Chapter 1
Chapter One
Hunter
“A bet is a bet, Hunter,” my college roommate, Rex Roberts, taunts me as we step out of the truck. He slams the door to the cab as my gaze fixates on the sign on the building, making me realize the finality of the situation. “I knew your chickenshit ass wouldn’t follow through.”
Rolling my eyes, I square my shoulders and take a deep breath.
I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but never chicken.
I don’t back down from anything, even if I was well over the limit last night at the bar.
After which, I happened to agree to his asinine bet that, with a sober mind, I never would have taken.
“What makes you think I am chickening out,” I toss back, as the warm southern California sun warms my back.
I stretch my arms over my head to buy time before looking his way. His smug ass smile makes me have to stifle a laugh. He thinks I’m not going to go through with this, but hell, it is only hair. It’ll grow back.
Last night, when we left the local bar closest to campus at Long Beach State where I play catcher for the Dirtbags, we bought a twelve-pack, and strolled our drunk asses over to the ballpark and broke in.
Rex might not play the game, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one hell of a swing.
It took me over an hour to realize he wasn’t nearly as drunk as my stupid ass was.
By the time he bet me he could knock more balls out of the park than I could, and if he won I’d have to shave my head, I was already too cocky to care.
“What,” he taunts, as he takes a few steps towards the shop's entrance. “Afraid the ladies won’t fall at your feet if you chop it all off, Casanova? God, you’re like damn Uncle Jessie from that stupid 90s sitcom. Just think of all the money your ass will save on conditioner.”
“Easy for you to say,” I joke, even though, if I am being honest, I am a little fucking nervous. “The ladies all fall at your feet regardless. In fact, I don’t remember a time when you didn’t have a different girl every night of the week warming your bed.”
“Fall to their feet, knees, whatever works,” Rex winks as he pulls open the door leading to the salon.
The cool burst of air from inside mixes with the smell of chemicals, bleaches, dyes and shampoo, making my regret turn to panic.
The bell of the door chimes as it closes, and Rex and I wait to be helped.
Women run back and forth while their clients sit in black, short-backed chairs in front of large mirrors.
Three customers sit in the waiting room, restlessly biding their time for their appointments.
My eyes nervously scan the room where at least twelve booths are already occupied.
“Well shit,” Rex says as he steps toward the counter. “I didn’t think we’d have to wait. Why the hell is this place busy on a Tuesday at 2:30 in the afternoon?”
I follow him up to the counter slowly, wishing I could kick my own ass for being a damn fool last night and thinking I could outhit Rex on the field.
“I’m sorry someone will be right with you,” an irritated worker says as she walks behind the front counter, grabs a supply, and then storms back off towards her booth.
Rex leans against the counter, and openly stares at her ass as she walks away.
“I’d be a whole lot better if you were the one helping me, sweetheart,” he whistles after her. She stops in her tracks and angrily swings around to meet his hungry stare. He grins, then gives her an arrogant wink, and she is damn putty in his hungry hands.
“If you’re not in a hurry, I can help you next,” she flirts back, before turning around and starting to walk back to her booth. “I’m just about done…” she stutters nervously, before biting her bottom lip, “and I have a break between clients coming up.”
When she finally breaks his stare and goes back to her work, Rex laughs. “God, you know Hunter,” he says, grabbing a hold of my shoulder and making me look him in the eyes. “Sometimes, it is just too damn easy. I like a woman who makes me work for it.”
Something flashes across his features, a recognition of sorts, but before I can make fun of him for it, a girl walks out of the back room located to the right of the front counter.
She fumbles with the items in her hands before dropping a couple to the floor.
Her dark hair cascades in breathtaking waves across her face.
My eyes immediately search to see more. As if pulled on a damn wire, I round the counter and come to her side.
Kneeling, I help her pick up the items as my eyes beg her to look up.
She pulls a few strands of hair behind her ear, and finally meets my stare through some adorable as fuck thin red-rimmed glasses, and shyly smiles.
Innocent. Genuine. Pure.
The look she gives me sparks something back to life inside my soul that I haven’t felt in years. A feeling, a knowledge, a fucking truth that there are still authentic, natural, and perfectly wholesome people left in this world.
