by Daisy Jane
Nodding, I excuse myself to the back room where I start mixing her toner, noticing how as soon as the bottle is open, my forehead beings to tingle. I stop what I’m doing immediately. If the toner gets clumpy from being stopped mid-mix, fuck it. I’ll toss it.
My heart racing, my hands starting to shake I turn behind me to the row of cubbies and let my palms drift over the edges until I feel my purse. I pull it open onto my lap as my body melts to the floor. I dig around and dump it out, everything inside rolling away from me. I don’t care.
I swipe the small gray box and pop the lid open, taking the plastic tube out from its sheath while flipping open the last remaining vile of medicine. Engage, twist, push. I’ve done it too many times to count. Shoving the injection to my arm I push as hard as I can until I feel that familiar sting, then the flood of lava that snakes its way up my spine, settling in my neck. It’s not a good heat, it’s a painful heat, the kind that makes you lose your mind. When will it stop burning? Fuck, what if this is blood pooling? What if? What if?
I busy my hands with releasing the vial to the trash and replacing the tube that holds the injector. Rolling forward slowly, onto my hands and knees, I keep my eyes closed as I feel around the Pine-Sol-ed floors, retrieving as much of my stuff as possible.
I scoop things into my lap and put them back in my bag and then, as it usually does, the heat begins to drain from my neck. My shoulders burn for a moment as it works its way through me, lower, until finally it’s over.
Opening my eyes, I see that I’ve missed a tube of Chapstick and a hair tie, but got everything else. Returning my stuff to the cubby, I get to my feet and continue mixing the toner, taking deep breaths in an attempt to steady myself. That was close. I think that was going to be one.
A bad one.
A few more minutes and I get to tell Brynn all about my time with Bodhi and then that conversation with Bastian. And Eli. I get to tell her about my blooming crush on the quietest and yet most intimate of the three men.
“Fuck off, headache,” I say like a crazy person, pushing through the curtain back to the salon.
Chapter 15
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, darlin,” Brynn’s client says from her chair as I pad my way back to my station. Gloving up I start applying toner on my client who’s already reclined with her head in the sink.
Brynn’s head snaps to me as soon as she processes the comment. “Is it your head?”
I nod but raise a gloved hand up between us. “I took my shot, I’m okay, it didn’t get a chance to really start, just the very first feeling and I took the shot.”
Brynn’s body shrinks with relief and she turns back to her client, which is actually the mother of another client. It would seem we’re like family here. Women and their closest friends come here, year after year. It didn’t feel like family though. Not anymore.
“Good because I am dying to catch up,” she says, winking in an over-the-top way that screams obvious. I laugh, no longer even bothering with a playful eye roll, knowing how they can often start a headache.
“Toner for twenty, do a piece check and if it’s right, rinse, okay?” I say to the young girl standing behind Brynn and I. She’s a high school student working here in the shop a few hours a day, the same way I did. I can’t remember her name and I don’t press my thoughts when my head hurts, there’s no sense in it.
“Okay,” she smiles happily, excited to do anything. I remember being that eager to learn.
Washing my hands, Brynn dances next to me. In a sing-song voice, she says “Sloane got laid, Sloane got laid.” Looking around I shush her; worried clients could hear us. I don’t need any other reasons for people to leave my service.
“Shut up,” I giggle, locking my arm with hers, dragging her back into the stock room. She pulls two Styrofoam containers from the fridge and passes me one.
It smells like heaven but I hold the container up to her, raising my eyebrows.
“They don’t usually do Styrofoam,” she says, knowing where my mind is at. “And honestly, as much as I love the Earth, right now, all I want to know is how that tattooed piece of ass dicked you down last night.” She pops open the lid and the smell of warm gyros and jasmine rice fill the air. My stomach rumbles.
Shoveling a big bite of meat in her mouth, she chews while she demands me to spill it.
After taking a few bites of spicy meat and soft buttery rice into my mouth, I take a drink from the sparkling water on the counter. I have to make sure I get some food in my belly since I’ve taken the injection. Even though all I want to do right now is spill the tea.
