This is actually for a different website that has some semi unique css/html, but I was able to recreate the problem in a codepen with some specific rules.
I'm wondering if its possible to prevent this from happening while still utilizing letter spacing expansion on hover. Moving the link to the next line or using smaller letter spacing isn't the kind of fix I'm looking for, because I'm making code that other people will use, and they don't know to do those things when adding in their html.