Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
Ella
I park in my usual spot and grab my purse from the back before popping open the door and getting out.
Todd follows me and I try not to look at him suspiciously.
He’s been nice.
Easy-going.
I don’t trust it.
I also…well, I also want this to be some sort of permanent change.
For Riggs’s sake.
“I can recommend a good coffee shop nearby,” I tell him as he starts following me to the salon. “Unless you really want that haircut. If so, I’ll get my client started and give you your trim while they’re processing.”
A pause. “What’s processing?”
“Processing the chemicals I’ll put in her hair,” I explain as I start up the stairs. “In this case, the products that are going to lighten certain parts.”
He walks next to me, quiet for a moment, as though processing—heh—that.
But as I reach for the handle of the door to the salon, he nods decisively, some unspoken decision reached. “I’ll stay.”
Color me—no pun intended—surprised.
“Okay then.” I start to pull the wooden and glass panel open, but he beats me to it, holding it wide so I can enter before him. I study him closely. “Why are you being so nice?”
“You don’t have to sound so suspicious about it,” he grumbles, but his mouth is curved up.
“Look, Todd-o-Rama,” I say, pausing on the threshold and holding his stare. “I don’t know you all that well, but if you’re going to go full Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde on me, I’m going to demand some explanations. Especially when it affects the man I…care about.”
He scowls, pulls the door a little wider, gestures me inside. “There’s a chill in the air.”
I just flick up my brows.
He sighs, and it’s a disgruntled, frustrated sound.
Good.
He can be annoyed with me instead of Riggs.
“Well?” I press.
His scowl deepens. “Maybe I thought about what you said at the game,” he eventually says.
“And…?” I coax.
He sounds like he’s cutting glass when he says, “And…I think you may be right.”
“Of course I am,” I say calmly, even though I’m fist-pumping inside. I turn and walk into the salon, allowing some of the victorious feeling in my heart to creep into my smile.
Until I see that Kit’s here.
Standing at his desk, his eyes on me, his expression careful.
“Afternoon,” I say softly.
“Afternoon.”
My eyes slide closed, relief filling my insides with helium, and I have to force my gait to stay steady, to not rush over to him and kiss his adorable cheeks.
Because it’s the first thing he’s said to me since that day.
One word and it feels like he stood up on the counter and recited a monologue about our friendship to the whole salon.
But…that’s all he says.
“Kit,” I begin, moving closer.
He steps back, expression immediately closing down.
Dammit.
I exhale quietly. “I’m here if you feel ready to talk at any point.” My words are quiet, but I know by the stiff way his shoulders hitch up that he can hear them. “And please know that I won’t push you. I get that I fucked up and you’re allowed to be mad.” A beat. “You’re allowed to hate me.”
His throat works and he looks down at his keyboard, dismissing me.
I want to press, to fix this, to make it all go away…
But I can’t.
I’ve apologized and now I have to give him time.
So, I force myself to keep walking.
“You can sit there, Todd-o-Rama,” I say, nodding to the empty seat next to my station. It belongs to a stylist I know isn’t working today. “I just need to drop my stuff in the back,” I tell him, turning away. “Can I grab you any coffee or water? A snack?”
“What happened?” he asks.
I pause and glance over my shoulder. “Well, we met up at the rink and then drove in my car here, and now”—I force a smile—“I’m going to squeeze giving you a kickass haircut into my already busy schedule.”
“Okay, smart ass,” he grumbles, but his eyes are dancing. “Also, you’re talking up this haircut so much, it had better be the best one I’ve ever had, and not that shit you pulled with my son. I’m not into bald patches.”
“Oh, the cut will be amazing.” I spin around, plunk my hands on my hips, and narrow my eyes threateningly. “So long as you hold still,” I warn. “Very, very still.”
He snorts.
“So, coffee?” I ask. “Or water—”
“I meant, what happened with the boy at the front desk?”
“First,” I say, “Kit is a grown man.”
Todd rolls his eyes. “He’s got to be all of twenty.”
“Twenty-three,” I correct. “But that’s an adult.”
“A baby.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, I’ll bring you a coffee.”
He catches my arm as I start to walk away. “What happened with Kit, the grown man of twenty-three?”
“Why?” I ask quietly.
“Because it’s upset you.”
“Why does that bother you?” My tone is snarky. “You don’t know me, and clearly, you don’t give a damn when you upset your own son. Why should you stick your nose into my business?”
His fingers tighten, tone sharpening. “Because my son loves you and I fucked up with him for long enough that I want to do something helpful for a change, okay?”
Of all the things Todd could have said…
This is the one that tugs at my heartstrings.
He messed up. He wants to fix it.
