We literally just made treats, and then I left.” He punctuated the sentence with a sharp nod and then stepped toward the tee. He hoped his brother hadn’t gained any new powers. If he’d recently become a mind reader, Nate was in trouble. He’d intentionally skipped over the parts where she’d caught him staring at her, or when he’d stood behind her and their hands tangled in the mix of popcorn and whatever that warm gooey stuff was that she’d poured over it.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Because as much as he’d tried to deny it, he felt… something . And no, not in that way the people were always talking, saying they felt a connection or a tingle or whatever else Eric read in those romance books he was always devouring. Whatever Nate felt wasn’t something he could put into words. And he’d tried—most of the night, actually—Googling random facts about werewolves, trying to figure out if these sensations meant he was dying or…feeling things. Either way, he was done for.
Thwack!
“And now I don’t believe you.”
Nate heard his brother’s words through the silence as he watched his ball coast past the two-hundred-fifty-yard marker. “What don’t you believe? That all we did last night was make treats? I’ll be happy to show you the haul. With as much as we made, you’ll see there was no time for anything else that you’re insinuating. Besides…”
“Besides what?”
Nate rubbed his toe along the corner of turf that stuck up from the ground. He knew his brother better than anyone. But still, he felt like he needed to ask. “Was last night a set-up?”
“Huh?”
“Last night…did you and Lucy make something up so that Stella and I would end up at her place alone?”
Eric crossed his arms over his chest. “And what gives you that idea?”
“The fact that Lucy told Stella she was on a deadline, and you told me you both were having dinner with Lucy’s boss.”
Eric lifted the ball cap off his head, running his fingers through his dark hair before plopping the hat back down. “Two things can be true. She had to finish a cover, and then she showed it to her boss over dinner.” He shrugged before placing a ball on the tee. “He loved it, by the way. Thanks for asking.” He grinned before he smacked the ball into the air.
“ Nice shot.”
“Stating the obvious.”
“Stating the obvious would be me telling you my ball went about fifty yards farther, but whatever.”
Eric tipped his head back as he laughed, and Nate plopped down on the wooden bench.
“Did you want it to be?” Eric asked as he joined his brother.
“Did I want your ball to go as far as mine? No. I’m quite used to being the stronger sibling. No need for change.”
“No.” His brother elbowed him in the chest. He’d sure gotten a lot bonier since he wasn’t a full-fledged werewolf anymore. “I meant, did you wish last night would have been a set-up?”
Nate rose from the bench like his butt was on fire. “Heck no,” he responded, not sure why it came out all screechy. “Why, why, why would you even suggest that?”
“Because, because, because,” he began, and this time Nate wanted to smack him even more than before. “I dunno…you spent an evening with her, doing nothing but making goodies. Then you come here the next morning, and you’re wound tighter than a yo-yo.”
“Maybe because I’m upset that Stella was right and that you guys really did try to set us up.”
“She said that?” Eric’s eyes twinkled with something Nate couldn’t decipher, but he doubted it was anything good. “How did she say it?”
“Uh…‘Hey, do you think they’re setting us up, Nate?’”
“No, no. I mean how did she say it? I know you’re basically devoid of emotions anymore, but can you tell me if she said it like it was something that made her happy or something that made her sad?”
“What does it even matter? You knew how I would feel about it.” He was a lone wolf. Though last night, with his hands in that popcorn bowl, he was an intrigued wolf. Not important. “I don’t need to be set up. I don’t want to be set up. What I want is to be left alone. It’s always been better for me that way.”
Eric paused for a beat, walking to his bag and pulling a pitching wedge from the set. “Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he spat. He hadn’t meant for it to sound so irritated, but he was…well, quite irritated.
“You were so happy with?—”
“Don’t even say it,” his voice boomed, calling the attention of a few nearby golfers.
“What, we can’t even say Carrie’s name?”
“No.”
“Fine. I know that was rough for you, realizing she didn’t love you.”
Rough? Sandpaper was rough. What Nathan had gone through was…razor blades on sandpaper, set on fire, and rubbed over his bare skin. It was devastating.
He still saw it so clearly: Lucy sitting next to Eric in the woods, declaring her love for him under the light of the full moon. Nathan had long believed the love spell was a rumor. A hoax. A written lore to give werewolves hope that one day they could break free from the shackles that tied them to the phases of the moon.
When Nate had confessed his feelings to Carrie, she’d repeated the sentiment just as he’d hoped. But he shifted a couple nights later. And instead of accepting that—of accepting him for who and what he truly was—Carrie…didn’t. And that was putting it mildly.
But Eric hadn’t shifted that night last year, which meant two things: Lucy had truly fallen in love. And Carrie had not.
“Can I say something?” Eric asked after several moments of silence.
“When have I ever been able to stop you?”
“Funny.” He placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I only want you to be happy. And if being alone does that for you, then I’ll support it.”
“Thank you,” Nate said, happy this conversation was over. Except, it wasn’t.
“But I don’t think you’re really happy. And if you say you are, I don’t think you’re being honest with me. Or yourself. The thing is…wolves aren’t made to walk this earth alone. And I think deep down”—he poked Nate in the chest, right over his heart, when he said that—“I think you’ve forgotten that.”
Oh, he definitely hadn’t forgotten that. In fact, that fact weighed heavily on his shoulders every single day. Because it was true. He really had been happy once. But at what cost? And while both wolves and humans had this innate tendency to need companionship of some sort, they certainly weren’t meant to have it with each other. He definitely had enough evidence of that. No way was he putting his heart on the line again for a relationship. He wasn’t a moron.
He was a monster.
Still, that didn’t stop the memories of last night from flashing through his mind like photos spitting out of a Polaroid camera. Stella’s smile. That rogue strand of hair he so badly wanted to brush from her face. And the streak of chocolate on her cheek he’d wanted to kiss off. The delicate slope of her neck that he’d gotten a good look at when he’d stood behind her.
He had no need of a camera, because all these memories were more vivid, more powerful than anything an electronic device could print. This was bad.
His big mistake was touching her. Well, it had all really started when she’d touched him the night she was trying to fix his face. Maybe these feelings would all chill if he just kept his distance.
Placing another ball on the tee, he looked out over the vast land that spread before him. There was his answer: space. He just needed a little space from her. That was all. A little time from her would do the trick for sure.
And then he remembered that, starting tomorrow, he was spending the next five days with her.
He pulled his club back and launched the ball into the woods.