Chapter Ten

“Shifters,” Mira said, repeating the word to see if it jogged anything in her memory. “I don’t think so.”

She eyed the remaining piece of garlic bread. It was cruel for Nonna’s to give them an uneven number of slices.

“Want to split this?” she said, before any kind of self-restraint could rear its ugly head. Her voice almost gave out completely on the last word, and she could only hope it would come back soon. In the meantime, filling her mouth with garlic bread would help her remember to give all the talking a rest for a while.

Wade agreed to the split, and Mira prompted him to go on with a little roll of her hand: Okay—shifters. Go.

She wondered if shifting was some kind of obscure extreme sport, maybe a variation on surfing? But Wade didn’t strike her as an adrenaline junkie.

He went in a different, even more unexpected direction:

“It’s like how werewolves are people who can turn into wolves. Shifters are like that, just less specific. You could have a mouse shifter or a tiger shifter or a horse shifter.”

He was some kind of cryptid enthusiast, maybe? Did he really believe in this stuff? Or—

Oh . He was telling her an idea he had for a book or a movie! Not only was he a woodworker who could carve pieces that looked like they had somehow just grown that way, he was a writer, too. Mira wished she could be that creative. She loved analyzing other people’s art, and she felt like she did it well, but it would be cool to be the one making it for a change.

Anyway, she liked this “shifters” idea he had. She leaned forward, her chin on her hands, and listened avidly.

Wade looked immensely relieved by her reaction. Maybe he’d worried she wouldn’t be into fantasy? Most of the romance movies she covered were on the realistic side, give or take a suspension-of-disbelief-straining plot device. But she liked other things too. She couldn’t wait to hear where this was going.

“I’m—”

A voice cut in: “Right this way, please.”

A server led an elderly couple to the table to Mira’s left. She missed the privacy she and Wade had been enjoying a moment ago, but these two didn’t look like they were likely to start shouting at each other or causing a big ruckus. They were already holding hands as they quietly went over the menus together. If she needed to whisper to Wade to talk without straining her voice too much, he would probably still be able to hear her. She certainly wouldn’t have any problems hearing him.

Except he had stalled out midsentence.

Because she had looked over at the other table? Mira gave him an affirming smile: I’m back on you now, 100%.

But Wade didn’t dive back in. He glanced over at the other table and shook his head minutely.

“I should’ve guessed this wouldn’t work out,” he said under his breath. “I can’t really talk about it with other people around.”

She could understand that. She could tell he’d had to psych himself up to even tell her his idea, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that he didn’t want to accidentally air it to some strangers. She got self-conscious having personal conversations other people could easily overhear too, even when the less neurotic side of her brain told her that no one was trying to eavesdrop. It could easily be ten times worse when talking about a creative endeavor Wade obviously felt pretty shy about.

It was such a shame, though. She wanted to know more about his shifter idea!

She at least wanted to know what kind of animal Wade would turn into, if he could shift like his characters could. Mira studied him, trying to make up her mind on that point.

Something strong. Maybe something that lived in the woods, given his job? She would have to think more about it.

“I get wanting to keep it under the radar,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “You’re not getting off the hook for telling me later, though. And you still have to do most of the talking tonight, obviously.”

Wade still looked adorably amazed at how she had just accepted his idea. It made Mira wonder if other people had scoffed at it before, and that idea filled her with an odd desire to go punch somebody. It was a good premise for a story! Who hadn’t wished they could turn into an animal? How could anyone lucky enough to have Wade open up to them make him feel belittled or embarrassed about it?

Wade distracted her from her building fury on his behalf by telling her some Petey stories instead. Her favorite was their short-lived career as would-be blockbuster filmmakers—armed only with a camcorder they’d picked up at a garage sale—ended with both brothers grounded for a month after a catastrophic attempt to make some volcano special effects in their backyard.

“Your poor parents!”

“We’ve tried to make it up to them.”

“Petey should have given them his Hawaii tickets.”

“They didn’t need them. They’re already spending Christmas on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Since they retired, all they do is travel.”

“My parents were like that too, before my stepdad got sick.” She could see he was about to apologize for accidentally bringing up something sensitive, and she waved him off. “Don’t worry, it’s nice to think about how much fun they had together. Hopefully they have plenty of time left to enjoy each other’s company, even if they can’t do as much globe-trotting anymore.”

That was the good thing about love. Life was never made up entirely of highs, so what you needed to do was find a person who was a high, who made even the bad things better just by standing at your side while you went through them. Her mom would rather live in a retirement home with her stepdad than in Paris with anyone else.

