The Billionaire and the Beautician

CHAPTER ONE

The last place she wanted to do somebody’s hair was in her living room. Or anywhere else in her tiny apartment for that matter. But Byron had a gig later that night and all he needed was a quick trim.

At least that was what he told her when he called and asked if he could roll up.

She hadn’t seen him in nearly three years, not since they both stopped waiting tables parttime at that soul food joint not far from her Brooklyn apartment.

And now he needed a trim, which she had no intentions of giving to anybody on her day off.

But it was Sunday evening. She had nothing else to do.

So she told him to roll up. She could do a quick trim in her sleep.

But when he got there, and she saw the state of that head, she knew she had a full-blown cut on her hands. “And you got a gig tonight? Looking like that?” she asked him.

“Ah Ricki, why you always got to complain? All it needs is a trim. It’ll be slammin’. It’ll look aw’ight.”

“You look like Buckwheat, Byron. Do you not realize that? Ain’t no trim in this world gonna fix that.” She was frustrated with him, but not enough to turn him away. “Just sit down!”

Byron smiled that high wattage smile all the girls loved. She loved it too, if she were to be honest. But she also knew he was slick as oil. He had to know all along she wouldn’t let him leave her apartment looking like that. And he proved he knew it with his very next comment.

“That’s why I love you so much, Ricki. You know how to hook a brother up.”

Rasheda Richardson, called Ricki to everybody who knew her, wasn’t trying to hook up any more brothers.

She gave her heart and soul doing all she could for all those brothers out there that knew every woman in the world wanted them.

Or at least wanted what they had between those thick thighs.

And those same brothers had no problem whatsoever obliging each and every one of those ladies.

She’d been giving her heart to that cause ever since she was a teenager, and all she got in return were heartaches and heartbreaks. She was done hooking up brothers.

“Damn, Byron,” she said when she tried to put a comb through his hair. “When was the last time you combed this head?”

He laughed. “Why you trippin’? Don’t you know nothing about style?”

Ricki looked down at him. “Not combing your hair is a style now?”

“Hell yeah it’s a style.” He said it as if everybody knew that.

Then he looked back at her. He could see the bags under her eyes.

The strain all over what used to be just an adorable face.

He remembered she was older than him, by a couple of years, which would make her around twenty-eight years old.

But damn. She was still considered young.

She still wasn’t so old and decrepit that she should have been looking haggard already.

She wasn’t even thirty yet! “What happened to you?” he asked her.

Ricki was thrown by his question, and by the way he was looking at her as if she was a crackhead or something equally disturbing.

What happened to her, he asked. What did he think happened to her?

Life happened to her. And all those brothers like him who knew how to manipulate the hell out of sisters like her.

That’s what happened. And that didn’t mean she was a pushover either.

She was nobody’s pushover. But they could be so smooth.

And so smart. They’d already picked her pocket before she even realized they had a hand on her.

And by the time she realized it, she was already in too deep.

That’s what happened. Over and over again it happened. Until she gave up.

But she wasn’t about to share her truth with some Mister Right Now like Byron. “Just shut up and let me see what I can do with this head,” she said.

Byron smiled. “Yes ma’am,” he said and pulled out his phone. And as he responded to text messages, she began doing what she always ended up doing: hooking a brother up.

Not that she was completely sour on all men.

She’d never be that short-sighted. She knew one day she’d meet a righteous brother with a good job who treated her like a queen.

And she had a type too: Tall. Chocolate-mocha skin.

Big and strong and with a heart to match his outward appearance.

But all she got were the bad boys who wouldn’t know how to do right if their lives depended on it.

But that was what she did. She settled against type time and time again as if she knew that all those righteous brothers with good jobs wanted righteous sisters with good jobs too, which pretty much eliminated her. The Bryons of the world were all she had left.

But ten minutes of just trying to put a comb through that head, he was already antsy. “Damn, Ricki,” he said in that gripe-voice of his, “what’s taking you so long?”

“You want this shit good, or you want this shit fast?”

“Both. Damn!”

Ricki ignored his butt and continued to do her best work. She was no barber, she was a beautician, but she knew how to style anybody’s hair. And she never rushed a haircut. And Byron knew it. She’d done his hair more than a few times back in the day.

But he was still frowning. “What you doing now?”

“If you don’t be still I’m gonna send you out of this apartment with a monked-up head. That’s what you want?”

“But I’m running late though. I gots to go!”

“You told me your set wasn’t until ten tonight. It’s not even eight yet. Why you all of a sudden so late?”

“Girl you don’t know nothing about a jazzman’s life. I can’t just roll up. I have to get my mind together first. You can’t just show up at somebody’s club and start blowing your horn. It don’t work that way. I have to be in the right frame of mind before I turn any tune anywhere.”

Ricki kept working. She had a reputation for excellence and she wasn’t about to let him walk out of her apartment looking any kind of way and start telling people she was the one responsible. No ma’am, no sir. Not on her watch!

And then, just thirty-five minutes later, she brushed him off, brushed off all the hair she had to cut to get to a style, and then she removed the towel from around his shoulder.

