Aaron: It’s already started, Blue baby. Best you can do now is hold tight and enjoy the ride.
Of course,Aaron’s friends made it so that I could have my cake and eat it too.
Rooster expected me to work at Eugene’s to gather intel about The Fallen and the underworld of the Sea to Sky so I would work there three nights a week, Thursday through Saturday. But from ten to six, Monday to Thursday, I’d be a cosmetologist at Lin’s Beauty Emporium.
How fucking cool was that?
Lin had only recently branched into offering hair styling services, and I was her second hire there, so I had my own chair and station in the salon. When I had gaps in the schedule, I’d do nails and makeup for special events.
It might have seemed like such a little thing to anyone else, but when I walked in that first Monday morning and saw my station with an ice-coloured neon sign that readBlue, festooned in blue and silver balloons with a card sitting on the white countertop that read ‘Blue Baby,’ I burst into tears.
Lin was the only other person there that early, and after giving me a brief hug, she busied herself with opening shop so I could have the semblance of privacy to read Aaron’s card.
Blue,
Don’t think Lin’ll go easy on you. Already got half the club’s Old Ladies booked in to see you this week ’cause they’re all nosy as hell. They’re harmless, for the most part…just avoid Harleigh Rose if you can. She’ll have you confessin’ all your sins before her nails are dry. Wish I could be there to see you shine your pretty light on everyone you leave a little more beautiful today, but I got a vivid imagination, so I figure I’ll be alright.
Happy for you, my girl.
ABC.
I blinked downat the chicken scratch scrawl, thinking it was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.
“Hey, Lin? Do you have any magnets?” I called.
A few minutes later, the card was in the corner of the rounded mirror at my station. I took a selfie sitting in the chair, surrounded by the balloons Aaron had bought, smiling into my reflection and sent it to him.
Blue: A document of the happiest moment in my life.
It was later, at a more forgiving hour of the morning, when I was just finishing with my first client, an older woman who worked at the local library, when Aaron responded.
Aaron: We gotta work on that. You deserve a whole life’a happy.
The other girl who did hair was a few years older than me, but she was an outgoing, happy-go-lucky woman named Mal with blonde-tipped dreadlocks and flawless dark skin. She had me singing along to Taylor Swift by the time I was done with my morning clients and had to head to the nail station for my next appointment.
That was how he saw me when he came ambling through the doors, eyes closed, a bottle of gel polish held like a mini microphone in one hand as I sang the lyrics to “Gorgeous.”
When I opened my lids at the sound of the chair scraping against the floor on the other side of my station, Aaron was sitting in it, elbows braced on the table, tattooed, ring-laden hands fisted under his chin.
My breath arrested in my lungs, struck by his sheer beauty.
God, I’d almost forgotten how terribly gorgeous he was in the few days since I’d last seen him.
Those dark eyes gleamed like water on a moonlit night as he grinned at me.
“Hey, happy girl,” he said softly.
It took me a full second to recover my wits. When I did, I looked around the salon as if any of the White Raiders would be lying in wait.
“Aaron,” I hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“I lied. My imagination wasn’t good enough. Had to see you in your element,” he declared. “Glad I did ’cause I’ve never seen happiness look so fuckin’ good on anyone else.”
Some of my panic dissolved in his sweetness. “It’s not safe to be seen together. Rooster keeps an eye on me. Does random drive-bys.”
Aaron raised his dark brows, opening his palms for me. “He drives by, all he’ll see is a guy in desperate need’a a little self-care.”
I gaped at him. “Are you seriously suggesting I do your nails?”