I knew I was in love with him , she had told Mira once, when we sat through this ridiculous timeshare presentation to get this super-discounted vacation. We weren’t even dating then, just friends willing to park our butts in folding chairs for four hours to collect a prize. I already knew he was the kind of guy I could happily spend a week with. But as we sat there and the presenter drone on and on, and I watched Cliff try not to laugh at something, I knew I could sit next to him for the rest of my life. If anything was boring—and a lot of life is boring—he would make it interesting. He’d make it funny. And he was the one I wanted to laugh about things with.

That was the love story Mira had grown up with, and it was the one she wanted for herself.

She didn’t want to rush things, but Wade made her feel like she might have found it. It was amazing how much more tolerable this job was since he’d arrived.

Even on a day when Marsh’s plan had meant an all-day headache and a temporarily ruined voice, Wade had brightened up her life. She already knew that when she remembered all this later, she wouldn’t remember almost crying in frustration about putting up with a straight hour of screechy “Jingle Bells.” She’d remember Wade coming over and giving her a break. She’d remember him dancing with the kids to keep them occupied.

And she’d obviously remember him introducing her to the best garlic bread of her life.

As the food came—and she was faced with the best fettucine alfredo of her life—Mira steered Wade onto the subject of woodworking. She wanted to hear more about what he did for a living.

He’d been self-conscious about his fiction idea, but he was apparently fine talking about wood. So fine, in fact, that he kept asking her if she was sure he wasn’t going on about it for too long.

Mira gave him the thumbs-up every time. The truth was, she was fascinated. His work sounded interesting in its own right, but even more than that, she loved how vibrant and engaged Wade got when he talked about it.

She could spend all night listening to him talk about how beautiful wood grain could be and how carefully he chose the right kind of wood for each project.

At any other restaurant, Wade’s dinner would have gotten cold in front of him, but it was clear that nobody let that happen at Nonna’s. Even though Wade got caught up talking about his vocation, he still remembered to take a bite from time to time.

He wound down as they finished up, giving her an apologetic smile. “I probably got carried away.”

Mira shook her head as adamantly as she could. That still didn’t feel like enough, so she risked a little more actual conversation: “Not at all. I promise.”

“Well, next time, when your voice isn’t on the brink of going out completely, you’ll have to give me the rundown on your family and your job.”

“You know a little already.”

“A little’s not enough,” Wade said, with such sweet sincerity that Mira just wanted to climb across the table and—

—hug him. She would go with that. That was almost an appropriate thing to do in public.

But you know what? They were going to get the check any minute now, and Nonna’s, as glorious as it was, didn’t have a dessert menu. They were almost done being in public. If Mira stuck to the sensible, levelheaded plan that had seemed so feasible just a few days before, she would let that be the end of the night.

That idea still made sense. They could reconnect after the holidays, once she was less stressed. She had never rushed into a relationship before. And was right now the best time to rush anyway? More and more, anything she said was coming out in a strained whisper.

I don’t need my voice for what I’ve got planned, though , she thought, with a little shiver going down her spine. I’ve never been that good at dirty talk anyway.

She had a lot of perfectly sound reasons to go home alone, and only one reason not to: Wade.

But Wade was reason enough for her.

“Do you want to go back to my place for dessert?” she said, hoping the hoarse whisper was more “seductively husky” than “bad impression of Batman.” “I’ve been meaning to make Christmas cookies.”

That couldn’t possibly be the best she could do. She racked her brain for some more appropriate euphemism, something dessert-themed but less misleadingly wholesome, but she wasn’t coming up with anything.

Well, if she couldn’t set up an actual seduction, at least she could continue the fully clothed part of the date.

“And I know I can’t talk much, but I can listen. We can finish our conversation from before?” she added. “About shifters?” Just to be on the safe side, considering how shy he’d been about anyone else hearing his idea, she mouthed the last word instead of saying it.

Although with the way her voice was wavering in and out, it might not have been audible even if she had said it.

“We can do that,” Wade said. He pressed his lips together for a moment, like he was getting ready to leap off a diving board. “I don’t know if you can see where I’m going with this, but—I can show you? If that helps?”

It took her a beat to realize that he must be talking about the manuscript. He must have a copy of it saved on his phone.

Well, it wasn’t the only thing of his she was hoping to see tonight, but sure, she would still be delighted to take a look. She couldn’t get over the fact that he was writing something. That was fantastic.

“I see where you’re going,” Mira confirmed. “And I can’t wait.”

Wade gave her sunniest, most joyful smile she’d ever seen: he must have really been waiting for someone look at this for him.

“I hope you won’t be disappointed,” he said. “I guess I should ask in advance if you like bears.”

Oh, his shifters turned into bears? It was funny how perfectly that gelled with what she’d been thinking about for him. He would made a lovely werebear, so it didn’t surprise her that that was the kind of character he’d written.

Maybe one of his werebears could get a podcaster girlfriend.

I can make the case for that tonight , she thought with a grin.