Chapter 12 Hazel
TWELVE
Hazel
Jackson greeted me with a loud groan and a tsking sound. “You have to style it, Hazel.”
I tried to push past him but he was already falling into step with me, taking his round brush and attempting to fluff out my bangs.
“I told you when you were cutting it that I would never style it.”
“I thought maybe you’d have some self-respect and change your mind once you saw my masterpiece. Have you no decency? You’re a stylist, for crying out loud. No one will want to work with you if you show up a hot mess.”
Natalie stepped away from her station, grabbed Jackson’s wrist and yanked it away from my mane. Then she pulled me away from his onslaught, toward the back of the salon.
“Ignore Jackson, he’s in a mood this morning,” she said.
“When is he not in a mood?” I muttered, flipping my bangs back out of my eyes.
“You all would be a lot more productive at your own stations,” Miranda called from the front, shooting us a disapproving glance. She hated when we lingered, our conversation increasing in volume as we got more animated. But she also never did anything about it. Not really.
“How are you?” Natalie whispered, appeasing Miranda by taking half a step backward toward her own station. I set down my bag and checked the time. My client was a few minutes late, but she’d texted to say that’d be the case.
“I’m fine. Getting by.”
She jutted out her bottom lip. “Any updates?”
Jackson caught up to us, making a move to stick his brush back in my hair, but I jerked away.
“Not really,” I said, giving him a warning glare. “But we’re working on a few suspects.”
“No word on how the little guy is doing?” Jackson asked, finally dropping his hands and leaving my hair alone.
“Nope.” I’d asked for another proof of life picture this morning but hadn’t received a response yet.
“What a monster,” Jackson said, as he plugged in a curling iron.
I shot him a warning look. “Don’t even think about coming near me with that thing. My client will be here any second.”
“All the more reason to look presentable.”
I rolled my eyes, but a few seconds later when the tool heated up, I let him curl my front pieces. Resisting him was futile at this point.
Once my first client came in, it was easy to tune out the noise in my head for an hour while I worked on her cut.
It felt good to get lost in the art of getting someone’s hair just right.
An added bonus was that this client in particular was a talker.
All I had to do was nod, lend a sympathetic ear, and ask her, “What’s new,” and she filled the silence with ease.
It was refreshing to hear about someone else’s troubles and pretend like my own didn’t exist for a little while.
Most of my clients were loyal ones. They’d followed me even though I’d been at three different salons in the past two years.
Some might say that the changes made me look flighty or unprofessional, but my clients still sought me out every time.
I chose to take that as a sign I did a halfway decent job.
And hopefully this salon stuck. Even though I’d only been here a few months, something about it made me want to stay.
I was comfortable here. I could be myself.
After three clients back to back, I plopped down in my chair and took a sip of the beverage Jackson had picked up for me earlier.
I winced. Matcha? I’d told him a dozen times it wasn’t my cup of tea—literally—but he maintained I just hadn’t had a good one yet.
I braced myself for the second sip, but it wasn’t that bad. Was that vanilla syrup?
“Hey, Hazel,” a soft voice drifted behind me.
I turned to find Ruby standing there, shifting back and forth in her bright white tennis shoes.
“Oh, hey.” I smiled at her. “I didn’t think you were coming in today.”
“I had a last-minute request this afternoon.” She chewed on her lip, and I stared at her, waiting for her to say something. It wasn’t like Ruby to be so quiet.
“Did you need something?” I asked.
Jackson, stopped talking, the highlight brush in his right hand poised above his client’s hair. He didn’t need to glance in our direction for me to know he was eavesdropping.
Ruby tipped her head back and groaned. “See, I told him this would be forced and awkward.”
My shoulders tensed. “What would be forced and awkward?”
“Me, bringing this up.” She let out a huff. “It’s Reid. He asked me to talk to you,” she said.
Now my whole body stiffened. Reid asked Ruby to talk to me? “This isn’t about the apartment thing, is it?” I asked, already knowing it likely was.
She nodded and winced. “He wanted me to tell you that he truly isn’t a creep, and that his town house is huge. His guest bedroom is basically like a hotel. It wouldn’t be weird at all—I swear, this is all him making me tell you this. I’m not trying to pressure you into staying there.”
The part about him not being a creep made me smile.
As if I needed Ruby’s seal of approval to know that.
