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“I’m fine.” Nathan managed to keep his voice low and steady, fighting the impulse to respond all squeaky and high-pitched like Ross Gellar.
“Fair enough.” His brother gave him a pat on the back. “You know I’m always here for you if you need anything.” He leveled Nathan with a look that said he knew exactly what he was going through. Because he did.
He also knew he’d come so close to blowing their covers—well, mostly just his. He was still the one who had to run off to the woods every month to wait out the night of the full moon.
Eric clapped his shoulder one more time and walked away as the opening notes of “Werewolves of London'' played over the sound system. Oh, the irony. Nathan shook his head as he pulled a strand of lights from the storage bin and climbed the stepladder.
He and his brother were the werewolves of Wheeling—not that anyone knew that, of course. Only Lucy had any idea the secret Nathan and his brother kept, and as he looked down at the plastic werewolf propped up in a wicker chair in the window, its hair disheveled and eyes manic, he vowed to keep it that way.
“Where do I begin?”Stella asked her empty office. Empty of people, that is. Definitely not clutter. No, she had that in spades, at least in her humble opinion. Lucy would and had disagreed many times, noting her cousin’s knack for organization as something she’d aspired to attain.
But while the rest of the salon was a place for everyone, this little room in the back of the building—her office—was hers. And she loved the semblance of peace that washed over her when she walked in and everything was in order, which was currently not the case.
Owning her own business didn’t leave her tons of time for organizing, so this was a project she’d kept on the back burner for so long it was going up in flames. Probably where most of this clutter belonged, though setting fire to her office wasn’t the best idea. She’d call that Plan B.
This was a job that called for coffee. Probably pots of it, but she’d start with a cup and see how things went. She grabbed amug from the small cabinet along the wall and plugged in her Keurig. Before long, she was breathing in the rich, spicy smell of pumpkin brew as it filtered through the air and masked the aromas of hair sprays and dyes that had snuck their way into her back office from the styling cubicles down the hall.
She took her first sip and hummed with contentment. “Much better,” she whispered, cupping the mug and letting its warmth seep into her hands. It was her favorite mug, a gift from one of her very first clients when she took over the salon two years ago. She didn’t know if she was “a cut above the rest” as the mug suggested, but heaven knew she put her heart and soul into this business. Because she loved what she did. She loved making people feel their best. And she couldn’t fail…again.
“Hey, cuz,” a voice sounded from the doorway, startling Stella just enough that her pumpkin-flavored coffee nearly sloshed over the side of the cup.
“Geez, Lucy! You scared the heck out of me.” Stella clutched her chest with her free hand. “I thought everyone left already.”
“Almost everyone. Except for yours truly. I had a couple finishing touches to add to the front window, and I needed to wait until it got dark enough to make sure the lights did what I wanted them to.”
“Like light up?” Stella said with a chuckle.
“Har-har,” Lucy mocked. “You’ll be pleased to know the window looks amazing. Even better than last year. They might as well give us the first prize trophy already.” She bounced on the balls of her feet with a smile that sparkled with sheer joy. This confidence wasn’t something she was used to seeing from Lucy. When she’d moved to town this time last year, she was a shell of herself, so quiet and shy. She didn’t even have the confidence to pick up a brush and paint—something she knew her cousin was born to do.
And now, here she was, a designer who just signed a contract to illustrate the entire next series of book covers for a bestselling author. A woman glowing brighter than the light strands that framed the window display. Brighter than the rock on her ring finger that twinkled under the fluorescent lights above. Maybe that was what happened when people found a partner who supported them. Stella didn’t know much about that.
“Where’s Eric? Did he leave already?”
Lucy nodded. “I wanted him to get a jumpstart on ordering pizza because we were both starving. So, he went back to his place…er,ourplace? Or it will be in less than two weeks!” The pitch of the last two words she said was almost high enough for only dogs to hear, but it made Stella smile. In a week and a half, her cousin was going to marry the love of her life. Someone who made her better. Someone who made her happier than Stella had ever seen. Or experienced.
Stella rounded her desk, eyeing the order invoices that littered the top of it, pastel-colored pages spread in a palette worthy of an Easter basket. Once the caffeine hit, maybe she’d start by putting the pages in chronological order. “Thanks again for all your help today. I know it’s a tad earlier than we needed to decorate, but with the salon shutting down for two weeks and your wedding, I just wanted to make sure everything was ready.” She plopped into her desk chair, and it let out a moan as if to say it was on its last leg. Except, it only had one big leg. It had four wheels, though. So perhaps it was on its last wheel.
“I’m glad we could get everything finished. When is the construction crew coming again?”
“The end of next week.” Which couldn’t come soon enough.
When she’d bought the business from Mrs. Bronson when she retired, she’d warned Stella about some of the repairs that needed to be done. Stella just thought she had a little more time. But then a pipe burst a couple months back, and the contractorsaid it might be best to re-pipe the rest of the salon since the rest of the plumbing was in the same poor condition. “Gotta love old buildings, right?”The plumber’s words stuck in her brain, a resounding chorus of doom that left her butt so clenched for the past eight weeks she no longer felt the need to do squats at the gym on leg day. Each morning that she walked into the salon and wasn’t greeted with several inches of water on the floor was a victory. “I packed our schedules since the salon will be closed, so I wanted to get the decorating out of the way while we could.”
“Smart,” Lucy responded with a nod. “That’s our Stella…always on top of things.”
Yep.Always. Because if she wasn’t, who knew what would happen? Well,shedid. And she wasn’t about to let it happen again. She was no stranger to failed opportunities. Memories of the last time a dream of hers fell apart flashed in her brain, and she willed them to take a hike. Those kinds of thoughts popped the bubbles in her expected bubbly personality. They made her sweat, and that was something she never let anyone see. She was, after all, the glue that held this salon—her dream—together.
Stella cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t you be meeting up with Eric?” She stood from the chair, and the clank of a screw hitting the floor pierced the silence.
“Shouldn’t you get a new desk chair?”
“Someone’s full of jokes tonight.” Stella bent to pick up the screw. What were the odds this wasn’t anessentialscrew and just one the manufacturers put on the chair for good measure?
“I know. Sunshine Stella must be rubbing off on me.”
Stella thought maybe she’d rubbed off a little too hard, because lately, she hadn’t felt her usual bubbly self. But maybe that was what happened when people had to make a decision they didn’t think they were ready to. This particular one knotted her insides every time she passed the storage closet she kept locked tight. But Lucy didn’t need to know all that. She had awedding coming up. No time to divulge the stressors of her life these days.
So, she slapped on a smile and willed her eyes to twinkle. She’d gotten pretty good acting her butt off these days.
