THREE
Kennedy- 6 days later
"Earth to Kenny," the slightly effeminate voice called from behind me, making my entire body jerk, and the scissors I had been pulling out of cleaning solution clatter to the floor.
It was one of those days. The 'nothing can seem to go right' days. My phone charger died while my phone was on it the night before, so my alarm didn't go off, making me wake up almost forty minutes late. And of course it couldn't be one of those mornings when you woke up and your hair was doing that endearing bed-sexy thing. No, it was a rat's nest, so I had to take the time to wash and style it. Time which I obviously did not have given that I woke up late. But my job demanded I didn't show up looking like crap. Then I got to work, finding Benny waiting out front for me, looking apologetic already, and I knew it was a pile-on day.
Turned out that the back window had a brick through it from some asshole teen or something. Which, well, wasn't a huge deal once we cleaned up the glass and sealed it. There would be no new window for a long time since I couldn't afford it, but it was in the stock room, so it didn't matter.
It was just one thing on the long list of bad stuff happening that particular morning.
See, me, I owned a salon.
That was a truly generous word for my business.
The room itself was all of ten by ten. We had two chairs for cutting, a nail station, and a pedicure chair. That left a small aisle down the center that Benny and I were constantly brushing shoulders through all day. Back when I first opened, I had had just enough money to make it how I wanted it, so the floor was a deep gray as was the back wall you faced when you came in, the chairs, both nail stations, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the very small reception area beside the door. The remaining walls were a vivid pink, giving the whole place an incredibly girly and welcoming feel.
It felt like coming home when I walked inside.
And, usually, it was comforting enough to take some of my usual stress away for the eight to twelve hours I was there every day of the week.
Benny joined my team about three months after I opened when I realized my somewhat small, but loyal, customer base was growing, and I needed help.
He was maybe the only friend I had in the world, and I felt no small amount of guilt that I could no longer offer him the raise I had promised when I first hired him. It was something he waved off (and truly meant) because he made crazy tips given that he was the most personable and charismatic person anyone had ever met. But I still felt bad about it.
"Sorry, one of those days," I said, shaking my head, catching the motion in one of the scalloped mirrors on the wall. I wasn't looking great. I couldn't blame the waking up late, either. I just wasn't sleeping properly, wasn't eating properly, and was pretty much living on caffeine and the ever-present buzz to the system that was stress. I was losing weight, and my under-eye bruises were getting so dark that my makeup wasn't really covering it anymore.
"Yeah, sweets, you've been having a lot of those lately." Benny wasn't one for sugarcoating things. Not even to customers. I once caught him spinning a girl in her chair, cocking a hip, and flat-out telling her that her boyfriend was a shithead and she should dump him.
He was tall and lean, always dressed in impeccably fitting clothes be they jeans and a button-up or a full-on outfit. His hair was slightly long on top, black, and styled. His eyes were the warmest shade of green I had ever seen, and he was quick with a smile.
"I know, Benny. I'm sor..."
"Oh, enough with the apologizing," he said, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't criticizing you. I'm just saying, you need to find a way to loosen up a bit, get rid of some of that stress. You're going to implode at this rate."
Benny knew the whole story, the ugly details. This was because Benny had been directly impacted by it all. He was, therefore, always trying to cheer me up, help me out in his slick little ways.
He brought me coffee in the morning. He packed lunches for both of us because he said he had 'leftovers,' even though it was painfully clear he had bought the damn food for us. He offered to do my highlights for me. He painted my nails.
But that was about as far as I would let it go, no matter how much he offered to help in other ways.
"Another year," I said, putting the scissors back in the solution, and dropping down in the chair. "I just need one more year of this and things should be better."
"Honey, you won't last another month at this rate."
He wasn't wrong.
It had been a long, impossible road for longer than I cared to admit. And lately, for some reason, it was really weighing me down. I felt heavy. My footsteps felt weighted.
"I just..." I started, only to be cut off by the sound of the bell on the door, surprising me since we didn't have any clients for another hour.
"I just need to make a damn appointment."
"Do it on your fucking phone like a normal person."
"No," I gasped, drawing Benny's attention, brows drawing together, as I felt my heart skip into overdrive.
Because... no.
No freaking way.
"We were walking past for chrissakes," the female voice said, and I could almost hear the eye-roll she was giving him. "It takes a lot of effort to keep up this color," she added.
"Hi!" Benny said after big-eyeing me in a very 'what the fuck is wrong with you' kind of way, beaming at the couple behind me.
Couple.
Because why else would they be walking by together, right?
Niro was a part of a couple.
And he had finger fucked me in an alley at a biker compound.
Good lord.
Apparently, the floor underneath the trap door I fell in was weak, and I dropped through and into a shit-filled cesspool.
I could add 'other woman' to the long list of bad stuff that had happened that year.
"Welcome to Kennedy's Beauty."
Why, oh, why did I have to name my salon after myself?
I stiffened in my seat, trying to mentally remind myself that Kennedy wasn't exactly a strange name. It might not have been super popular, but it wasn't rare either. There could totally be two women named Kennedy in Navesink Bank.
"Can I help you set up an appointment to keep that violet as stunning as it already is?" Benny asked, walking past me toward the desk where I was vaguely aware of him walking her through the appointment process over the whooshing sound of my blood through my ears.
