Page 6 of No More Hiding
“Vivian gets all the hot guys,” one of the women said. She looked to be the youngest for sure.
“Don’t be jealous, Jenna,” the one with the funky hair said.
“I’m not jealous,” Jenna said. “It’s just you get all the luck. Or Cat does. And Hannah has Cash.”
Okay, he got their names. Vivian, Cat, Jenna and Hannah.
Why he cared was beyond him. Too many years of gathering facts and data, a habit that was hard to stop.
He went back to the chair he got his cut in, and Vivian dried his hair with the towel. “You don’t strike me as a product guy.”
“What?” he asked. “No. Just comb it and I’m good to go.” She did that, took his smock off and he stood. When they got to the front, he asked what he owed, gave her a hefty tip and left feeling somewhat like his old self for the first time in almost a year.
2
Magical Fingers
“Wow,” Cat said. “What was that?”
“What do you mean?” Vivian asked as she swept up Brent’s hair.
“That guy. He looked as if he’s been living in a bomb shelter for a year,” Cat said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “You guys were all embarrassing him.”
Jenna smiled and went to their candy stash drawer. She was the youngest of the group and always had a coffee or snack in her hand when she wasn’t with clients. “He was so hot. I wish I’d seen him before you got your hands on him.”
“Those magical fingers,” Hannah said, wiggling her eyebrows.
Hannah owned the shop Vivian had worked at for a year and a half now and Hannah had grown up in the area. Cat was from Boston and Jenna from a small town about twenty minutes away.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been told that before,” Vivian said. “I bet you have been though for years.”
“People come from miles to get my hands on them,” Hannah said smirking. “Too bad it’s only for work.”
“The stories I could tell you guys about some of the men that came into the places I worked,” Cat said.
Cat always had stories to share. “I want to say I’m shocked you remember, but none of us can forget your weekend in the City.”
“Tell us again,” Jenna said. “You closed bars down, right, when you’re partying?”
Catherine “Cat” O’Leary could drink any man under the table and whiskey was her specialty. As she said, she was sipping it out of the bottle back in Ireland where she was born. Vivian wasn’t so sure of that, but she wouldn’t doubt it if it happened to be true.
“Skipper was jamming on the drums all night long. He’d sent me a wink when I was at the bar and said my hair set him on fire and he had to get to know me.”
Cat was also the loudest of the group, not only in voice but appearance. Back then, she’d had multi-colored hair resembling flames down her back. Vivian had done it for Cat and was proud of the final product.
“And you spent the rest of your vacation with him,” Jenna said, sighing. “He came back to see you for a few months too.”
Jenna was impressionable and wished she could work up the courage to leave her parents’ home. Vivian was sure it wouldn’t happen anytime soon. But Jenna said more than once she lived through her coworkers.
Vivian didn’t think anyone should live through her, but she couldn’t exactly say that to them either.
All they knew was that she’d lived in Chicago for years and was raised by her grandparents, who were no longer with her.
She’d been on her own for three years, and when her grandfather died two years after her grandmother, she couldn’t stay another day there.
They’d given her a new life and it was time to take that and move on to start her life over.