by Cherrie Lynn
Janelle gave a squeal and brushed around Starla on her way out. “I bet they brought the baby!”
Starla, realizing her mouth had gone desert dry, swallowed around the lump building in her throat. Get out, get out, gotta get out. Yep.
She absolutely did not think she could face the physical product of Brian and Candace’s immense love without going into screaming hysterics. The happy sounds of reunion drifted in from the office, Janelle continuing to squeal, Candace laughing, Brian no doubt beaming his fatherly pride.
I can’t. I can’t, I can’t.
“Starla, where did you go? Come see!” Janelle called.
You bitch. I can’t. I fucking can’t. I—
Before she could finish the thought, Candace’s pretty face appeared in front of her, and the other girl crushed her in a hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you! Why haven’t you come to see us?”
“I… Busy, you know.”
Candace released her, and thank God she didn’t scrutinize her stricken face too closely. “I know, it’s been terrible on you guys. Well, we’re back, at least part-time. We’ve both been going a little stir-crazy, I think.”
Starla had to wonder, given Janelle’s comment about Brian needing to come back soon, if there wasn’t more to it than stir-craziness. “But it’s only been a month. You can’t feel up to it yet, surely?”
“I feel fine.” Candace gave a shrug, and indeed, she looked fine. If anything, pregnancy had only accentuated the bangin’ curves she’d always had. She wore familiar destructed jeans, so she was already back in her old clothes. “Besides, what do I do but sit behind a desk? Lyric can come with me. He’s not much of a crier, so he shouldn’t disturb you guys.” She smiled, putting a hand on Starla’s arm. “Has everything been okay with you?”
“Yeah, great.” The lie came out more easily than she’d thought it would.
“I’m glad. Now come meet your nephew!” Candace laughed as she said it, a reference to how she thought of Starla as the big sister she’d never had. It only twisted the knife currently lodged in Starla’s chest. Candace grasped her arm and propelled her down the hall toward the office, and it was all Starla could do not to dig her heels in. She could do this, though. She’d been doing it for years, wearing the mask. She should be an old pro by now. The mask should be a permanent fixture on her face.
Brian turned and grinned at Starla as Candace ushered her in, that smile dazzling against his olive skin. He held a little blue-blanket-swaddled bundle in his heavily inked arms. Her ovaries fucking detonated. “Holy shit,” she blurted before she could get a grasp on the words, and everyone laughed, not taking it for what it was: her reaction to the most beautifully heartbreaking sight she’d ever seen in her entire life.
“What’s the matter?” he said, not losing that devastating smile. Or those dimples.
“Oh, I just…I just…I’m so fucking happy for you!” And she did what was expected of her, rushing forward to give him a side-hug, careful not to jostle his son in his arms. A perfect little face gazed up from the blankets, pink cheeked and dark eyed. As flawless as his daddy. A mop of hair as black as Brian’s. The mouth, though, was a little rosebud, much like Candace’s. At least Janelle had tears in her eyes, so no one thought anything of it when Starla’s own eyes welled up.
“Aww,” Candace said, reaching over the desk to yank tissues from the holder and distributing them to the girls. “I love you guys. These have been the happiest days of my life.”
“You’re going to make the coolest, most amazing parents,” Janelle said. “I have hope for humanity at last.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Brian laughed. “But we’ll do our best. For the sake of humanity.”
Ghost’s bald head popped in the door. “What’s all the damn squealing about? Oh.” He strode in, leaning over to peek inside the bundle of blankets. “My little man! He’s looking more like me every day.”
“Dude,” Brian said sinisterly as the others laughed, “be glad I’m holding my infant son right now, or I’d punch you directly in the dick.” Lyric took that moment to let out an impressive wail. “Get out of his face. You’re scaring him.”
“Starla, he has your lungs,” Ghost observed, stepping back. Starla smiled sweetly and gave him the bad finger.