And it was an excellent, smooth-looking temple fade that made him look a hundred times better than when he first walked through her door. If she had to say so herself.

When she handed him the mirror, and he saw her handiwork, he was impressed too. “Damn girl,” he said with that winning smile. “You still got it. You still know what you’re doing.” Then he stood up and pulled her into his arms. “Let me give you some love.”

Ricki smiled as he held her. “You’d better give me some coins,” she said.

“Oh I got your coins right here,” he said, pulling her closer, and she laughed.

But when he lifted her chin with his hand, and she looked up at his handsome face, she realized his smile was gone, his penis was expanding, and he looked as serious as a man on a mission. Then he leaned his head slightly down and kissed her squarely on the mouth.

Ricki was not the kind of girl that was that easily manipulated. But it had been a minute since she felt a man’s arms around her. And he tasted so good. She didn’t object.

But what she assumed would be a little make-out kissing session turned into something completely different when he kept moving her backwards toward her bedroom and kept kissing her more and more aggressively. Too aggressively.

“Alright Bryon, pump your brakes,” she said as she leaned her head back to get a look at him. “It’s not that serious.”

“Oh girl,” he said, nothing but pure lust in his beautiful eyes, “I’m about to rock your world. You ain’t never gonna forget me.”

And just like that, they were in her bedroom. He pushed her down onto the bed and without hesitation got on top of her. And then he was kissing her aggressively again.

“I thought you said you were running late,” Ricki said as he began kissing her neck.

“This won’t take long.”

“But wait.” He kept going. “I said wait a minute, Byron.” He kept going. “Didn’t I say wait, bitch?!” She yelled at him and pushed him on his chest hard enough for him to stop kissing her and lean up and look at her.

And he was frowning again. “What’s your problem now?”

“Stop acting like some dog in heat for one thing,” she said. Then she calmed back down. “Why don’t I go to the club with you and catch your set? I ain’t got shit to do. Then we can come back here afterwards.”

But he was already shaking his head. “Nope. Can’t do it that way.”

That was an odd answer, Ricki thought. She was promising him a roll in the hay, but he couldn’t wait that long? Was he for real? “Why can’t we do it that way?”

“Because my old lady gonna be there tonight and none of y’all hoes gonna mess that up for me.”

“Hoes?” Ricki was floored. “Who you calling a hoe?”

“My side piece then. That’s more respectable to you?”

It was Ricki’s time to frown. “Side piece?” Then she realized something else he had said. “Your old lady? Did you say your old lady? Are you telling me you’re married, Bryon?” She asked it with shock in her voice. “Are you married?”

He didn’t respond. Which was a response in and of itself. She even looked down at his ring finger and saw no ring. But what cheating husband would wear one? She pushed him off of her so hard that he hit the floor. “Get your ass out of my apartment!” she yelled at him.

“You don’t have to get so violent,” he said like he was Mister Respectability as he began getting up from the floor.

“Violent? You call that violent? Oh I’ll show you violence,” she said as she grabbed her hairbrush off of her nightstand and threw it at him. He had to duck to avoid getting hit.

“Still crazy as ever,” he said as he began hurrying out of her apartment.

“Crazy?” She was hurrying right behind him. “Oh I’m crazy now because I don’t wanna sleep with a married-ass man? How could you sleep around on your own wife?”

“As long as they’re thirsty women like you in this world, it’s easy.”

She picked up that brush she had thrown at him, and threw it at him again she was so angry. This time she hit him in the back of his head. “Just get out of my house and get out now!”

“I’m going dammit!” He was getting angrier too. “Your mean ass. I see why you ain’t got no man. You ain’t worth it!” Then he opened that door, hurried out as she picked up that brush and threw it again. But the brush hit the door, denting it, as he slammed it shut.

Then Ricki, exhausted, laid her forehead against the door. How could she be so stupid when she knew Byron wasn’t worth a damn? Was she that desperate for a man? Thirsty was what he called her. So thirsty for a man she’d do anything to have one. Was she that girl now? Was she that?

She remembered a time when she used to have to beat’em off of her. Now they had to beat her off of them? She felt so ashamed.

But when she turned and leaned her back against the door and surveyed her apartment, looking at all of his nappy hair she had to clean up, she suddenly stood upright. “That motherfucker didn’t pay me!” she said. And she was about to sling open that door and run him down to get her money.

But she’d embarrassed herself enough by letting that joker kiss on her and use her for a free haircut on top of that. She stayed where she stood.

So many times she would see all those gorgeous black men in their fancy designer suits walking to their fancy corporate jobs with their briefcases and covered coffee mugs and she’d try to smile at them and be polite to them but they wouldn’t give her the time of day.

It was as if they knew they wanted a sister to share in their success, but she had to be as successful as they were.

She had to be on their level. They always looked at Ricki as if she was nowhere near it.

And never would be. Leaving her the Byrons of this world to ease her deferred dreams.

But she was done settling, she thought as she began cleaning up his mess.

She was done.