Page 71 of Unlikely
25
ZARA
“Your two thirty is here,” Georgie, the junior stylist, says as I finish blowing out my client’s hair.
I glance up at the large clock on the wall, noticing Clementine is fifteen minutes early. Thankfully, my day has stayed on schedule enough that she won’t be waiting too long.
“Do you want me to bring her in?” Georgie asks.
Shaking my head, I switch off the hair dryer and place it on my cart. I run my hands through the ends of my client’s hair and bring the strands over her shoulder, making sure her new cut is even.
Grabbing my handheld mirror, I hold it behind her head so she can see the back of her hair through the reflection. “What do you think?”
She angles her head to the left and then to the right, the smile on her face enough to make me feel confident that I managed to get her hair to look exactly the way she wanted. Even after more than a decade, I will almost always tie myself in unnecessary knots over the end result.
It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been doing it, hair is such a personal preference, with such a public audience, there is no room to get it wrong. Especially in the day and age of social media, because if you’re not careful, someone is blasting you on the internet somewhere, ruining your reputation.
It’s been a while since someone has left my chair unhappy, though, and as my gaze quickly scans the salon for Clementine, I hope it stays that way.
Georgie takes my current client to the front of the salon to finalize their payment, and instead of waiting for Georgie to bring the woman I’ve been wanting to see all day through to my chair, like she usually does, I follow her to the waiting area, surprising Clementine.
She rises to her feet, smile restrained. “Hey.”
From the look on her face, I’m not surprised when she places a hand on my chest when I lean in to kiss her. “Everything okay?”
“I think everyone is staring at us,” she whispers.
“Is that a problem?” I ask, my own lips now starting to curve.
“I don’t know, is it?”
“No.” I laugh. “Unless you don’t want to kiss me?”
“I didn’t know if you had rules or something like that at work.”
Besides Raine seeing Clementine’s hair and her knowing that I did it, there’s a chance Raine could come in and someone would joke with her about her mother’s new girlfriend. But the specifics and connection between the two would be lost on everyone here. And, quite frankly, I’m only a few conversations short from telling Raine myself that I’m in a committed relationship, because as far as I’m concerned, that’s where my head and heart are right now. Committed to Clementine.
My hands find her waist and bring her to me, less than an inch of space between us. “Stop worrying and kiss me.”
It’s too quick and makes me miss her in my arms almost instantly. We’ve been doing our best to see each other whenever we can, but we’ve only managed the night at On The Horizon and today, both still not enough for me, and I don’t know if it ever would be.
I want the stability and routine of knowing when and where we would see one another. I want that small hole in my chest to close up entirely, instead of gradually getting bigger the more serious things become.
Hand in hand, I walk her through the salon, and just like she said, everyone is glancing our way. Ignoring them, I gesture for her to take a seat at my station. Georgie is quick to follow, draping a cape over her and asking what she would like to drink.
Clementine’s cheeks fill with that familiar shade of pink, and I know she’s a little bit uncomfortable with all the attention being on her. When Georgie walks away, I catch her gaze in the mirror and run my fingers through her hair. “Is there anything specific you have in mind that you want to do?”
She shrugs. “This really just started out as an excuse for me to talk to you without Raine being suspicious, remember?”
“Okay, so maybe a cut? Or a color?” I probe.
“You decide,” she says with confidence. “I trust you.”
“Are you sure?” I smile. “The last time someone gave me full control, I shaved all their hair off.”
“You did what?” she gasps. “I hope they liked the end result.”
“Well, Leo, Raine’s papa, didn’t care,” I tell her. “But since we did it to piss Jesse off because he loves Leo’s hair, someone didn’t like the end result.”