I glanced at the office and then back at him with a regretful expression. "Sorry, but we're sort of in the weeds," I said.
"Oh, you better get back there then," one of the ladies said. All three of them stepped aside like the parting of the Red Sea to let Evan come around the counter toward me.
He gave them a wave and smile. "Next time," he said. They were all waving and regarding him with sweet smiles as he followed me through the kitchen.
"I got your order, Belly-welly," Stan called as we passed by.
I smiled and waved at Stan to tell him I'd be right back. Evan was really athletic, and it was sad to see him walking with a limp. I wasn't looking straight at him since I was concentrating on walking, but I was aware of his limp simply by the feel of his stride beside me. I stopped and turned around once we were in the small hallway and out of sight of everyone in the kitchen and dining room.
"Belly-welly?" he asked with a casual smirk directed at me.
"Annabel to most people," I said. My expression shifted to one with worried eyes. "I don't really need your help back here," I said, hoping he wouldn't be mad at me for dragging him back there.
"I know," he said with an amused grin that changed into a sweet smile. "I hate to be rude," he added. "I'm not good at saying 'no' when someone asks for a picture. It's not like Logan where I can't even leave my house without people swarming me, you know? When someone asks for a picture, I try to take one with them if I can."
"Did you want to take one back there?" I asked, staring to feel confused.
"No," he said. "I sure didn't." He paused and rubbed his jaw with a contemplative smile. "I haven't really had any pictures taken since the accident," he explained. He shrugged. "Not that I think that some lady's photo would go viral, or that anyone would care, really, I just haven't showed my agent what I look like yet, and I didn't really feel like messing with all that today."
I sighed. "Well, I'm glad I was right, because I'd feel really silly making you come back here for nothing."
We stood there looking at each other for the next few seconds.
"Just wait right here for a minute," I said. "I'll go back out there and make sure they're gone."
I started to walk off, but he put his hand on my arm to stop me. "Annabel," he said.
"What?"
He smiled. "Thank you."
I smiled back at him. "Wait right here, and I'll let you know if it's all clear."
I took a deep, calming breath as I walked through the small kitchen, grabbing Evan and Dee-dee's biscuits as I went through. I set the plates in front of her. "Evan will be right back," I said, glancing around the dining room to make sure the group was gone.
"I'm sure he appreciated the distraction," Dee-dee said, since she was completely aware of what was going on.
I smiled at her but otherwise didn't respond before taking off to retrieve her grandson from the back. "All clear," I said when I rounded the corner to see Evan standing there, leaning against the wall.
"You're a life saver, Belly-welly," he said.
Before I knew what was happening, he stepped toward me, and in one swift motion he grabbed me, pulled me close, and put a quick kiss on my head.
"Annabel," I said, since my brain wasn't working and it was all I could think to say.
"You're not gonna let me call you Belly-welly?" he asked with a sincerely perplexed expression like he was confused that he didn't get full nickname rights. "I like that name. I think it suits you."
I knew it didn't really matter what he called me since I practically never saw him, but I didn't say that.
"It's a name for a little girl," I said as I started walking toward the kitchen.
Evan followed me. "I happen to like it," he said to the back of my head since I wasn't looking at him. I turned around and smiled with a flick of my head toward his grandma. "I brought you milk and some coffee. Everything was a guess; so just let me know if you—" Then, it hit me. I stopped walking and talking at the same time, and stared at Evan with a regretful expression.
"What?" he asked.
"Steak," I said. "I brought you a biscuit with a big honkin' chicken fried steak on it, and I didn't even think about the fact that you probably don't eat meat."
He smiled. "I'll eat a honkin' steak for breakfast if that's what you want to serve me," he said, smiling like he got a kick out of my phrasing.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "Because I can get you something else."
"I'm sure," he said, walking around the bar to his seat. "This looks perfect."
Chapter 4
It was nearly three weeks later when I saw Evan Hunt again—only this time I wasn't covered in flour. I was in the break room at the salon when his sister, Mia, came walking through the door with a particularly odd look on her face.
"Amanda said your four o'clock was a no-show," she said, crossing the room to stand closer to me. There were two other stylists in the room but my four o'clock was a no-show, and she was staring in my direction, so I knew she was talking to me.
"It was," I said. "Do you need me to do something?"
"If you don't mind," she said.
There were a couple of booths back to back in our break room, and I had been sitting in the corner of one of them, reading a book on my phone. Mia sat across from me, smiling like she was about to ask a favor.
"Do you want me to help you stock the shelves?" I asked before she could get her question out.
"No," she said. "My brother needs a haircut, and I told him I'd keep an eye out for a cancelation today."
Mia only had two brothers, Cody and Evan. Cody's wife was also a stylist and owned the salon where I worked. I had never (and probably would never) cut Cody's hair, as that was a job for his wife.
"Cody?" I asked, even though I had already answered that question in my mind.
"Evan," she said. She rolled her eyes. "He's leaving for California in the morning, and he put off coming in for a trim." She paused and regarded me with a pleading expression. "He really needs it," she said. "He'll pay your commission, and he'll tip you good," she added, as if that was what I was worried about.