The way we’d spent last night watching romcoms and eating takeout—without him making even the slightest move—was all the proof I needed.
I already trusted Reid more than any other man in my life right now.
Not a challenging feat to accomplish, but still.
“I told him I’m fine. I can’t believe he bugged you to talk to me.”
She twisted a long lock of blonde hair between her fingers. It was hard not to be caught off guard by how pretty Ruby was. She certainly wasn’t ever on the receiving end of any of Jackson’s lectures about looking presentable.
“He told me about the letters,” she admitted.
“What letters?” Jackson asked. His client, a woman somewhere north of fifty, peered out from behind her layers of hair. Great. Guess I was in charge of entertainment at the salon today.
“Threatening ones,” Ruby continued, completely comfortable airing my business for everyone to hear. “From the guy who’s blackmailing Hazel. They’ve been sending them to her apartment.”
“Or woman,” I muttered, although I had a hard time believing there was any weight to Reid’s theories that Kiara or Mrs. Edenbury could be suspects. “But again, this person has been so sloppy, there’s no way I’m in actual danger.”
“Reid said he even stopped by the police station this morning to see if the letters would add anything to your case. They added it to the report, but they said without substantial proof of a credible threat, they couldn’t do anything.”
My jaw dropped. “He went to the police?”
She shrugged. “I think he feels a little helpless. He loves a mystery, and he loves helping, but he doesn’t love that this one isn’t the easiest to crack. Also, he hates the idea that you could be in danger.”
Ugh, Reid. Why did he have to be so freaking sweet?
“I’m fine. And it’s not really his fault we aren’t making much progress. There’s basically nothing to go on.”
“You can stay with me,” Jackson offered.
“Um…that’s nice of you,” I said after a pause, racking my brain for how to turn him down politely.
“It’s only a studio, and I’m not giving up the right to have guys over, but the couch is yours if you want it.”
“Oh wow, that’s generous,” I said gnawing on my lip. I would absolutely not be crashing on Jackson’s couch.
“You really shouldn’t stay at your house if you’ve got a stalker,” his client chimed in. “A girlfriend of mine had the same thing happen—threatening letters, the sicko even sent flowers. She brushed it off too, until one day he finally broke in.”
Jackson gasped. “What happened?”
“Thankfully she beat him off with an old lacrosse stick, but it could have been bad. Even after the break-in, she had a hard time getting a restraining order.”
My heart sank as she continued to regale us with the details. Was I being too nonchalant about this? Was I the dumb bitch in a horror movie who got picked off first? I didn’t want to be the woman everyone was screaming at to take a threat more seriously.
“Okay, that settles that. Hazel couldn’t fight off anyone with anything,” Jackson said with a frown. “There’s no way you can stay there by yourself.”
I opened my mouth to protest but snapped it shut when three sets of determined—and slightly judgmental—eyes stared back at me.
I’d never even taken so much as a self-defense class. Unless I could pin an intruder underneath my massive grandfather clock, or assault him with glass figurines, I was pretty much screwed.
I sighed in defeat.
Reid was right.
“You have no idea how happy I am that you changed your mind.” Reid stood in his doorway, his hair messy and damp from a recent shower. A loose black t-shirt and sweatpants hung off his tall frame. He looked comfortable in a way I hadn’t seen him before.
“Ruby is right behind me,” I added.
At the end of the day, when I’d weighed my options, Reid’s guest bedroom sounded a hell of a lot better than Jackson’s couch.
Once I’d made the decision to take him up on his offer, Ruby had suggested she come by tonight too, just to make things more comfortable.
I appreciated the sentiment, but stepping into Reid’s house wasn’t nearly as unsettling as I’d expected it to be.
There was a sense of ease between us, a kind of quiet solace I didn’t usually find so quickly with people.
Plus, I liked spending time with Reid. A lot.
“This all you brought?” he asked, eyeing my backpack.
“My bigger suitcase is in the car. I was hoping you could grab it for me.” I blinked up at him.
“On it,” he said, rushing down his steps, not even bothering to throw on shoes.
I lingered by the door, trying to peek down the hallway to get an idea of the place. He must have really thought my apartment was a shithole if he lived here. There was more square footage in his front entryway than I had in my entire living room.
“Come in, come in,” he said, dragging my rolling suitcase behind him.
I stepped inside and he closed the door.