Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
EZRA
Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, did you mean to text me that pic? EMILIOOOOOO a;lsdkfja;sldkfhasd;khfasig;lkjasdfkj;ad. We should bang.
—Connor
M y brother’s house was so big it had its own echo.
And a smell—like money, chlorine, and faintly burnt sourdough.
Three kids worth of swim bags littered the entryway. A stack of trophies gleamed on a side table like someone had raided Michael Phelps’ storage unit.
“Uncle Ez!” A blur of small limbs shot past me, followed by the splash of a distant pool.
I followed the sound to the kitchen, where my brother—Cedric, his hair too perfect for a man who didn’t work for a living—was eating grapes one at a time like he was auditioning for a cologne ad.
His wife, Maya—beautiful, grounded, far too good for him—was perched on the counter in leggings and an oversized sweater, scrolling her phone. She was the kind of woman who could silence a room with a look and also knew the best way to unclog your sink.
“We’ve been watching,” she said without looking up.
“Watching what?” I asked warily.
“The dates,” she said, finally meeting my eyes. “Like it’s our version of Single’s Inferno . Whole group chat. Kids aren’t allowed, obviously.”
My brother grinned like a man about to start trouble. “What’s the plan, Ez? Because this is better than premium cable.”
I dropped into a chair. “The plan is—I’m going to be Vex.”
Maya’s head jerked back. “Vex?”
“Because Vex doesn’t exist,” I said. “And because she deserves a Vex. And I want her.”
Maya let out a sound somewhere between a screech and a clap. “Yes. Oh my God. Makeover?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
My brother burst out laughing. “She already likes you. Why change?”
“You know I’m better looking than you,” I said flatly, “and you know I hate attention. Ever since?—”
“Going dark, disappearing, turning your back on all the fan—.” he started smirking.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Scrubbed the internet hard for those videos.”
True. I’d been kinda famous for my face, of all things. Perfect lighting, perfect angles, and suddenly no one cared I could string a sentence together. It was all: be in my video, be my boyfriend, be my trophy. One YouTube channel and a few life changing decisions later, I vanished.
And then there was Harper.
She’d met me after I’d disappeared. No clue I was the same guy she’d followed as a tween.
To this day, she’d never said a word. We met in college, after I transferred from Yale and decided to start over, and became fast friends.
She was bummed my channel had gone dark—a conversation that had me questioning if she knew, but by then I’d grown my hair out, added the glasses, and blended into the background. She never recognized me.
Or if she did, she never said.
And I sure as hell wasn’t telling her.
Until now.
Now I was coming out of hiding. Twelve years later. Different man. Different game.
What could possibly go wrong?
My brother handed me a flask of whiskey.
Then shoved another into my other pocket.
Then slapped me on the ass like he was sending me onto the field in the Super Bowl.
“Boys,” he said gravely to his sons, “you don’t need to see this.”
“Where’s Uncle Ez going?” the older one asked.
“This,” my brother said, “is the day your mom makes Uncle Ez into a man.”
“Ewww!” both boys shouted in unison.
“Don’t do it, Uncle Ez!” the younger one wailed. “She’ll make you put on deodorant!”
“Showers are non-negotiable!” the older one chimed in. “And she only gives you five minutes so you don’t play with your Peter!”
“Run away, Uncle Ez!”
I sighed, but my brother was already steering me toward the waiting SUV like a bouncer ejecting a drunk.
“Godspeed,” he said. “May the Force be with you. I said a prayer in front of Master Yoda and did a mental Captain’s Log—Captain Picard style, complete with the British accent. If you die, I think we could use it as part of the eulogy.”
I stared him down. “I’m touched.”
He nodded. “It may have inspired a new app. Off you go!”
The door slammed, and I was alone in the car with Maya.
For the first five minutes, she didn’t say a word. Which was suspicious.
Finally, I broke. “Spill it.”
She sighed. “It’s just… you really like her. That’s a lot of pressure if it goes south.”
