I groaned and leaned back until my head rested against the composite siding of the building. “Terrible. You were right. It’s all shit.”
“I never said it was shit,” he finally admitted, startling me out of my oblivion. “I did think she was coming across much older than you intended though. Maybe you just tweak—”
“No.” I sat up again. “No. I need someone younger. You said you had a sister.”
“You want to use Jessa?”
His tone implied that it was a crazy idea, but the weed had dissolved the filter between my brain and my mouth. “But, she’s younger, right? And she has the same last name! I wouldn’t have to change the title. And she’s younger!”
He nodded with a smirk. “Yeah, you said that one already. What if you just tweaked Laura’s character? Then you don’t have to scrap what you’ve already written.”
“Really? You think I’m worried about losing all of eight-hundred words? It’s shit. I know it and you know it. But, you know Jessa and you could help me get into her head. How cool would it be if your sister is the one who solves your case and brings you back? And then you guys could team up and Rachel would see that I found you a female counterpart and she would change her mind and I would get—”
He held up a hand. “Whoa, slow down. I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself.”
I sighed again. “It’s a bad plan, I know. I just worry that you were it—like what if I can’t write another character?”
We both slipped into silence, allowing the low din of the traffic below us fill the void.
“You’d like Jessa. She’s twenty-six. Terminally single. Oh, and she always speaks her mind. She’d definitely give the detectives hell.”
I turned to him in surprise. “You’re going to let me use her? Did we just agree on something?”
He nodded. “I think we did. Now, let’s get you back inside. The weed may have dulled your senses, but it’s fucking freezing out here.”
“I’m not high, Jake,” I argued as I unfurled myself from the chair. My head swam with dizziness, just like the time I rode the teacups at the carnival, but I refused to let him know that.
I made it three steps before the ground began to shift unevenly beneath my feet. I stumbled and managed to right myself just before falling again.
Jake caught me by the waist and guided me through the door. “Alright, Cheech. Let’s go.”
“But,” I protested. “But, my parents don’t know.” I waved at Bootsy as she peered out at me from under the kitchen table.
Sweet little thing. I just loved her to pieces.
“Don’t worry,” Jake said with a laugh. “It’ll be our little secret.” He kept his arm around my waist as he led me to my bed.
We’d had our first agreement and he was going to keep my secret. We may not have been friends, but at least we were no longer enemies.
Ten
“Shit,” I exclaimed, stubbing my toe on the edge of my dresser. “Shit, shit, shit.”
I’d overslept and was now either going to work with bedhead or sans caffeine. As I passed the bathroom mirror, I decided it was going to have to be the morning coffee. And I worked the long shift today.
I bent over and hit my head with several shots of dry shampoo, praying it was enough to take me from homeless drug addict to radiant rainforest goddess, like the commercial had implied.
I stood up to see several white patches of dry shampoo, but mostly it looked just as it had before. I ran my fingers through it hurriedly, hoping to distribute the powdered residue across my scalp.
“Shit,” I cursed again. Messy bun it was. I bent down again, gathering my thick hair into an elastic holder. Once I was satisfied that it would pass for work, I headed for my closet.
“Hayden?” There was a hesitant knock at the bedroom door.
“Um, not right now, Jake,” I panted as I worked to get the tight denim of my skinny jeans up over my hips.
The door burst open and my hands moved up and down simultaneously, trying and failing to cover all my exposed parts.
His own hand went up over his eyes. “Sorry. God, am I sorry. I thought you were getting high again. Next time, tell me you’re changing.”
I dropped my hands to hips. “Excuse me? How about next time don’t barge into someone’s bedroom! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m running late.” I finished shimmying into my jeans and walked into my closet for a shirt.
He followed me in, somehow keeping his eyes averted. “Late for what?” he asked the ceiling.
“Jake, I’m down here.”
He looked at my head before his gaze roved downward. “You’re late for—is that a cat tattooed on your hip?”
I snagged a t-shirt off the hanger. Today’s choice was three cats in space suits—catstronauts. I glanced down at my hip as I slipped it on. “Yeah, so?”
Jake let out a low chuckle. “You have a cat tattooed on your body. As if the shirts weren’t enough.”
I shrugged. “I don’t see what the big deal is. You have cattoos.”
He stayed on my heels as I moved around the bedroom, picking up various clothing and pillows in an attempt to find my shoes.
“You called them cattoos.”
I looked up at him. “No, I didn’t. I said tattoos, obviously.”
He shook his head with a smirk. “No, you didn’t. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? Your cattoo?”
“Jake, I’m really in a hurry.” My cheeks flamed, and I bent down to see that my shoes were under the bed. Right where I’d left them. I quickly slipped them on and ran into the kitchen to dump some dry food into Bootsy’s dish.
She popped out of her hiding spot only to scowl when she realized I wasn’t giving her the good stuff.
“I’m sorry, baby. Mommy’s running so late.”
She dismissed me with a flick of her tail and returned to her hiding spot under the couch.
Jake caught my arm before I made it to the front door. “Last time, why are you running out of here?”
“I have to go to work.”
Lines appeared on his forehead. “You work from home, don’t you?”