Brian glanced between the two of them and handed Lyric off to Candace, who cuddled him up and cooed at him. “All right,” he said as he dug a bottle out of the diaper bag sitting on the desk and handed it over to her. “Is anyone out front?”
“Tay. No clients or anything.”
“Get him back here. We need to have a staff meeting.”
Ghost simply bellowed Tay’s name toward the door, causing everyone to jump, Lyric to cry out, and Brian to close his eyes long-sufferingly. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“You didn’t specify.”
Taylor joined the group, got a peek at Lyric, and offered his congrats, then took a seat for what was probably about to be an epic ass chewing.
“I’ve gotten a couple of complaints,” Brian began, leaning back against his desk and crossing his arms. Starla looked down at her hands, swallowing dryly as her fear was affirmed. In the chair beside her, Ghost shifted and sighed, long legs sprawled in front of him.
“About what?” he said.
“Let me start by saying that I appreciate what you guys are doing. I know it’s been hard lately. You’re all exceptional artists. Quality is definitely not the problem.” He glanced between Starla and Ghost, his mouth tight, and went on. “But quality won’t matter if you create such a hostile environment that people are uncomfortable. They’ll stop coming in. That’s the last thing they need when they’re under the needle. Plus it’s highly fucking unprofessional.”
“But we don’t—”
“I haven’t—”
Starla and Ghost spoke up at once, prompting Brian to wave them to silence. “I know it’s probably nothing more than the usual bickering. That’s all right, as long as it’s kept lighthearted. We kind of pride ourselves on it. But if there’s something deeper going on, let’s get it out now and get it dealt with. I won’t have whatever it is destroying everything we’ve built here.”
Janelle spoke up. “I honestly don’t have a problem with anyone. If I’ve been moody or quiet, I’m sorry. I’ll work on it.”
Starla racked her brain. She’d snapped at Ghost so many times over the last week that she couldn’t even remember all of them. Maybe she’d had someone in her chair, maybe not. Talking shit to him was simply second nature—the insults popped out without her thinking about it.
“My sources didn’t mention names. Your regulars are loyal, and they love you. They just said there’s a bad vibe, and they’re worried. I doubt very much that you’re the problem, Jan.”
“I’ve always been an asshole, and you know that,” Ghost said. “I’m surprised it’s taken this long to get called out on it.”
Starla wanted to snap me too, but that was probably the very thing Brian was talking about. The very thing she needed to watch. She and Ghost had happily been at each other’s throats for years, but it wasn’t so happy anymore. Ever since the Jared thing. Well, apparently Ghost didn’t have anything to fucking worry about on that score.
“Most everyone knows not to take you seriously,” Brian told Ghost. Jesus, was it Starla alone who’d been the reason for the complaints? If it wasn’t Janelle and it wasn’t Ghost and it damn sure couldn’t be Tay… Brian had said no names were mentioned, but that was probably bullshit. People loved dropping names.
She’d been down in the dumps, but she didn’t think she’d allowed it to affect her relationships with her clients at all. Most of them were her friends; she could call or text any one of them right now and shoot the shit for hours on end. They knew her. She’d had a couple of walk-ins who weren’t privy to her moods, but still. Enough to complain to the boss about her?
“We can do better,” Janelle promised.
“I don’t want to dampen yo
ur spirits out there or anything,” Brian said. “It would be just as weird if you were all quiet as it would be if you were snapping at each other all the time. All I ask is that you keep it civil, and if there are any issues, deal with them in private.”
“Fuck this, dude,” Ghost suddenly said, leaning forward to stare at Brian with conviction. He was brave; Starla had barely been able to look at Brian since he began speaking, terrified she’d find those intense blue eyes on her. “Don’t feel like you need to take time away from your wife and kid to sit up here and babysit us. We’ve got this, all right? If it’s been weird, then we’ll make it right. So go home. Be a dad.”
“I appreciate that,” Brian said, “but I do miss it. I’m not only up here because of that.”
