Page 35 of The Werewolf’s Study Date

"CU put him in the room," she says. "It didn't make you fall for him."

"That's annoyingly reasonable."

"I have my moments." She shrugs, picking up her vial again.

I stare at the ceiling for two more seconds, let out a breath, and sit up.

I know what I want. I want Boone. And I'm not texting him—I'm going to go find him.

"Absolutely not," Delilah says the second I pull the ears out of the costume bag.

"They're perfect."

"They're cheap." She's already laughing, one hand pressed over her mouth like that'll stop it. "Maisie. You're about to walk into the biggest party of the semester, on the night you're planning to tell your werewolf mate you choose him, wearing dollar-store wolf ears."

"I know." I settle them onto my head, adjusting the little plastic headband until they sit at a properly obnoxious angle. "That's the appeal."

"He's going to lose his mind."

"That's also the appeal."

She's laughing so hard now she has to sit down, wiping at her eyes, and it takes her almost a full minute to get words out again. "You've spent all this time pretending you don't notice this man is a walking hormonal event, and your plan—on the one night you're finally going to admit you want him forever—is to show up dressed as the thing he literally is."

"It's funny."

"It is extremely funny," she agrees, still gasping. "It's also the most unnecessarily provocative thing I've ever watched you do, and I watched you eat gas station sushi in September out of pure spite."

"That sushi was fine."

"That sushi was a war crime." She stands, straightens my ears with way more tenderness than the joke deserves, and steps back to take in the whole picture—leggings, an oversized flannel, the ridiculous ears, my hair down the way I know he likes it best. "You look cute. Annoyingly cute. Provoke-a-werewolf cute."

"That's the goal."

"Go tell your boy you love him, Maisie Pope."

My stomach does something dumb and warm. "I didn't say love."

"You didn't have to." She grins, wicked and delighted. "Your face has been saying it since the fall festival."

The oldest part of campus is packed by the time I get there—string lights threaded through every tree, pumpkins the size of small cars lining the quad, a massive bonfire already roaring near the library steps where Boone first asked if I was the one who needed a tutor. Music spills out across the lawn. Somebody's set up a cider stand shaped like a haunted house, and a cluster of vampires in dramatically unnecessary velvet capes are posing for photos in front of a fog machine like it's the Met Gala.

I stand at the edge of the crowd, ears slightly crooked on my head, my pulse racing faster than the walk here can account for.

I'm looking for one specific, enormous, gold-eyed werewolf.

And when I spot him standing near the fire with his friends, I don't even hesitate.

I just start walking.

CHAPTER 10

BOONE

I've been standing near this bonfire for forty minutes pretending to give a shit about the party, which is apparently long enough for Tate to start fucking with me.

"You've looked at your phone eleven times in the last ten minutes," he says, appearing at my elbow with a cup of cider and a smirk.

"I haven't."