3. Darling
CHAPTER 3
Darling
B reathing through my nerves as I wait for the Baker boys to arrive, I nearly breathe myself into hyperventilating and passing out before I pop a Warhead candy into my mouth and suck until my heart and brain reset. It’s an old trick my psychiatrist taught me shortly after meeting her. The candy is so sour it shocks the parts of my body stuck in panic and anxiety into forgetting what’s happening.
Once I’m breathing normally again and don’t feel like I’m stuck inside an old oil barrel with no way out, I take a drink of my caramel latte and focus on my task checklist. Marking things off as finished helps keep me on track. Having something to focus on allows my body to work on autopilot without worrying about being overwhelmed.
“Good morning, Darling!” Linda sings as she enters through the front door. “How was your night?”
Handing her the other latte that I stopped to get on my way in, I reply, “Good. Grabbed some Chinese takeout on my way home, caught the last period of the Bears game, and read the next chapter in the thriller book I’ve been reading for too many weeks.”
“Yeah? Great. But what I’m dying to know is when you’re going to start dating, hmmm. Dan and I have been married so long, I forget what all the fuss is about. I need to live vicariously through you girls.” She exaggerates batting her long, dark lashes at me.
“No prospects in sight, sadly. I don’t even know what I like in a man.” She rolls her eyes at me.
“Well. That’s depressing,” she mutters while shaking her head and going to her office to work on this week’s payroll.
Two more employees are scheduled to work today. There are no walk-ins on Saturdays, only appointments, so I’m not concerned about it getting too busy with the three of us.
As I finish readying the salon for the day by making fresh coffee, stocking the customer fridge with drinks, and picking the aging fruit out of the fruit bowl, I’ve moved on to tidying up the magazines when I hear the door open.
I glance back quickly to see two teenage boys walking in and figure these are Mary’s sons. “Hi guys, have a seat, and I’ll be right with you.”
They grunt and sit while scrolling through their phones.
I pop into the office and tell Linda, “Hey, my first clients are here.”
She glances up with a furrowed brow. Linda hates the paperwork aspect of the job. “Are you convinced to buy in yet? You’re younger; you could do the paperwork, your mind being spry and all.”
Laughing at her grumpy attitude, I shake my head. “Like you’d give up that kind of control.”
Her demeanour becomes intense, and she says, “I’m serious, Darling. I can’t run this place forever, and I’d rather you have it than some chain salon.” My jaw drops. I always thought she was teasing. “Think about it. Half our clients come here because of you.”
“I will.” Stunned, I walk back out front, wondering if I could even afford it.
“Hey, guys, sorry about that. Come on back, and we’ll get started.” I don’t know if they recognize me, so I don’t mention anything. “So, which of you is Tyler?”
The taller one, with blond, slightly curly hair, raises his hand. “Me.” He pockets his phone and sits in the chair that I indicate. “I just want a trim, and I need some new styling gel. The stuff I have lasts an hour at most, then my curls look more like I stuck my finger in a toaster.”
Evan snorts from the chair next to Tyler.
“Dad wants to know what kind of drink you’d like from Timmie’s?” Evan’s question is directed at me.
“Oh, no, nothing for me. I still have my latte. Thank you.”
I start cutting Tyler’s hair while asking him how he styles it so I can suggest the products he would like. As I clean him up, ensuring everything is even, I hear the door again, expecting it to be Cassie, but rather, it’s a tall drink of a man most women would like to climb like a tree.
“Be with you in a minute,” I call out.
His masculine chuckle makes my body shiver in ways it shouldn’t. Biting the inside of my cheek so I don’t whimper or give away my attraction, I refocus on Tyler.
“All right, Tyler, what do you think?”
Spinning him around, I show him the back view with a hand mirror reflecting off my station’s mirror.
“You even got the curls right,” he marvels as a slow smile accentuates a dimple on his right cheek that I remember from when we were kids.
“Looks good, son,” the man says as he stands next to me. My skin prickles with awareness, and it suddenly hits me.
This is Cort Baker.
My former stepdad.