“Thank you,” she whispers, as she stands and her stare once again finds the floor in front of us.
She hugs the items tightly to her chest. I stand back up, looking down longingly on her small frame.
Petite, with curves for days, her body’s a perfect fucking figure eight I would love to run my hands all over.
Slowly, leisurely, as we stand in silence and the sounds of the salon fade, I attempt to memorize every damn mouth-watering inch of her.
“It was my pleasure,” I whisper, subconsciously taking a step closer.
The feeling that my soul knows hers is unsettling, and makes me want to understand why I’m suddenly so captivated by her.
I know I have never seen her before, I would remember a girl as beautiful as her.
I would remember the inescapable entrancing feeling of standing in her presence.
The way I’m drawn to her hints there is something between us that needs to be discovered.
If that wasn’t enough, every cell in my body vibrates with the need to know more of her, and never let her out of my sight again.
“Rochelle!” The shop girl from earlier yells.
The woman in front of me, who I now know is Rochelle, jumps, and a small piece of my heart jolts with her.
“Where have you been?” her coworker snaps. “We have customers who have been waiting!” She looks adoringly at Rex, and gives him that same sex-kitten smile from earlier.
“I’m sorry,” Rochelle mumbles, as she scurries around me and makes her way back towards the counter.
She nervously sets down her items as I walk back to my spot on the opposite side.
Her small hand shakes as it raises and her pointer finger pushes her glasses back up her adorable, button nose.
Without looking up at us, she clicks the computer to life, and shyly asks, “What can I do for you?”
“My boy here needs a shave,” Rex asserts, as he watches her with a slightly confused stare. It isn’t often that women don’t fall at his feet like her coworker did earlier. Rex obviously doesn’t know how to take the fact that Rochelle isn’t even slightly phased by his presence.
Rochelle’s panicked stare breaks from her screen and she locks eyes with me. My breath hitches, my hands begin to sweat a bit. With her eyes locked on mine, I’m suddenly nervous as hell. It’s a foreign feeling. Something I never experience when it comes to members of the opposite sex.
“We don’t do that here,” she stutters, obviously very puzzled. “But there is a barbershop…”
“His head,” Rex interjects. She looks at him a bit muddled. “You do have hair clippers here, don’t you?” He teases.
She flinches from his comment. Her eyes downcast instantly. I could punch Rex for the way he basically made her feel like an idiot. Instinctively, my hand comes up and I knock his dumb ass on the back of his stupid head. He gives me a sharp glare before rubbing the spot I just smacked.
Asshole.
Maybe he’s not as in tune with the girl across the counter as I am, but that’s no excuse to ever degrade a woman.
The fact that I just met the girl and I’m so drawn to her makes me shift on my restless feet.
I’ve never been this crazed, never felt this immediate pull to a girl I’ve just met before. I’ve heard about it, but hell I thought this kind of crap was reserved for Hallmark bullshit my stepmother watches around Christmas time.
Fuck, as nervous as the compulsive feeling makes me, I can’t deny there is a high, a euphoria, a need to drown in this damn feeling a little longer.
There is something about her that makes me want to protect her and the cute naive way she is trying to hide behind those sexy librarian glasses.
Her shyness makes me want to shelter her and make her see what I see when I look at her.
Something she obviously doesn’t see in herself as she hides behind the counter and the glasses that shield her breathtaking eyes from the world.
She’s drop-dead gorgeous. I’ve never experienced anything like her before. Like any new drug, I make the snap decision to go with the flow and enjoy the ride, because this girl, and the high I get from standing next to her, is fucking addictive.
The woman from earlier saunters up to the counter and gives my new obsession a heated look.
“Do we have a problem here?” She asks angrily before glancing up at Rex and myself.
“Nothing you can’t help fix,” Rex says, leaning further across the counter. “How about that break?”
The woman glances hesitantly at me, before meeting Rex’s ravenous stare. “What about your friend?”
“Lost a bet, needs his head shaved. Nothing this girl can’t do,” he says, gesturing towards Rochelle.
“Rochelle is still in training,” the woman sighs. “I’m afraid..”
“Oh come on,” Rex persists. “You don’t need training to shave a head. Hell, I’d do it myself if I had the clippers. Let the trainee do it, and me and you can… take a walk.” He winks.