5.0
Three weeks pass before I notice I've stopped keeping count.
Three weeks of Kian showing face at the shop more, lingering in the doorway. Three weeks of me not flinching when I feel his eyes on me while I'm mid-silk press. Three weeks of letting the idea of "more" sit beside me without telling it to leave.
The salon moves through its evening rituals.
Dryers click off one by one; capes get snapped loose, hair sweeping the floor like black confetti.
The music drops to that low RB hum we always use to coax the last clients out.
On the barber side, you can hear clippers winding down, men slapping each other's shoulders, somebody cracking a joke about a bad hairline and catching a chorus of "you wild."
"Goodnight, Mira," Rina calls, wringing out a towel. "Text me if you want me to open tomorrow; Kian said he might switch the hours."
"I'll let you know," I say, spritzing Barbicide off my combs.
She peeks at me with that look-nosy but kind-then decides to save it for tomorrow and waves on her way out. The bell chimes behind her, small and final.
I move through the muscle memory of closing. Wipe mirrors. Line up brushes. Sweep. Check the backbar-hear protectant, edge control, mousse all tucked in neat rows.
From the barber side, Julian leans into the doorway, cape slung over his shoulder like a sash. "Im out. Don't lock yourself in with Loverboy."
"Go away," I deadpan, hiding a smile.
He grins, blows me a ridiculous kiss, and disappears. The bell chimes again. Quieter now. Fewer voices. Another click. And then, just the soft drone of the AC and the flicker of the open sign reflecting off the glass.
The office door in back is open a crack.
I can hear the faint murmur of Kian's voice, low and even, then the hush of a drawer closing.
Papers slide, a chair rolls, the sound of a zip bag being tucked into something more respectable.
He's in manager mode-owner mode-whatever you want to call it when a man who's not an accountant balances numbers like they're living things.
I run the broom one more pass just to delay the thing that's already happening.
"Leave it," he says from the doorway, and I turn to see him there-cap low, gray tee pulling over his shoulders, chain tucked. He's fresh from the back, that faint clean-wood-and-cologne scent catching a ride on the AC.
He steps in like evening belongs to him. It kind of does. When Kian is in the room, the air changes temperature by a degree or two. It's not dramatic. Just enough to make you aware of your own skin.
"Everybody out?" he asks, eyes flicking down the row of empty chairs.
"Rina left. Julian, too. Jamal left ten minutes ago. You're late to the party."
"Owner's perk." He taps the back of my chair with two fingers, casual. "Come here."
"No." It's reflex-half-joke, half-boundary.
He takes the chair anyway and turns it toward him, sits, spreads his knees like comfort is a language. Then he crooks a finger at me, not quite a command, not quite a question. His voice drops a half step. "Come here."
I should make him wait. I should stack my combs in size order or check the petty cash tin I already closed, just to prove I'm still the one running my own life.
But the day is heavy on my shoulders; my hands still hum from heat and hair and small talk, and there's a piece of me that wants to end it with not having to think.
I walk over slow. He watches like he has all night.
When I'm close enough, he slides his palms up the backs of my thighs and pulls me into his lap like he's done it a hundred times-because he has.
The chair creaks in a way that would annoy me with anyone else.
With him, it turns into this stupid small thrill that I hate admitting I feel.
His hands settle-one at my waist, one splayed warm over my knee-anchoring, not pinning. I can get up if I want to; we both know that.
"You look tired," he says, like it's something he can fix with touch.
"I had back to back clients all day," I say.
We're quiet for a beat that feels longer than it is. Out on the street, a Honda with a bad muffler flexes too loud and keeps going. The open sign hums. Somewhere a dryer ticks as it cools, like a cricket that wandered inside.
Kian tucks a curl behind my ear, thumb dragging along the slope of my cheek, slow and absent, like he's getting me used to the idea of being looked at.
He does that-goes quiet and lets his hands do the talking.
It's part of why people think he's soft.
He isn't. He just saves his words for when they count.
"Give me a chance," he says finally, voice low. No preamble. No speech. "For real this time. A date date. Not me pulling up after hours. Not your couch in the dark while we pretend the movie ain't finishing itself."
I roll my eyes but my chest tightens like I've been bracing for this exact sentence. "What does a date look like in your head?"