I didn’t finish her sentence out loud, but mentally: Like last time.
“You mean like last time?” I said anyway. “When my heart got annihilated? I should have never told you that.”
“You had to tell someone,” she said with a shrug. “And I’m not letting it happen again. For all she knows, an actor named Vex is meeting her at the bar at eight. Which gives us four hours to turn you into the sexiest, most perfect guy she’s ever seen.”
I glanced in the visor mirror. “I’ll put in contacts.”
“You’ll need the shots of gold, too.”
My head whipped toward her. “The what ?”
“Has anyone ever told you how much you look like that guy from BTS? Or like if two of them had a half-Korean baby?” she said casually.
“God, he has pretty hair—it’s all teased-sexy on his forehead.
One time your brother caught me staring at a poster and banned their music from our house. To be fair, I was postpartum?—”
I blinked. “That was like seven years ago.”
“Exactly. I don’t care what he says, you can still be postpartum years later. Or hormonal. Same difference.”
I shook my head.
“One of the kids tried a BTS dance challenge,” she went on, “and your brother threatened to set the phone on fire… then secretly learned it himself and made me watch.”
I made a face. “He made you watch him?”
She shuddered. “He’s a good man, your brother, but dancing is not his gift. It skipped him in a way science might study someday. His lack of rhythm feels intentional. And yet, by the look on his face, you know—it’s not. Cedric thinks he looks sexy.”
I burst out laughing. “I can dance.”
“Boo,” she said, giving me a thumbs-down with her free hand. “Okay. Glasses off. Tuck your hair behind your ears so I can see your face.”
I obeyed, begrudgingly.
She pulled the SUV into a parking spot. “And let’s go get those shots of gold—” She froze mid-sentence.
“What?”
Her eyes glazed over like she’d just remembered something important. Then sharpened.
“Oh, um… nothing. Just forgot how light your eyes are. Hazel, actually.”
I shrugged. “They’re just eyes.”
She smirked. “Yup. Whatever you say, Vex . Whatever you say.”
The salon smelled like hairspray, hope, and the financial regret you know you’ll feel once you’re forced to style your hair on your own without a professional and enough product to open up your own store.
It was always that way with Harper at least—I was a guy so maybe it would be different, I mean how hard would they go on my hair?
It was hair, to my shoulders, I needed like maybe a few highlights, a trim. Piece of cake.
I should have known over confidence was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, a bull being the owner and several employees of the salon. Hi, my name’s Ezra but you may as well call me your next wet dream also known as a hopeless challenge.
Maya had barely gotten my coat off before she was herding me into a chair in front of a mirror the size of a movie screen.
People whispered. The smell of essential oils and burnt coconut filled the air until it was thick with it.
Was I supposed to start getting dizzy? Would I hallucinate?
Was this all part of the makeover? Did women do this all the time?
I had so many questions and suddenly missed my glasses and Star Wars figurines—all seventy of them.
I reached into my pocket and gripped the whiskey like a vice.
This is why a man never goes into battle without being prepared.
I thought he was joking—but my brother gave me a damn sword and shield didn’t he?
If I made it out alive I’d kiss him—if not, well he still had the eulogy.
“Alright, people!” A loud voice announced to the staff like we’d just walked onto the set of Project Runway .
“We’ve got four hours, one human canvas, and a mission that ends in true love.
” Women and a few men cheered around me.
“Let’s move!” Why was I suddenly getting flashbacks from Extreme Home Makeover where they shouted ‘ move that bus, move that bus .’ Only I was not the lucky bus getting moved, I was the house getting pummeled. Yay.
A stylist with neon pink hair approached me with a comb. “We’re thinking loose waves with some honey?—”
“No.”
She blinked. “But?—”
I sipped from the flask my brother had given me and shook it in front of her. “No.”
A second stylist slid in from the left with a picture on her phone. “What about this—layered, textured, a little surfer?—”
“No.”