A man I used to call fake daddy to tease him.
Oh, dear lord. I’ve got the hots for my mom’s ex-husband.
“Better than the guy you take me to,” Tyler teases Cort. “Think you might need to sit in Darling’s chair.” He winks, and Cort’s eyes wander over to me in the mirror, rolling up and down my body in appreciation.
“Yeah, I think you’re right.” He scrubs a hand along his jaw. “Think you got time today for another wash and cut?”
Clearing my throat, I dip my head and move to clean my instruments before answering. “Once I’m finished with Evan’s cut and consult, I’m sure I can.”
“Consult?”
I peek up to see Cort grimacing at his younger son.
“Mary told me Evan wants to colour his hair and asked me to talk him through the process to figure out what his options would be.” I’m reticent because even though I knew this family for a time, I won’t step between parents over their child’s hair choices.
“Right, she told me that. Why, Ev?” Cort asks as the boy slips into my chair.
Can I even call him a boy? Sure, I’m seven or eight years older than him, but he’s almost half a foot bigger than me.
“I wanted something different. Thought colour might be it.” Evan's cheeks pinken, and I sense this might be over a girl.
“Nothing crazy,” Cort replies as he moves to sit in the chair that Evan vacated, while Tyler moves to the waiting room.
“Sure thing, Dad.”
I stifle a chuckle at Evan’s cheeky grin.
“Don’t let him talk you into anything outrageous,” Cort warns me. There’s this look in his eyes that causes me to blush.
I wonder if he recognizes me.
I notice the attraction in Cort’s eyes and realize I can’t keep up my silence. He needs to know who I am, and I need to be shaken out of this attraction because it’s forbidden in the most taboo sort of way.
“So, Mary told me you were still into gaming, Evan. What do you like to play?” I feel Cort’s inquisitive eyes on me. Did she tell him?
“Madden is my favourite. I’m not any good at playing the sport, but I can game myself into the Super Bowl.” He chuckles at his own joke.
“You always were good at any games we played.” I smile and glimpse the recognition in his eyes.
“Yeah! Mom told me about you, showed me some pictures, but I didn’t remember much. You always made cayenne popcorn and swamp water during our tournaments.”
“I forgot about those.” They were some of the best memories during our time together. Our parents would give the three of us one weekend a month to eat junk food and play video games until the boys went home on Sundays. “Good times,” I murmur.
“Darling Lavigne,” Cort murmurs. “Jesus.” He sits back and swipes his hands up and down his face. “I didn’t recognize you.” Sitting forward, he watches me intently as his eyes roam my body like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“I wasn’t sure if Mary would have told you, but I didn’t feel comfortable not telling you, but then I wasn’t sure how to tell you, and well, now here we are, I guess.” I bite my lip to stop the rambling.
Evan snickers from the chair where I’ve paused so I don’t screw up his cut. “We wondered what happened to you,” he says.
“We moved into Edmonton for a while, then Spruce Grove, before I came back to The Park, and I’ve been here ever since.” I smile, keeping all the horrible things secured behind the wall I’ve built in my mind in order to function properly.
“That’s cool,” Evan replies as I continue working on his hair.
A few minutes pass, and Cort still watches me with an intensity I’ve never felt before. I finish up with Evan in blissful silence until Cassie and Emily arrive minutes before their first clients.
Once Evan has approved his cut, I sit with him as we review the colouring process and what I think would look good on him versus what he wants. I already know the electric blue isn’t something Cort would approve of, so I talk him down to a dark blue that shifts to black in certain lighting.
As soon as Cort sits in my chair, our eyes meet in the mirror, and shockingly, I still see the attraction in his eyes. Mine simmers beneath the surface as my heart races when I touch his hair.
Cort doesn’t really need a cut. I think his infatuation with me is what inspired this. I give him a quick trim, then escort him to the sink for a wash that takes twice as long because I enjoy massaging his scalp entirely too much.
By the time I finish, get Evan booked for later in the week, and they’ve paid, I feel the need for the world's coldest shower to calm my body down.