"Evan?" I asked. I felt breathless at the thought, and couldn't help but ask another obvious question to buy some time.
"Yes," she said. "He's leaving in the morning to go back west."
"Doesn't he have people out there who cut it a certain way or whatever?" I asked, feeling too intimidated to agree right away.
She shrugged. "He text me this morning asking me to try to fit him in. I guess he'll feel better heading back there with a fresh haircut."
"He doesn't want to cut it short, does he?" I asked since I certainly wasn't up for a major transformation on someone like him.
"I don't think so," she said, shaking her head. "I think he just wants a trim. Maybe we can get him in for a shave if Kevin has time."
I looked at the clock on the microwave, which read 4:22. "I have a haircut coming in at six," I said.
She smiled. "He can be here in like ten minutes."
I felt a buzzing sensation in my chest like there were a bunch of bees flying around in there. My whole upper-body turned into a big beehive the instant it sunk in that I would be cutting Evan Hunt's hair. How in the world had I gotten myself into this?
"So, yes?" Mia asked with a hopeful smile.
I nodded and returned her smile. "Sure, no problem," I said, since there was no use letting her in on how nervous I was about it. I did not want some hotshot, Hollywood stylist going through, checking my work while they styled his hair for some hotshot photo shoot. I had this and other similar thoughts as I smiled while Mia thanked me and got up to leave.
"I'm gonna text him right now," she said. "He'll be here in ten or fifteen minutes."
I took in a deep breath and let it out of my mouth in a slow, long, calming way as I sat there feeling stunned. One of the other girls in the room had overheard our conversation and glanced at me to gauge my reaction. I smiled at her like I gave models haircuts e
very day, and she smiled back before going on with her conversation. They were talking about a color correction one of them had done earlier that day, but it just vaguely sounded like a bunch of noise coming out of their mouths.
I was normally a confident hairstylist. I knew I could give Evan a quality haircut. So why did I suddenly feel like I was about to go on stage in front of a huge audience and dance a big solo? Why was it such a big deal? He's just a normal guy, after all. He's Mia's brother and Paige's brother-in-law. He was basically family. I told myself he was just a normal guy for the next twenty minutes until Evan arrived.
I could see the front of the salon from my station, so I noticed when he came in.
"Basically family," I whispered to myself before I walked to the front to greet him. "Just a normal guy. Just Mia's brother. Normal guy."
"I was just coming to get you," Amanda said when she caught sight of me walking up to the reception area. She gestured at Evan. "Your client's here."
"Is this who's supposed to be doing my haircut?" Evan asked, directing his question toward Amanda and looking disheartened.
I could tell he was joking, but a worried look crossed her face as she regarded at him. "M-M-Mia said you would be fine with whoever had a cancellation…" she started to explain, but I cut her off.
"Is this who's supposed to be my client?" I asked, pretending to be disgusted at the thought of it.
Amanda glanced at me with wide eyes that told me she had no idea we were joking.
I groaned and let my shoulders slump. "Just go ahead and follow me back, I guess," I said in a frustrated tone as I gestured aggressively for Evan to follow me.
Evan smiled and walked toward me instantly, and I glanced at Amanda with a wink. She smiled as if she finally seemed to understand that we were joking around.
I waited for him to catch up with me before walking him back to my station.
"You look fancy," he said, making me giggle a little.
"It's my all-black uniform," I said. "It's slightly fancier than my biscuit-covered uniform."
"Mia didn't tell me it was gonna be you cutting my hair," he said, following me to my station.
"Is that all right?" I asked as we both came to stand near my chair.
He smiled at me. "I think it's amazing," he said.
I patted the back of the chair since I was too shaken up to respond to his comment. "Have a seat, and we'll talk about what we're doing before we shampoo you."
"I get a hair wash?" he asked, running a hand through his long hair as he sat down.
I stood behind him and we regarded each other through our reflections in the mirror. He had on jeans and a windbreaker with a hood, and I reached out to touch it and give it a shake. "This will definitely be in the way," I said. "You'll have to take your jacket off."
He smiled as he unzipped and shrugged out of his jacket. He was wearing a threadbare Rolling Stones T-shirt underneath, and I smiled at the sight of it as I took his jacket and placed it on one of the hooks on the side of my station. I came to stand behind him again, and pretending that he was just a normal guy, I ran my fingers through his hair, testing its texture and movability.
For the next three minutes, I went into stylist mode, asking him all sorts of questions about what he wanted so that I could make sure we were on the same page. It was a straightforward trim with some long layers—nothing I could mess up, even on my worst day as a stylist.
I put a cape on Evan and brought him to the shampoo bowl just like I did with all my other clients. I wet his hair and turned off the water before pumping the appropriate amount of shampoo into my hands and massaging it into his hair. I begged myself inwardly to treat it like it was clinical, but my fingers betrayed me. They didn't see Evan as a normal client—they saw him as someone they enjoyed touching.
All scalps were different. Everybody had a different feel to their head. Some scalps were loose and squishy with barely any hair, and some were tight and hard with tons of coarse hair—there were tons of different combinations. Everyone's scalp had it's own "feel" and my fingers had decided for themselves that Evan's was the best. That thought made me close my eyes for a second as I massaged in the shampoo.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing, why?" I asked, opening my eyes.