Brynn knows I have to get a few bites down but she’s so eager to hear my story, she still waves me on with the rolling of her fork. At least we’re using the bamboo forks we keep in the salon kitchenette and not the plastic cutlery that I’m certain the Greek place probably has.
My head tightens in the small space but I take another drink of my hibiscus flavored water and press on. Maybe if I refuse to give this stupid headache anymore attention, it will go away. Besides, I’ve already taken the shot. And I took a Benadryl this morning. I have to just try and forget about it and hope my body follows suit.
“Enough pensive, quiet Sloane. I want the Sloane who wants the gang bang,” she whispers, “tell me everything.”
Happily, I relayed my night to her, not stopping at the mutual oral sex Bodhi and I shared, but giving her all the details of the conversation I’d had with Bastian in the hallway before bed, too. She stayed silent through everything, even when I told her about how drawn I felt to Eli, despite the fact that not much had actually happened between us yet. Just talking. Just becoming better friends.
She wiped her mouth with the yellow paper napkin next to her and took a long drink of sparkling water. “I knew this was going to be worth the splurge,” she said, nodding to her empty plate. Whenever either of us had good, dirty sex stories, we splurged on food. We were trying to remove the stigma of ice cream after a break up. “Ice cream should be after good sex! You should just be drinking after a breakup,” Brynn had said after I’d eaten a pint of oat-milk ice cream when Brett dumped me.
Collecting our boxes, I put them back in the paper bag they came from and stuffed them into the garbage.
“It will smell like gyro’s if we don’t take that out,” I say to Brynn as I tie the bag off and hand it to her. She takes it, pulls open the curtain and waves her arm on the other side of it and like a magic trick, the high school girl appears, smiling.
“Take this out back, doll,” Brynn smiles, passing off the bag of garbage.
“Was I like that?” I ask, trying to remember if I was the garbage girl. I know I swept a lot but was I basically a maid, too?
“We all are at the beginning,” she waves a hand as if she’s done with that. “Now, tell me more about Bodhi’s dick.”
“Brynn!” I slap her arm, “I think you’re forgetting about you know, the love of your life, Bryan!”
She grimaces playfully before upturning her palms, elbows to the floor. “What he doesn’t know,” she shrugs. “Now spill it. Just because I have a fiancé doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear about that man’s dick because that man?” she whistles, low, and turns her head as she does. “A masterpiece.”
My lips curl into a sinister grin. “His thing is pierced.”
“What?! Guys can pierce it?” Brynn is surprised and I’m surprised that she is—she always seemed to know so much more about sex than me. Or maybe, I just always felt like I knew less because I had less experience. I cringe at the idea that Brett could ever have a penis piercing that made me fall to my knees so hard and so fast that they’d be bruised the next day.
I should have never been with Brett.
I nod. “Yes, and it’s ah-maz-ing.”
Brynn goes pink and it’s the first time I think my sex talk has ever made her flush. “How?” she whispers while she ducks her head, somehow making our conversation safer, in her mind.
I sha
ke my head. “I can’t describe it. It just,” I make a noise of appreciation in my throat. “We both enjoyed when I played with it.”
Brynn’s palms go to her cheeks. “Sloane I cannot believe you. I honestly can’t but god I’m happy for you.” She shakes her head as she ties her smock back on, and I can see she’s still thinking about it. “And Bastian said they share. Jesus, Sloane, the cop that came to your accident was like out of one the books you read. Secretly into kinky shit with his bros.” She puts her hands on my shoulders like she always does when she’s bracing me for something important.
“You have to go through with your plan. I need to live thrush you. This is so hot.”
Laughing, I nod and pull my long tangle of sandy blonde hair into a ponytail, the back of my neck getting hot with the remembrances of last night. “I’ll keep you posted, I promise,” I say, knowing that if the time comes and I actually get the corner house guys in a room with me, it would take something big for me to not turn to Brynn and spill the moment after.