My arm heated under his grip and I swallowed thickly, unsure of what to tell him. “Um, well, I also work at a salon too.”
His eyebrows went up, and he nodded slightly. “It sounds like killing me off has worked out really well for you. Let me just grab my jacket.”
“Oh, no,” I protested. “That’s really not necessary. You’ll be bored out of your head.”
“I’m going with you. It’s not safe for you to be out on your own right now,” he called from the bedroom.
Somehow, in spite of the morning traffic, Jake got me to the salon with two minutes to spare. I tried to get a rundown of our script, but he just waved me inside and told me he’d handle it.
I slipped in the back door and made it up to the front without being seen. The next half hour was spent arranging the designer shampoos and conditioners and dusting along the shelves.
The owner, Shelley, had every wall painted dark red and adorned with mirrors. The ceiling was black, casting the entire salon in darkness, save for the iron sconces along the walls.
I’d decided not long after starting, that she’d been aiming for red room and landed somewhere in the vicinity of fourteenth-century dungeon. Which was definitely what you wanted when you were coloring hair.
Not only that, but the salon stayed open until two in the morning. If it was a good day, then the drunk college girls stayed at the bars. If it was a typical day, then they were staggering in with their girlfriends, demanding some extravagant service. Because nothing said good idea quite like a fifth of Jack and a pixie cut. These same girls would also throw the unholiest of fits if I couldn’t get them exactly what they demanded.
Unfortunately, it was the only business that paid what I needed and worked with my writing schedule. So, I learned to fake a smile and give them what they wanted.
“Morning, Hayden,” Kamdyn called
out as she unlocked her room.
She normally hung out at the front until her first client arrived. I frowned and followed her into her booth. “Hey, are you okay?”
She put her purse on the counter and turned around to face me. Her eyes were rimmed in red and it was obvious she’d been up crying most of the night.
“You were right. He dumped me.” Her voice squeaked as she fought off another round of tears. “By text.”
Kamdyn had been dating a guy for the last few months that was a perpetual man-child. She put all the effort into the relationship while he reaped the benefits. If she ever pushed for him to take the initiative, he’d guilt her with how many hours he’d put in at work or how much he had to get done around his place.
He’d shown up at the salon once, not to surprise Kamdyn, but to borrow some cash from her until he got paid. I’d gotten such a bad vibe from him that I’d encouraged her to drop him.
Like most rational people, she hadn’t taken my bad feeling as fact and continued dating him.
She pulled up the text and handed her phone off to me.
I’m sorry. I just can’t do this. Just leave my stuff on your porch.
“Just leave my stuff on your porch?” I repeated loudly. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t.”
She winced and nodded. “I thought it’d be easier for him to go with me at work—”
“No, Kamdyn. You burn his shit or toss it off an overpass, but you don’t just lie down and hand it over.”
I couldn’t fathom how she’d ended up in her current situation. She was tall and carried herself like an Amazonian princess, with long blonde hair and icy blue eyes. She had a great sense of humor and curves for days. I knew for a fact that, despite what most women thought, men (including my prick of a brother) loved a girl with meat on her bones.
She was the perfect package yet, like Aaris, she was constantly attracting losers.
Her lip started quivering again. “I—I just thought—”
I pulled her into a rough hug, feeling very much like the tiny hobbit that tall girls carried around in their pockets until something went wrong.
“You are safe. You are balanced. You are grounded. No, look at me.” She blinked through the tears. “You are worthy of all the good in the world. Listen, I gotta get back up front and unlock, but just remember that, okay?”
She nodded and dabbed at her eyes. “Thanks, Hayden. You always know just what to say.”
I left her with a box of tissues and jogged back up toward the counter, running smack dab into a warm body. “Oof,” I exhaled.
Large arms came up and pinned my biceps. “Hey, slow down, darling.”
I scrambled back at the sound of the voice. It was one of our regulars—regular sleazeball. Both he and his wife came in once a month, but never together. She had a look of displeasure permanently engraved onto her face but was generally polite and quiet. He, on the other hand, was a schmoozer. He’d flatter the girls with compliments before trying to grope their asses.
You know, a real gentleman.
I usually made a point of taking my lunch break when he came in so that I never had to interact with him. The stories I’d heard were bad enough. Worse, he was in politics. Shelley and her pinched face were against anything that might result in bad press for the salon. So, she ignored the complaints and catered to the bastard every time he came in.
I deftly sidestepped his arms and backed up toward the front doors. “I’m so sorry, Rob. I was in a hurry to get the doors unlocked and didn’t see you.” My words sank in and I slowly asked, “How did you get in?”
He gave me his megawatt smile and laughed. “I came in through the back door. I was told you girls wouldn’t mind.”
Gross.
Somehow, I kept the smile plastered to my face as I walked backward. He spotted Kamdyn and marched into her booth for a forced hug while I fled for the safety of the front doors.
Jake was waiting near one of the cement columns with two cups of coffee. He frowned when he saw my face. “What happened?”
I laughed nervously. “What do you mean? Nothing happened. I was just unlocking the doors. See, all unlocked. Everything’s fine.”