Maya shoved my head forward so they could get at the back. “Ignore him. He says ‘no’ to everything. He says it makes you yearn for the yes, or something like that.”
“Ew, god, I can hear you,” I muttered. Huh, good whiskey. Top shelf.
“Good,” she said sweetly. “Means you’re still alive. For now.”
“Did you just kick me?”
She did it again. “What? No. I get these weird convulsions every now and again, just ask your brother.”
“Afraid to now.” I muttered.
The third stylist, a man in a scarf that cost more than my first car, I’m assuming, started tousling my hair experimentally. “Ooh, you’ve got volume . We could go full K-drama lead—messy fringe, the teased forehead thing?—”
I groaned. Was it because I was half Korean? I mean really... “That’s a lot of maintenance.”
“It’s a lot of sex appeal,” he corrected. “And sir, you have sex oozing from every crevice of that, that,” He made a face. “Whatever’s beneath that awful black zip up sweatshirt. H&M?”
“It was on sale.” I grinned. “Bought it in two colors.”
“Absolutely shocked.” He winked.
Okay, I liked him. He got me. We could be friends. “I like your scarf.”
“Gucci.”
“Expensive like this whiskey,” I lifted the flask.
Maya slapped my hand when I reached for the flask again. “You’re cut off until we finish the first round.”
The next thirty minutes were a blur of hair gel, product samples, and me giving increasingly unimpressed looks into the mirror.
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Absolutely not.”
“What the hell is that?”
“I look like I should be managing the boy band I was too old to make the cut to join.”
At one point, Maya held up a mirror behind my head so I could see the back. “This one’s nice. You look approachable.”
I took one look. “I look like a tax accountant who thinks karaoke night is a personality trait.”
Back to the drawing board.
The stylists whispered among themselves, as if summoning the ancient gods of hair, then dove back in.
Cut. Ruffle. Spray. Comb. Whiskey sip. Repeat.
Finally, scarf-guy spun my chair toward the mirror.
I froze.
The inky black was still there, but now it had—God help me— shots of gold . Subtle, but enough to catch the light. The fringe was slightly tousled, just messy enough to look intentional, and somehow… I didn’t hate it.
Maya’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God . That’s it. That’s Vex.”
The stylists collectively sighed like a team that had just won Olympic gold.
“Don’t smile too much,” Maya warned, grabbing her phone. “We’re not done yet.”
The next three hours were a parade of grooming stations: shave, moisturizer which felt weird but oddly soothing, cologne testing which ended in me somehow buying two, wardrobe fitting, why the hell are there so many buttons on things?
And at some point there were shoes on my feet, hey at least they matched.
By the time we emerged into the fading afternoon light, I had a wardrobe bag slung over one shoulder, perfect hair, and the gnawing feeling I’d been turned into a shiny new weapon without reading the instruction manual. Was this what it felt like to have the giant red button?
Maya grinned like a proud mom picking up her star athlete from soccer camp. “Alright, Vex. You’ve got an hour to psych yourself up. Don’t spill whiskey on the shirt. And for the love of God, own it .”
I adjusted the collar. “If I die?—”
“I’ll have your brother do the Captain Picard eulogy,” she said, unlocking the SUV. “Now get in. It’s time.”
Time.
It’s time.
It was time.
To get the girl.
To save her.
And myself.
And potentially ruin a years long friendship all because I caught feelings and she didn’t. Yeah, great plan Ezra, solid.
Maya dropped me off so I could pick up my car at their house, and I make a quick escape before my brother could catch me. I didn’t have time.
I was starting to lose confidence when I got to the bar, but when I got out of the car and looked up and had three women immediately gasp in reaction. I knew, it was now or never.
Wait, did I just quote a Justin Bieber song?
Fuck my life.
Well, no time but the present. I opened up the door and stared across the bar. Harper glanced up, just as an entire martini dropped from her hand.