“He’s bored out of his mind,” Candace supplied, and Brian looked at her with a chuckle.
“I’m really not,” he said, sharing a loving look with her, “but she thinks I am.”
Candace’s lips curled, and she dropped a kiss on Lyric’s tiny forehead while he sucked hungrily at his bottle.
“And it won’t be every day yet,” Brian added, looking back at them. “A few days a week or when I have appointments.”
Keeping an eye on us, Starla thought bitterly. On me. She didn’t think there could be any worse feeling in the world than to think she’d let him down or been a disappointment to him. The weight of it settled crushingly in her chest, suffocating her. She couldn’t breathe.
“You’ve been quiet, Star,” Brian said, and her head snapped up from where she’d been picking at her chipped nail polish. “Usually I can count on your input.”
At least Ghost had the courtesy to unknowingly repay her earlier favor and keep his big mouth shut on that one. Starla glanced around at all of them, but none of them were paying any attention to her, eyes averted. She shrugged, forcing herself to meet Brian’s steady gaze.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been weird. I’ll work on it.” It was then that Candace looked over and frowned a little. Brian seemed even less convinced, his eyes lingering on her for much longer than was comfortable. Not that it ever was.
At last, he looked away just as the front door chimed. “I appreciate it, guys. Y’all can head back up now. Kick some ass.”
At last. Maybe it was only her, but it had grown uncomfortably stuffy in that room.
The others went back up front, while Brian and Candace hung back in his office. Starla ducked into the restroom to check her reflection and almost recoiled. Two bright pink spots burned high in both cheeks. Her eyes were glassy, like she had a fever. With a muttering little sob, she turned on the cold water and splashed it furiously over her face.
She was coming apart, and they all saw it.
Minutes later, after drying her face and composing herself, she quietly opened the door and slipped out. Brian’s office was just across and down the hall. They couldn’t see each other, but the low conversation going on in there was within earshot.
“…definitely something wrong,” Candace was saying softly. “I’m worried about her.”
“Yeah,” was Brian’s only response.
“You should talk to her alone.” Great. But hey, she shouldn’t make assumptions. Maybe by some miracle they weren’t even talking about—
“The thing about Starla, though,” he said, “is that she likes to talk a lot of shit about her problems, but when something bad, like really bad, is going on, you can’t get it out of her until she’s ready for you to know it.”
Candace’s reply to that was inaudible. So was his reply to her reply, because they dropped their voices even more until she could hear nothing but vague mumbles.
Well, Brian Ross, such keen insight you have into my soul.
Okay, there was a worse feeling than letting him down. It was being the topic of his fucking serious conversation when she couldn’t make it out and she wasn’t in there to defend herself. Every nerve in her body screamed for her to march into the room and confront them. That was what the Starla they knew and loved would’ve done. This one, the one who everyone complained about, worried about, and whispered about, put her shoulders back, turned on her heel and walked back up front, her heart falling a little further with each step.
“Star!” Ghost bellowed just as she was about to round the corner into the front area.
“I’m here,” she said glumly, expecting it was her four o’clock showing up a little early—and stopped dead in her tracks. A lady was setting a bouquet of a full-dozen bloodred roses on the counter at her station. “Oh my God.”
The delivery woman smiled, wished her a good day, and retreated out the door. Janelle’s eyebrows were almost in her hairline, and Ghost maintained a sullen silence as Starla inched forward to pluck the card from its little plastic pitchfork.
Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. No one had ever sent her flowers before. Ever. Not in her entire life.
Janelle scuttled over to her side in excitement as Starla tore into the tiny cream envelope. Jared. Jared. Jared. Please be Jared. She jerked out the card. Flipped it over.
Love, Max.
The breath whooshed out of Janelle as Starla’s heart settled back in its usual place and beat its usual angry rhythm. She tossed card and envelope into her trash can and turned her back on the bouquet, something so beautiful that had suddenly become so sinister.