He quirked a brow but handed me a paper cup. “Half and half with a splash of coffee.”
I took it and pointed at his. “Coffee. Black. With two and a half raw sugars.”
The corner of his mouth turned up as he sat down on the grey microfiber couch. “Maybe,” he hedged.
The morning passed in a blur, with Jake blending in seamlessly with the clients. He sat with a magazine and sipped his coffee, watching the traffic come and go.
I buzzed all available stylists when a walk-in showed up just after noon, demanding a color and cut. Kamdyn popped up behind the desk seconds later.
“Spill it. What's her energy like?”
I clutched my chest to calm my racing heart. “Well, mine is a little startled. Thank you for asking. Hers is—uh, she’s okay. A little frantic.”
“Mmm...put her with Tori. You know she loves the drastic ones.”
I began entering her information into our system before assigning her to Tori. She loved college girls and their daddies’ credit cards.
“What’s going on?” Jake approached the desk.
Kamdyn’s face lit up, and she thrust a hand toward him. “Hi, I’m Kamdyn. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
He took her hand. “Jake.”
“Are you here for an appointment?” she fished. It appeared that after three hours, she had fully grieved the loss of her relationship.
“I came by to see Hayden, but I could use a trim. What do you think?” He lowered his head and Kamdyn’s hands went right for his hair.
It left me with a sudden urge to stake my claim.
Oh, I made that. It’s mine.
Please don’t touch it. It’s very expensive.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and turned back to the computer, craning my head ever so slightly to give them the side eye.
“You’ve got great hair, does anyone ever tell you that?”
Only every woman he meets.
“Only every woman I’ve ever met,” he answered with a smirk.
“I bet,” Kamdyn murmured as she continued to run her fingers through it. “So, are you Hayden’s brother… or cousin?”
Translation: Can I hook up with you to get over my broken heart?
“What would you say we are, Hayden?”
I gave up any pretense of typing and turned my chair toward them. “Um…” Bastard. He’d assured me that he had a cover. “Don’t you want to tell her?”
The pouty smirk was back. “Nah, I thought you would.”
When I grinned, his smirk faded slightly. “I absolutely would. I just didn’t know if it was okay to admit it to a stranger. I’m his AA sponsor.”
Kamdyn brought her hands back down to her sides slowly. Jake looked both amused and frustrated.
“It’s true,” I continued, like either one of them cared. “It’s my lot in life to make sure this big lug doesn’t hit the bottle again. And Jake, we talked about this; no dating your first year sober.”
He mouthed something that looked suspiciously like, who said anything about dating? When that failed to hit the mark, his eyebrows lowered and he bit out, “Why don’t you tell Kamdyn how you came to be my sponsor.”
“Yeah,” she added with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you have to be in AA yourself to become a sponsor?”
I nodded wisely. “Yes. I got into the liquor cabinet when I was sixteen and just.” I pantomimed drinking. “Hit the sauce. My parents found out and sent me to AA.”
Jake scratched at his jaw, clearly fighting to keep a straight face, while Kamdyn stood with her head cocked to the side.
“You’re telling me that your parents put you in Alcoholics Anonymous after you drank one time at sixteen?” she asked.
“Yes. They saw a problem and corrected it. Who knows where I would’ve ended up had they not interv
ened.” I was floundering and, judging by Jake’s closed eyes and shaking head, he knew it.
“It’s true,” he admitted, much to my surprise. “I’m Jake and I’m an alcoholic. I owe a debt of gratitude to Hayden. The speeches she made during AA were so inspiring—the time she relapsed and woke up naked on a seesaw at a playground or when—”
“We don’t need to bore her with all that, Jake,” I cut in. “Let’s leave some of it anonymous.”
Kamdyn frowned. “I don’t understand how you became a sponsor though. Is that something you just volunteer for?”
I shook my head. “No, you’ve got to start at the bottom and work up to sponsorship. There are twelve levels total—”
Jake grinned again. “Why don’t you tell her the levels?”
“That’s a great idea,” I forced through clenched teeth. “Um, well, you have the sweeper level. And then the coffee level. Which is, of course, followed by the donut level.”
Tori walked up, effectively saving me from having to BS my way through any more levels.
“What do we have?” she asked while surveying the front.
“Cut and color. Head’s up, she’s a little off.”
She leaned in. “What do you think?”
I watched the girl flip through a magazine, legs bouncing in anticipation. Her jet black hair hung almost to the seat.
“I think she’s going to want to go blonde; either that, or she’s going to want an off-the-wall color, which will still involve a lot of bleach.”
Tori nodded. “Thanks, babe. You’re the best.”
“What was that?” Jake asked.
“Oh,” Kamdyn replied. “Hayden’s like a psychic when it comes to people. She picks up on their energy.”
One brow lifted. “Really? That seems like a fun trick. What's my energy like?”
I shook my head and turned back to the computer, marking Tori as ‘unavailable’ for the next three hours. “I’m not-”
“Oh, come on! Read his energy. It’ll be fun!”
I knew Jake’s energy; I’d picked up on it the moment I let him into my apartment.
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