Page 47 of Stirring Up Trouble
“There’s a training school for stylists around the corner from the mall. The highlights are only temporary—they wash out in a couple of shampoos, and they offered to do them free with her haircut. They’re not that much different from her natural color, so I didn’t think it was such a big deal. In fact, I thought you’d be happy.”
“Happy?” The word reeked of sarcasm, but Gavin made no effort to rein it in. “You thought I’d be happy about the fact that she looks like she’s eighteen? You’ve got to be joking!” Temporary or not, thirteen was way too young for hair color. Those shampoos needed to start happening, pronto.
Before he could draw enough breath to tell her to get scrubbing, Bree threw her hands up with a shout, startling the hell out of him.
“Are you ever going to stop treating me like a baby? It’s my head, and I’m standing righthere!”
He slashed a hand through his hair in frustration, but refused to budge on the argument. “I know you’re not a baby, Bree, but you’re not an adult, either. You can’t just run around getting makeovers like you’re grown up.”
A niggling thought trickled into his consciousness, and the entirety of what Sloane had said hit Gavin like a delayed reaction.
He turned to narrow his eyes at her. “Wait. You said the highlights were free. Where exactly did you get the money for the rest of this little excursion?”
Sloane’s wince was so slight, he would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been staring her down. “From the cabinet in the kitchen.”
“The money I left for emergencies?” It was all he could do to drag in a deep breath and let her answer.
“Yes.”
He turned toward Bree, reaching for as much calm as he could muster under the circumstances. “Go to bed. I need a word with Sloane in private.”
“But—”
“I’m not arguing with you about this.” His tone sounded as frostbitten as he felt, but his cool was bound to be short-lived if he kept looking at this transformed version of her. “We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
“What’s the point?” Her knuckles flashed in a thin string of bright white as she tightened her fists at her sides, and every ounce of progress they’d made over the course of the week evaporated into thin air.
“You never let me do anything, anyway! Don’t even bother grounding me. I’m not coming out of my roomever!”
Before Gavin could tell her to stop overreacting, she ran down the hall toward her room, punctuating her departure with a bone-jarring slam of her door.
Which left him alone in the living room with Sloane.
“Gavin, I’m sorry. I just thought—”
He stopped her apology midbreath, unable to hold back. “You didn’tthinkat all! Hair color? Makeup? There’s nothing about this that’s okay.”
Sloane bit her lower lip hard enough to leave two crescent-shaped indentations in the curve of pink skin. “It’s only a little lip gloss and temporary hair color. They’re both easily undone.”
“But your bad judgment isn’t,” he pressed, taking an angry step closer. “You’re supposed to be taking care of her, not stirring up trouble. Just because you go through life like there aren’t any freaking rules doesn’t mean it’s how her life should be.”
“I said I was sorry.” Although Sloane’s words were nothing more than a whisper, they assaulted his senses as if she’d bellowed them like a drill sergeant.
He snapped, “Sorry isn’t good enough!”
Sloane flinched visibly, and the rest of his anger jammed to a halt in his throat. But rather than apologize again or back down, she met his gaze head-on.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe the way I do things makes me a crappy candidate for a babysitter, and maybe I did use poor judgment when I took Bree to the mall without asking you first. But that kid opened herself up to you tonight. I might not know squat about how to raise a thirteen-year-old, but let me tell you what Idoknow. If you push her away for the sake of what you think sheshouldbe doing, she’s going to shut you out completely, and you won’t ever get her back.”
Gavin stood, stunned into silence by Sloane’s words as she picked up her things in a swift grab and walked toward the door.
“And you can trust me one hundred percent on that.”
* * *
Gavin knewhe should make his feet move, that in spite of how much she probably hated him right now, he should go check on Bree, or dosomething. But he couldn’t remove himself from his spot in the living room.
No way had he pushed Bree away. If anything, it had been the other way around. And anyway, it was his job as her guardian to consider her well-being. She couldn’t just throw on makeup and get her hair colored on a whim, no matter how subtle and natural-looking the result might be. She was thirteen, for Chrissake!