Epilogue
Ryan
Is it possible to love a smock nearly as much as you love your boyfriend?
Wiggling into my new soft pink school top, I felt as Ryan as I ever had.
Matching it with some dark rose thermal leggings and a long-sleeved black turtleneck was perfection.
My face was made up, my hair was up, and I had tiny clip-on earrings on my lobes.
Such a sharp and wonderful contrast from what I had to wear to the arena.
Maybe someday in a fantasy world where people accepted each other for how they presented their true selves, I could wear the clothes that felt best when I was feeling femme, which was quite a lot lately.
Being able to express myself everywhere aside from the rink was incredibly freeing.
Looking at myself in the new full-length mirror Gids had installed on the back of his bedroom door just for me—imagine not having a mirror to inspect your look before leaving the house!
What would Coco Chanel have thought of such a thing?
!—I added a small flag pin of pink, white, purple, black, and blue to the crisply ironed lapel.
There. I was ready to face whatever this first day of cosmetology school would throw at me.
Gideon met me in the kitchen with a kiss and a thermos of hot coffee.
“You’re going to be the very best cosmetologist in Rochester,” he purred beside my ear then gave the tiny pearl earring a playful tug.
I squeaked as I melted into his arms for just a moment longer and stepped out of them before one kiss turned into a hot fuck on the kitchen counter just as it’d happened two days ago.
Who knew the man was so turned on by watching someone make a chef salad?
“I wish I could come watch you be amazing, but I have that corny commercial to shoot today.”
“Right, Toasty Ted’s Toaster Emporium.” I chuckled as I grabbed the toasted bagel thick with cream cheese from a plate beside our toaster.
Purchased from Toasty Ted’s Toaster Emporium on the corner of Clifford and Portland.
Gids gave me a look that I kissed away. He dropped another bagel into the new toaster.
“You’ll be a great toaster salesman. Look how often you use our new toaster! ”
“If he asks me to put on a toaster costume, I might not be responsible for what fate befalls Toasty Ted.”
“You’d be the sexiest toaster in town.” I rose to my toes to steal a kiss. “I have to go. Traffic will be terrible as always, and I don’t want to be late. Our first class is Hair Coloring One: Color Theory and Application. I can’t be late.”
“No, we don’t want that. Go on. I love you. I’ll be hawking toasters all day but will meet you for lunch at our place.”
It was rare for the Copperheads staff to get a whole day off, but it did happen.
Juggling work schedules with school had been trickier than I’d thought it would be, but the Copperheads were very much behind higher education, so they worked with me as best they could.
Thankfully, there were aspects of the courses that I could do online when we were traveling, but many, like today’s coloring introduction, were lab classes that had to be attended.
You couldn’t learn to apply hair color to a head via the internet. Not yet anyway.
“I love you too. Lunch is on me. We’ll celebrate my first completed day of cosmetology school and your first commercial!
” I got one more kiss before I spun and ran out the door, with my The Shared Bowl hoodie in one hand, and the other toting my new student kit.
Purchased at the school and jam-packed with all kinds of things a beautician would need, from hair tools to nail and makeup aesthetic needs.
There was even a mannequin head in the massive tote.
And a ratty, bagged wig. The morning was bitter.
November had started off cold and had gotten colder with each passing day.
Now, a week before Thanksgiving, it was cold enough to freeze the nuggets off a chicken, to quote Dad.
Breath fogging, I jogged to my car, slid behind the wheel, and cranked her over.
She wasn’t fond of cold weather and protested a bit, but the engine rolled over after a cough and sputter.
Sipping coffee and nibbling on my pilfered bagel while the windshield slowly defrosted, I daydreamed of my first day and my first class and how many exciting stories I’d have to tell Gids when we met for lunch at The Shared Bowl!
Oddly enough, this was not at all on my what-to-expect list on day one of beauty school.
As the instructor, a nice lady named Eloise, fastened a salon cape around his thick neck, I leaned over once more to whisper to Arnaud.
“Are you positive you want to do this?” I asked him as four new students, me included, stood nervously around the salon chair and sink where our guest guinea pig—sorry, our guest client—was seated.