"Pick you up. Open your door. Feed you something good. Take you somewhere I don't bring just anybody." He squeezes my knee once, and it's less a squeeze than a promise. "Let you see how I move when it's not just...this."
"This?" I echo.
His eyes flick me up and down, lazy. "Yeah. This."
My mouth is already forming a no that isn't a no. He reads it and leans in, mouth near my throat like he's just checking the temperature. "Just one chance, Mira," he says into my skin. "If you hate it, you ain't gotta humor me again."
He smells like cedar and something darker underneath. The way he says my name slides down my spine and pools low in my stomach, not fireworks-more like embers. Warm. Dangerous if you blow on them.
"Tomorrow?" he asks, and it's almost a challenge. "You free?"
"Tomorrow is short notice," I deflect, even though my calendar is mostly blocks of clients and a mental list of toddler snacks.
"I know a guy who can get you in anywhere," he says, and it's cocky, it's a joke, and for some reason it makes me want to smile and shake my head in the same breath.
"I have to line up childcare," I say, because that's the real answer and because I like the weight of saying it out loud. I've built a life that doesn't bend easy. That's not a flaw.
He nods like he respects that more than he wants to. "You need help, I'll-"
"No," I cut in, gentle but firm. "I've got it."
He lets that sit, then grins, resigned. "Course you do."
For a second, neither of us moves. His fingers toy with the hem of my smock, then slip beneath to the cotton tank I threw on this morning without thinking anyone would see me in it this late. The pad of his thumb drifts along the inside of my wrist, and a little pulse there gives me away.
"You saying yes?" he asks finally, lifting his eyes back to mine.
"I'm saying I'll see."
He breathes out a victory like it's a secret and pushes a kiss to the corner of my mouth. "Say less."
I don't know if he means it the way I hear it, but the phrase is a promise all its own. Less pressure. Less guessing games. Less of me convincing myself I don't like being wanted.
The street outside catches a siren and then lets it go. Inside the shop, it's just us and the soft whirring quiet that machines make when they're tired but not off.
He laughs under his breath, then catches my mouth with his like he's been patient long enough.
It's not a show kiss-no audience, no need to prove anything.
It's exactly what it is: warm, unhurried, familiar enough to soften me at the edges, different enough tonight to feel like the first page of a new chapter I might dog-ear.
I kiss him back because it's simple and because it doesn't have to mean more than it does-not yet. His hand slides up, cradles the back of my neck. Not claiming. Placing. "Tomorrow," he murmurs when we break, breath brushing my lips. "Eight. I'll text you."
"You'll text me where we're going," I say, deadpan. "So i'll know what to wear."
He laughs, head tipping back. "I thought it was just you'll see. Now it's I need to text you where we're going."
I fought with a smile that was trying to creep up on my face. "We need to finish closing."
He nods, but doesn't move me off him. Instead, he slides his hands down my thighs and then lifts-effortless, like I weigh less in his head than I do in the world-and sets me on my feet. It's stupid, the way that lands. Stupid and unfair and exactly the kind of thing that used to make me sprint.
I don't sprint anymore. I walk.
We move through the last motions together. He flips the deadbolt, I count the drawer, he pulls the mats, I wipe the backbar. It should be awkward-owner and stylist performing this quiet domestic choreography-but it's not. It's easy. We've both been here late enough times to know the steps.
At the door, he pauses. "You want me to walk you to your car?"
"It's twenty feet," I say, but the corner of my mouth betrays me.
"Still," he says.
"Okay."
The street air is a degree colder than inside. The shop lights cut a golden rectangle onto the sidewalk; beyond it, the block is all soft neon and the slow-motion traffic of a weeknight. He keeps a hand close but not on me, the way you do when you've learned I don't like to be guided.
At my car, I open the door and lean against it a second, keys dangling from my finger. "Text me the details," I say.
"I got you."
"No, I got me," I correct, automatic.
He smiles like that's his favorite part. "You right. You got you."
We stand there a beat longer than strangers would. He reaches up, tucks another curl behind my ear like he's trying to memorize the place it lives. "Get home safe," he says.
"You too."
He steps back, lifts his chin, then turns toward his car-blacked-out, of course. I slide in, lock the doors, and sit there with my hands on the wheel until the open sign clicks dark. He pulls off first, easing down the block, and I watch his taillights blink red at the corner, then disappear.
Tomorrow, I tell myself. One chance. Not forever. Just a date.