When I get home, I wave to Brynn and drop my purse by the door, the low rumble in my brain slowly gaining momentum. I can feel it but I’ve taken the meds. I’ve drank the water and the coffee, had a few hard candies, eaten, injected, Benadryl-ed and before we left the salon, I took two Tylenol’s too. Frustrated tears build behind my eyes at the idea that I did everything the doctor’s told me to do when my head feels this way and still, still, it builds. The pain builds.
Grandma’s paws overtaking the floor is just a quiet scratch, he doesn’t even bark. But still, the noise drums at my temples and sends waves of pinching pain through my optic nerves. I blink my eyes and hold my hands out, and despite the pain, I can still see my hands. Thank God, my vision is okay.
I did two more colors before Brynn and I called it a day. Now it’s seven and my stomach is grumbling, my feet are sore and I’m tired. I’m tired and mad. Mad at my body for doing this. It should be a normal night. I should have a drink and share some carefree laughs with my (sexy) roommates. But no, I’m anxious, worried, all I can think is what if? What if this goes full migraine? I don’t want to spend the night crying next to the toilet. I don’t want to wake up sore and slow, disoriented and out of energy. Blinking away the heat in my eyes, I follow Grandma through the foyer into the kitchen, where I’m surprised to see all three men.
“Hi Sloanie,” Bodhi says, his hair in three thick Dutch braids, the small diamond stud in his nose picking up the light coming from the hood over the range. He’s stirring something inside a large stock pot and the entire kitchen feels warm and smells good, like homemade something.
“Hey girl,” Bastian follows the greeting with a little wave. He’s standing on the other side of the island, slicing a loaf of sourdough bread, on Ove-glove on the hand that holds the loaf steady. He’s wearing his baseball cap with his CrossFit gym logo on it, with a navy-blue t-shirt that reads ‘K9 UNIT’ on it, but I can’t see his lower half.
“Hello,” the last greeting comes from Eli, who’s still in his work clothes, standing with his tailbone resting against the counter, legs out and crossed at the ankle in front of him. His top two buttons on his dress shirt are unbuttoned, revealing the most of his collarbone tattoo that I’ve ever seen. From what I can see now, it appears to say something. But the way my head throbs, I can’t narrow my eyes on it. I can’t focus, as much as I want to. His steely eyes pinch down on me and he pushes off the counter, setting down the beer he was drinking. “Hey,” he pads through the kitchen and takes me by the elbows, dipping his height down to my level to meet my eyes. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
Just what every girl loves to hear.
It was hard to focus before, as the headache began to take form. But Eli’s cologne and the warmth of his skin bleeding through my gauzy blouse, heating my body—it makes it really hard to focus. Very quickly, the pain in my brain spiderwebs and takes over my optic nerves. I press the butts of my palms to my eyes and remove them, blinking quickly at Eli. His eyes are worried and his grip on my elbows tightens.
“I need to sit down,” I say, but my chest is starting to heave with anxiety. The headache I’ve been trying to fight all day—it’s here. I should be grateful that I was able to tend to my clients, that I didn’t have to miss work and the pay. But I’m home now, with my guys, and I think I’m more upset to be having it now than I would’ve had it hit this morning.
We’re only ten or so feet from the couch but still, I feel Eli’s bicep under my knees and then my palm is pressed to his solid chest. His lips are at my hairline and in a quiet voice he says to me, “don’t worry, Sloane, it’s going to be okay.”
Though I know there’s nothing he can do to make my headache stop, still, I believe him. In his arms, with them, I feel like everything is okay.
He doesn’t lie me down on the couch like I think he will. Instead, he sits down and keeps me cradled in his lap, against his chest, right there together. Like we’re together. Like he cares for me more than just a damsel in distress.
I keep my eyes closed as the pain intensifies and I know based on how the invisible needle-nose pliers pinch at my eyes, that it’s going to get a whole lot worse, a lot faster. “What do you need right now, Sloane?”
Tears break past my lashes and swim down my cheeks. I don’t want to be this girl in front of them. Hell, I don’t want to be this girl at all. But I can’t stop the tears. This pain is so bad I always cry when it comes. I cry because it’s the only thing that doesn’t make the pain worse. Talking, moving—it all intensifies the pain. But crying doesn’t. So, I cry.
