Chapter 35
Morgan
Back and forth, Morgan examined the two black dots. She’d placed and examined and wiped them away so many times she lost count. They still didn’t look right.
“Jen, you mind checking this out?” she called from around the corner.
She knew Jen didn’t have another client for half an hour, so she decided to get a second opinion. Morgan reassured the middle-aged woman in her chair that she wanted to get the placement exactly right, but the woman didn’t look convinced that she was in good hands.
Morgan was normally very good at her job. She prided herself on her meticulous placements and expert technique. But today her skills just weren’t up to her own standards, and she didn’t trust herself to get this right on her own.
Her mind was still swirling around the memory of that phone call. Trying to make sense of what happened. How it happened.
But the what and the how didn’t matter. Only the why. And Danielle’s why was something Morgan couldn’t change. Not that she wanted to. Lila meant everything to Danielle. Morgan had been right not to want to stand in the way. And somehow she’d let herself go on and do just that.
So now she was at work, miserable and trying—and probably failing—not to screw up.
Jen walked into the tiny room with a bag of potato chips in one hand as she wiped the other on her jeans. “Let me see.”
Morgan stepped back so Jen could examine her work. Jen looked from one side to the other, tilting her head this way and that.
“Looks perfect to me.” She grabbed the mirror from the table and handed it to the client. “Have a look, and tell her I’m right.”
The woman moved her head as she looked at her reflection with a similar series of head tilts. Then, she handed Morgan the mirror. “She’s right.”
It was the woman’s first piercings ever. She’d never had her ears pierced before, and Morgan always felt so honored to have these jobs. To give someone something they’d never had before, and prove to them it wasn’t so scary after all.
“Are you sure? I just want to get it right.”
The breakup with Danielle had shaken her more than she’d expected.
No, not a breakup. They hadn’t been dating.
But they kind of were. They just weren’t admitting it until Saturday night.
And then Sunday happened.
A full day and a crappy night’s sleep hadn’t eased her heartbreak. Or her self-confidence, it seemed.
“I’m sure,” the woman said. “Can we just do this before I chicken out?”
Morgan smiled at her. “Absolutely.”
Jen took her bag of chips and exited the room, saying, “My work here is done,” on her way out.
Morgan went to work clamping, then pushing the needle through before inserting the moonstone earrings the client had picked out. She did one ear then the other, and the woman hardly flinched.
When she was done, she waved a hand at the larger mirror on the wall beside them. “Take a look.”
“That was it?” she asked. “You’re really done?”
“Yup, really.”
The woman turned to look at her reddened ears, and a huge grin spread across her face. “I love them! Thank you.”
Morgan told her to sit tight while she cleaned up. Sometimes, clients got a little light-headed after the adrenaline rush of a piercing, so she always made them sit still in the room for a few minutes.
By the time she finished cleaning up, all the color had returned to the woman’s face, and she’d finished taking and sending her selfies.
Morgan handed her the after-care instructions sheet. “Touch them as little as possible and don’t turn them. Saline spray only to clean them. Keep them in for about eight weeks before trying to change them out to make sure the holes are completely healed. Everything is on this paper. Any questions?”
After the woman shook her head, she hopped down, and they headed towards the front together. Jen caught her before she rounded the corner.
“Someone is here to see you,” she said.
A frequent repeat client, she figured. She loved those almost as much as the first-timers.
But when she rounded the corner, she quickly realized her mistaken assumption.
“Take a smoke break,” Jen said, placing a hand against Morgan’s back. “I’ll ring this up for you.”
Morgan didn’t smoke, but she and Jen used that excuse whenever they needed a quick, fresh air break. It was only fair that the actual smokers weren’t the only ones getting breaks.
She meant to thank Jen, but the words never came out. Instead, they caught in her throat as she stared at the woman in front of her. The woman she thought she’d never see again.
“Hey,” Danielle said.
Morgan somehow managed a muffled “Hey” in return. But she wasn’t sure what else to say, and for once, her mouth wasn’t running away with her thoughts before she could filter them.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to say anything.
Danielle raised a hand holding something roundish wrapped in a yellow paper that Morgan recognized as from the deli down the road that she and Jen picked up from once in a while. They were known for their Greek lunch dishes, but they also served breakfast sandwiches all day.
“I know it isn’t the same,” Danielle said, “but I brought you brunch. Consider it yesterday’s brunch today.”
It definitely wasn’t the same, Morgan thought. Not since the point of the brunch was to spend time with Danielle and her kid.
But she recognized a gesture when she saw one.
“Thanks,” she said. “That’s really thoughtful. And I haven’t had lunch yet.”
Actually, she wasn’t planning to have lunch at all. Her stomach was in knots from being so upset, so she’d planned on just having a bag of chips like Jen.
A breakfast sandwich sounded much better.
“I hope you like bacon, egg, and cheese. I couldn’t decide if I should get bacon, sausage, or ham. But then I thought, who doesn’t like bacon?”
Danielle’s words flew out of her mouth in a flurry, making her sound more like Morgan than her normally calm and collected self.
She was clearly nervous about this. Morgan wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe she just wanted to clear things up between them before making a clean break. Maybe she wanted to stay friends. Morgan wasn’t sure which one would break her heart even more.
Either way, she had to find out.
She placed the sandwich behind the counter, then glanced at the empty waiting area before nodding at the front door. “Come have a smoke break with me.”