We all looked lovely in our rosy smocks.
Even Instructor Eloise was perky in pink.
I turned from my classmates to look at Arnaud.
“We’re just starting out, and you might leave here with a head of hair the color of a tangerine. ”
“I love the tangerines! Please, yes, let the new beauties color me beautiful! I am feeling it is time for a change in my life, non? My saves are not as grand as they should be, so perhaps a new Arnaud will tickle me into better play.” He smiled at Eloise, who, for a woman in her mid-50s, got awfully giddy over a handsome hockey player’s charm.
I wondered if her husband would appreciate that.
“I have signed the forms which put me into your hands. Make of me what the beautifying gods will have of me!”
“Oh-kay,” I mumbled as we all closed in to learn how to do a scalp check followed by a strand test. Within minutes, the lab slash salon would look like a junior wizard’s class as we all began mixing colors.
Arnaud was happy as a clam as the fate of his hair—and eyebrows—was in the hands of rank amateurs.
Gideon would demand a picture of the finished results, I was sure. You never knew what life would throw your way. Like a new boyfriend, publicly embracing your true you, and a new place to live with the man of your dreams.
Oh, and a chaotic goalie who was making your coloring instructor blush like a schoolgirl.
Yeah, this was going to be an interesting first day.
At that moment, it struck me that not only had Gideon and I survived the worst of our grief, but we’d somehow arrived in a place full of glittery goodness.
Gideon
Thanksgiving had gone better than I’d expected.
That probably wasn’t saying much considering I’d spent most of the week waiting for something to go wrong.
Like Dad saying the wrong thing, or Noah deciding at the last second that he couldn’t make the trip.
Or Ryan worrying himself and changing outfits six times before settling on the dress he’d originally chosen.
Or his dad trying so hard to make everything perfect that he’d end up burning the turkey.
None of that happened. Correction. Ryan had changed outfits four times, but apparently that was normal, and it had nothing to do with Thanksgiving, and his dad had cooked enough food to feed the entire Copperheads roster and still sent us home with two containers of leftovers.
And the big one—Noah didn’t cancel. He and Dad drove down from Michigan the day before. They were staying at a hotel less than ten minutes from Ryan’s dad’s house, and they’d be meeting us there.
This morning, Ryan came out of our bedroom wearing a dark green dress, fitted through the waist before falling loose to his knees, with long sleeves, and a neckline that made me lose track of whatever I’d been about to say.
Gold heels, not enormous ones. Sensible Thanksgiving heels, he called them.
I had no idea what that meant, but I’d learned not to question these things, so I stayed quiet, and we made our way to Ryan’s dad’s house.
When Noah and my dad arrived, we opened the door. Noah stared at Ryan. It was another moment I’d been dreading all week. Ryan’s fingers tightened around mine. Noah took in the dress, the heels, the makeup, then looked up at me.
“This is Ryan,” I said, and Noah looked back at Ryan, slower this time.
“Nice dress,” he said and then held out his hand to shake. “Thank you for being with Gid when… y’know…”
“Of course. Good to see you.”
“Same.”
That was it.
Noah was doing fine, or so he told anyone who asked, all through dinner.
I understood the word “fine.” I’d hidden behind it myself for years.
He was back in his own apartment, but Dad checked in every day.
Noah was going to therapy and a group that met twice a week.
He hadn’t gone back to work yet, and that part was causing problems because Noah was apparently a terrible patient and an even worse unemployed person.
He complained about it through most of dinner, moaning about occupational health and mandatory assessments and the paperwork involved in getting declared fit to carry a gun again.
I wanted to grin the whole time. I didn’t, though, because he would’ve told me to fuck off, so instead I focused on getting more gravy.
After dinner, Ryan’s dad dragged out Ticket to Ride.
I’d never played it before. Ryan obviously had and explained the rules while shuffling tiny train cards.
His dress brushed my knee under the table every time he leaned forward.
Halfway through the game, Noah blocked a route I needed between Denver and Kansas City.
“You asshole.”
The corner of his mouth moved into a half-smile. “Should’ve got there quicker.”
“I was building toward it.”
“Not my problem.”
“You did that on purpose.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”