His thumb swipes over my cheek and I can feel him bring his heels closer to the couch, which moves me even closer to his chest in his lap. He palms my hair away from my face. “What do you need, tell me, Sloane,” he says. Opening my eyes, all I see is Eli.
The room is dark except for his face in front of me, all the concern of the world in his expression. His clean shave is beginning to fade as evening blends with night, and despite my head being in agony, I know I will remember how handsome and perfect he looks right now.
“Take my ponytail out,” my voice is quiet and hoarse, but broken up with a sob. Eli’s hands don’t leave my face but I feel the ponytail tie be pulled from my hair and the weight of it instantly disappears. Bodhi leans over me, I can see his nipple piercings through his t-shirt so I know it’s him. Then my sandals are off my feet and I know Bastian is there as a blanket is draped over Eli and I.
“Did you take your shot?” one of them asks, though as the agony grows grueling, voices become harder to distinguish.
“I took everything already. There’s nothing else,” I whimper, tears unstoppable at this point. My eyes squeeze shut and Eli leans back onto the couch, pulling me with him. I cuddle into him so hard—I’ve never cuddled someone this way. I hate that it’s because my head is doing this shit again but I love the way my body molds perfectly to his.
“What can we do?” Eli says to one of them, and I know it’s him because I can feel the words vibrate in his chest against my ear. My hands and feet are slowly going numb, the way they always do when the migraine is really bad.
“She takes her injection, Tylenol and Benadryl, and she usually has caffeine and sugar,” Bodhi recalls aloud, and I know it’s Bodhi because I’d told him my exact routine when he’d asked more questions about my headaches on one of the first nights at the corner house.
“She did all that she just said,” Eli replies quick and he’s not frustrated but he does sound and feel—his chest tensing against me—anxious.
Bastian thinks aloud. “I don’t know man, I don’t have any clue. Cami never got headaches.”
Eli scratches at his jaw and returns his hands back to me. One still wiping my tears and the other now resting on my thigh, his thumb smoothing circles on me. “My mom got headaches when I was a kid, I don’t know if they were like this but they were bad.”
“I’ll call her,” Bodhi says, pulling his phone from his
back pocket. My eyes are cracked, my vision isn’t quite right, but this is probably the only time in my life that three men will take care of me. Despite the pain, the reality of the situation nearly makes me high. Nearly.
Bodhi wanders away and Eli looks down to me. He’s so handsome. He’s more handsome than Captain America, I think to myself and then Bastian laughs.
“Of course, he’s more handsome than Captain America. Chris Evans has nothing on our boy Eli,” Bastian laughs.
I touch my lips. “I said that aloud?” I look through tear-filled hazy eyes up at Eli who even in this migraine distortion is utterly fine. “I’m going to be sick,” I say quickly, but before I have time to panic and worry if I can find my feet and make it to the bathroom, Eli’s up and taking long strides around the corner to the bathroom next to the back door.
He lowers me to my knees and pulls my hair back, holding it. “It’s okay,” his voice drifts around my brain and the line between reality and fantasy gets blurred as the pain takes over and then, I get sick.
Someone is rubbing up and down my spine, Eli’s hands hold my hair and when it’s over, another hand, covered in ink—Bodhi’s hand—flushes the toilet. We return to the couch and I remain in Eli’s lap. When I open my eyes again, his eyes are trained on me, concern overtaking them.
“It’s ok,” I tell him, “This is how it always goes.”
“Every time?” he asks, disbelief his tone.
“Alright,” Bodhi says, “Brenda said she should smoke weed.”
“Okay, first of all, why are you on a first-name basis with his mom?” Bastian interjects and if my brain didn’t feel like it was liquefying, I probably would have laughed and wondered the same thing.
“She got me that bread machine for Christmas two years ago and I text her thank you and,” he shrugs like it’s nothing, this wall of muscle and ink with braids in his hair, “we keep in touch.”
Eli seems unphased.