"You were squeezing your eyes shut," he said.
"I was?" I asked, laughing it off. "You don't seem like you're limping anymore," I said, changing the subject.
"I'm getting there," he said. "My physical therapist says I should get back to a hundred percent if I keep working on it."
"That's awesome," I said.
"Yeah, they tell me I'm a real miracle."
I turned on the water and used the nozzle to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. "Can you just come to L.A. with me and be my personal hair-washer, please?" he asked, closing his eyes.
"If I had a dollar for every client who tried to hire me as their personal hair-washer, I'd be rich."
"Yeah, you might get tired of having only one customer, day in and day out," he said.
I wanted to say, "Not if that customer was you," but I just smiled and said, "Uh-huh," as I continued washing his hair.
I ran conditioner through his hair, and we were both silent for a minute while I gave him the standard scalp massage that comes with all haircuts. Nothing special, nothing extra—just the standard, three-minute, scalp massage during the conditioner segment of the wash.
"Mia said you're going back to California tomorrow," I said as I began rinsing out the conditioner.
"Oh my gosh," Evan said in a low, growl that was a bit of a protest. "What did you just do to my head?"
"It always feels good when someone else does it," I said, smiling as I turned off the water. I expertly wrapped a towel around his head and set his chair in the upright position.
Evan took the towel from me and used it to dab more water out of his hair as he stood to follow me.
"A few days after I saw you at breakfast, my agent flew in to see what my situation was," Evan said as he sat in my chair. I took the towel from him and rang out his hair again before combing it out. "He didn't seem to think the scar was a problem," Evan continued. "He took some photos while he was here, and he's already got a few jobs lined up for me when I get back to L.A. Apparently, they all know about the scar, and they're okay with it."
"I told you it looked good," I said. "Were you thinking you'd be out of work?" I used the mirror to glance at him, and he saw me do it, but he didn't answer right away, so I went back to combing and sectioning his hair.
He sighed before speaking. "That accident changed me in more ways than just the scar," he said. "It changed me in ways I don’t think I'm even aware of yet."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "I was at a pretty low place for a little while. I think maybe I thought I had it all figured out before that—I had planned for things to go a certain way with my life." He paused as if looking for the right words. "Everything just sort of got stripped away from me in a split second. I guess it just made me reexamine. I'm not sure I'll be satisfied with the same stuff I was satisfied with before, if that makes any sense."
"I thought you just said you were going back to L.A. to pick up where you left off," I said as I began cutting his hair.
"I am," he said.
"Then nothing got stripped away," I said. "Sounds to me like you just had to put your life on pause for a couple of months."
"Believe me," he said. "I know things could have been a lot worse. I'm thankful to be alive and to have use of my leg. I'm not trying to be dramatic about it or anything, but it is what it is. I was at a really low place for a while, and it sort of changed me from the inside. I may be going back to my job and my old life, but I don't feel like I'm quite the same person."
"You're not," I said. "You're better. That's why there are tons of cliché's about trials making you stronger. The storms of life truly do change you. Cliché's are cliché because they'r
e true."
Chapter 5
Thankfully, my stylist autopilot kicked in and the nerves brought on by touching Evan's hair diminished as I worked. There's a lot to be said for muscle memory, and my hands and arms sort of just took over and knew what to do to give him a good haircut in spite of myself.
I really loved working with layers, so I had lots of tricks in my bag that helped me give him a style that matched his carefree, beach bum appearance. I loved how it came out, and I felt a genuine sense of relief as I ran my fingers through it at the end.
He told me his hair behaved better when it dried naturally, so I applied a little bit of product and unsnapped the cape he was wearing with the intention of calling it a day.
Up until that point, we had been regarding each other through the mirror, but as I was folding the cape, Evan swiveled in the chair so that he could look at me face-to-face.
I glanced at him, but I couldn’t stand to hold the eye contact, so I smiled and quickly looked back down at the cape in my hands.
"Mia said you might want a shave," I said. "I can take you to Kevin's station to see if he's still here if you want."
I was still looking at the cape (that I was folding ever so slowly), but I could see Evan rub his jaw out of the corner of my eye.
"It's all right," he said. "I think I can manage to shave myself." He hesitated before adding, "Unless you want to do it."
I laughed as I reached out and put the folded cape onto my station. "Kevin's teaching me a few things, but I wouldn't go trusting me with a straight razor quite yet."
"You just used one on my hair," he said.
"Yeah, but it's not the same on a face," I said. I glanced at him as I spoke, and my eyes automatically roamed to the line that went right across his eyebrow and cheek. I suddenly realized that we were talking about straight razors and faces, and I started to feel really bad. "I don't think you can really mess me up," Evan said with a casual smile as he watched me look straight at his scar and then away from it.
I swallowed, wondering if I should just come out and say what I was thinking. I had always been the type of person who did that, but Evan made me second-guess myself. I turned to face him and let out a sigh as I continued to doubt my instincts.
It's About Time (Hunt Family #5) Page 3