“Dammit,” I grumble. “I don’t want to like you.”
“I don’t even like me on a good day,” he mutters.
I snort.
He releases my arm. “Tell me.”
“I fucked up,” I admit for some reason. “I said some things that are unforgivable and—” I sigh. “I just… fucked up. I’m trying to fix it, but it takes time.” My throat is tight. “Especially when I’m the one in the wrong.”
His expression sobers. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It’ll take time.”
And I know he’s reminding himself of the same.
“Right,” I say, needing to change the subject. “Black coffee?”
He nods. “Yeah, thanks, sweetheart.”
That settles…well, it settles in a father-sized hole deep in my soul. It shouldn’t be a balm. The endearment shouldn’t even register. Like I said, I don’t know Todd, not really, and he’s a grumpy bastard.
But…
It settles deep anyway.
Because my dad would have never bothered to ask.
I shake myself and head into the back, stowing my purse and making the cup of coffee.
As I’m passing it over, I greet Cassie, who walks in.
It only takes a moment to get her situated in her cape, to come up with a game plan for her hair, and then I’m mixing up some lightener, grabbing my foils, and giving the bride-to-be the best balayage the world has ever seen.
And in between working my magic with Cassie, I give a grumpy old man the best damned haircut the world has ever seen.
With nigh a bald spot in sight.
I can’t fix my dad.
I can’t erase what happened with Kit.
But I can spread a little happiness one strand of hair at a time.
“You sure you don’t want another?” Nova asks as she plunks down next to me on the couch. “Did I mix the proportions wrong?”
I lift my gaze from the copper mug in my hand to my best friend’s. “No, it’s perfect. I just…” I push the cup away. “I think I’ve been a little too familiar with your honey-rosemary mules lately, is all.”
Her green eyes gentle. “Ella,” she whispers.
“It’s fine,” I say, even though it’s anything but. “I’m fine.” I nod toward the menfolk, Lake, Leo, Knox, Bear, and Todd, who’s still grumpy, but has managed to turn off the asshole, especially because Evie’s joined in on the Rummikub action of game night. “Things are getting intense over there.”
“Yes,” Nova agrees.
But she doesn’t say anything else, just sits there, stare pinning me in place, and I know…
I owe her more.
I tilt my head toward the door that leads out to the deck. It’s cold and breezy out there, but the sky is mostly clear, no more snow slated in the forecast for the next few days.
Thank God. I’m so damned tired of snow.
“Let me grab us a blanket,” she whispers, squeezing my hand. “Meet you out there?”
“Yeah.”
Riggs’s eyes come to mine when I stand, but I just shake my head slightly, letting him know I’m fine.
He lifts a brow in response and I know he might stay in that round of Rummikub, but he’s going to be keeping an eye on me.
And I don’t miss that Lake has a similar nonverbal conversation with Nova.
Heart warming, I step out onto the deck, stare up at the stars twinkling like tiny diamonds overhead.
Orion. Big Dipper. Little Dipper. Venus and—
“That used to be what I wanted to feel,” I tell Nova as she comes to stand next to me, nodding up at the constellations. “So distant, so cold, so untouchable.”
A long blip of silence before she hands me half the blanket and we cuddle up under it. “You’re far from cold, Ella.”
“I wish I was.” I huff out a laugh and plunk my head onto her shoulder, but I’m not amused, not really. “I feel so much, too much. Sometimes it hurts so bad that I just want to feel nothing.”
“Honey,” she whispers.
“He broke me,” I say, not willing to hide from this any longer. “My dad—I didn’t know how to be an unloved daughter, a discarded piece of trash. I thought…I thought if I just pretended, it would all be okay.”
“Pretended what?”
“To be the best version of me—funny, loud, fixing every problem, ignoring that my own heart was hurting so I could help everyone else. So I could be happy for them. So I didn’t have to be happy with my own life.
” I swallow hard. “And…pretending I was fine, that I was great when I wasn’t—” My voice hitches and I break off.
“I didn’t know,” she whispers, her eyes glassy with tears.
I touch her cheek. “I became an expert in hiding it.”
“I don’t think so.”
Surprised, I rock back on my heels.
Her mouth curves, just slightly. “I wasn’t here to call you on that.
” She sighs. “And who am I to talk now that I am? I spent years running from my problems—hiding from them in the Arctic, burying them in the desert in Asia, leaving them in the clouds thirty-thousand feet overhead while I flew as far as I could from my pain. I didn’t know anything about myself, about my feelings, about what I really wanted—” She crouches a little to meet my eyes. “Not until you helped me.”
“Novs.”
“You’re my best friend and…I wasn’t here for you like I should have.” Watery green eyes on mine. “I’m sorry.”