“Want me to get rid of them for you?” Janelle asked grimly as Starla walked away.
“Please.” Ghost frowned at her as she walked by. Somehow, she kept her mouth shut.
Chapter Nine
“When is Starla coming over again, Daddy?”
As if Jared hadn’t heard that question a hundred times in the last week and a half. Ashley finished pulling off her boots and looked up at him expectantly. Mia glanced up as well with her inquisitive brown eyes, interested in his answer, as if this time it might be different. She looked so much like her mother right then, it made him a little uneasy. “I don’t know.”
He’d grappled with the idea himself, even considered stopping by Starla’s work or house to check on her. Like a dumbass, he’d never thought to get her number, didn’t even know if she’d replaced her phone. Though it would be easy enough to look up her work number.
There were so many reasons to leave it alone, reasons he could explain to his daughters. More than he cared to count. Shelly hadn’t said anything further about it, and they’d remained civil if short in the past week. Whatever weirdness had befallen them last week, the girls seemed to be past it. At least kids were resilient, sometimes more so than their parents.
He’d thought about Starla a lot. He hadn’t been lying when he told her he wanted to see her again—he did. To delve a little deeper into the secrets behind those brown eyes. Obviously his girls thought about her a lot too.
“Why can’t she just come over and play with us?”
“She works at night, Ash. I don’t know when she’ll be off again.”
“Ask her,” Ashley said in her best “duh!” voice.
If only things could be as simple as kids made them. It saddened him to think about his girls learning some hard facts of life as they grew up. He wanted them to stay little and innocent and free of conflict forever, but of course, that wouldn’t happen.
“Call her, Dad!” Mia said.
“Yeah, call her.”
“I liked the way she read our story. And I like her hair.”
“She’s pretty.”
“I like her tattoos.”
“She smelled good.”
Sighing, he pulled off his own boots and stripped off the flannel shirt he wore over his black T-shirt. All the recent rain and storms had preceded a significant cold front, and there was a chill in the air outside. Then, with two sets of footsteps pattering after him, he escaped the mudroom and his daughters’ persistent observations about Starla. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she smelled damn good. He didn’t need reminding.
“I’m hungry,” Mia announced.
“Can Sta
rla cook for us again?”
Okay, he was about to bust out with a no-no word. “I can make something. What do you want?” he asked instead.
“We don’t want what you make. We want Starla to make us something.”
“Cookies!”
“Pizza.”
Jesus Christ. “Girls. I’m not calling Starla to come cook for you. Get it out of your heads.”
“Didn’t you like her?” Ashley asked.
“Yeah, but…” Your mom wouldn’t like her. What the hell was he supposed to do? Stay single forever?
Maybe so. To avoid situations like this one.
He didn’t know how it happened, but later, as the girls were tackling their homework at the dining room table, he found himself looking up the number for Dermamania on Google. Then staring at it for a good five minutes. What could it hurt? She’d mentioned a next time, even offering to bring temporary hair color for the girls. He’d told her he wanted to see her again, and he meant it. But he’d told Shelly it wouldn’t go anywhere. Dammit. And, of course, Ash and Mia would run home and tell their mom about Starla doing their hair. Then they would want her to do it again. And it would start all over. He was fooling himself if he thought it would ever end once it got started.
He dialed the number anyway, lightly banging his head back on the couch and silently cursing himself for an idiot. A girl answered, too chipper to be Starla. Starla had a lower, throatier quality to her voice that he liked. A voice that sounded like it could purr extremely dirty things in his ear.
Somehow, he managed to get his thoughts back on track and ask for her. A murmured conversation transpired as the phone was passed over, then, “Yeah?” was her cautious greeting. For some reason, it brought a smile to his face.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s Jared.”
His smile only widened as her voice brightened considerably. “Oh, hey! How are you?”
“I’m good. I hope it’s okay to call you at work. I never did get your number. If you even wanted to give it to me, I mean.” Shit. He was already making a butchery of things.