And then hands clamped down on the armrests to my sides, a body folding forward, warm breath on my ear. "Did you think I wouldn't know it was you, pet?"
Oh, God.
Great.
Just lovely.
He was going to be inappropriate right there in front of his girl, and it was going to be a scene, and that would just be the whipped cream on the shitpie of my year.
"Don't," I heard escape my lips, not being aware I was going to say it until it was out of me, the sound pleading, but still steely.
"Don't what?" he asked, leaning closer, his chest brushing the back of my shoulders, his lips almost touching my ear. "Don't tell you I was more than a little disappointed that you didn't stick around so I could get a taste? Because I fucking was."
"Alright, all set," the woman called, making me stiffen all the more, something I didn't know was possible because I already felt like my spine was reinforced by steel.
"But now I know where to find you," he added, leaning the slightest bit down, and planting a hard kiss right underneath my ear, before standing, and walking out.
Holy crap.
Holy crap.
I had barely had a second for that thought to form before I felt my chair whipped to the side, forcing me to face my own reflection. I found my cheeks a bit heated, my eyes way too heavy-lidded.
I also found Benny standing there with a brow raise, hands on the back of my seat.
"Spill."
I swallowed hard, looking for the will to lie. I couldn't find it, so I tried to evade. "Spill what?"
"Oh, yeah, okay," he scoffed, shaking his head. "Because it is commonplace for a Henchmen to walk his sexy bad boy ass in here, get all up in your personal space, and kiss your neck. That happens everyday in this hot pink vagina-colored salon."
Benny hated pink.
Benny hated pink like I hated blood.
He had been nagging me to change the pink to a more neutral light gray or crisp green since pretty much the day he was hired.
"Benny, really, it's..."
He waved a finger at me in the mirror. "Don't even try to deny it. I know you too well for you to pull that off."
He wasn't wrong.
Also, maybe it would feel good to talk about it.
I had actively been shutting down any thoughts of Niro from the moment I ran from the compound almost a week before. It was just one of those 'If I don't think about it, it didn't happen' kind of deals. Though, judging by the very hot sex dreams I had been having ever since, my subconscious knew it happened and definitely wanted more.
"So you know last week how I had a meeting with..."
"The douche," he cut in, making me smile. Benny hated Ethan even more than I did, which was saying something. This might have had something to do with the fact that when Ethan came in, he addressed us as 'hey ladies.' It was something he would normally be okay with, but because he already disliked Ethan, decided he found it offensive.
"Right. And he told me no." I already told him that part. "But there was this guy there, and he thought Ethan and I were... together."
"Ew."
"I know," I agreed, nodding. "And he kinda made some comments about what a real man can do..."
"Oh, lordy..." Benny agreed, fanning himself with his hand.
"And invited me to that big party at The Henchmen compound."
"So you went and you did the dirty."
"What? No! I mean... we made out and he, ah..."
"Ate you out?"
See? I did say Benny was blunt.
"No, it was just..."
"Ah, checking the oil. I see. That makes more sense. No way you got laid with how tense you still are. So, what's the problem then?"
"I didn't even know his name!" I admitted, eyes feeling like they were bugging. "I still don't know his name."
"He kind of has a hotter young Robert De Niro thing going on..."
"Oh my God! That's exactly what I thought! I've been calling him Niro in my head."
I loved Benny. In case that wasn't clear. He was everything a friend should be- supportive, non-judgmental, and he always understood my TV, movie, and song references.
"Well, honey, Niro is hot as sin. Holy hell. When are you giving him a tour of your bedsheets?"
"I'm not," I said, trying to sound more firm than I felt on the matter. Quite frankly, just that five-second interaction had me all hot and bothered. A large part of me wanted to tell him to ditch his woman, tell Benny to take a break, and let him take me right then and there. "He has a woman!"
"The purple-haired one?" he asked, brows drawing together. "You miss so much sometimes, Kenny. She has a set of rings on. His hands were empty."
"Maybe bikers don't wear wedding rings."
"What about that man suggests he is married? Come on now. He's single. You're single. So your fun parts should definitely mingle."
"Benny, I don't do casual sex."
"Angel face, from what I can tell since I started here, you don't do any kind of sex. It's not normal. Hell, I would argue that it's not healthy. People who fuck and come more are more likely to live longer. Do it for your future, woman!"
I threw my head back and laughed at that, the first real laugh I had experienced in far too long.
"Thanks. I needed that."
"You need to go walk your gorgeous ass down the street, walk into that compound, and tell sexy Niro to take you all night long." He stood, moving toward the front desk again. "I bet you would feel like a new woman after."
I didn't exactly doubt him on that.
Sex, for all intents and purposes, was the most enjoyable form of natural stress relief. That being said, I was still me. I knew that screwing around with some bad news guy would in the moment take the stress away, but would just pile on more after it was over. There would be the inevitable guilt or shame-type thoughts. There would maybe even be a bit of wondering if sex could be more than that.
But Jazzy's warning was still fresh on my mind.
Niro was not the settling-down kind of guy.
And I was not the screwing around kind of girl.
It was doomed.
And best left unexplored.
Case closed.
"So when is her appointment for?" I asked, trying to shake myself out of it.
"Get this," Benny said, looking excited. "Her name is Maze and she has Monday at 2 PM for a cut and color."
Cut and color was good. That was decent money for the time put in. We had a lot of clients who came in to get blowouts which, while not cheap, didn't exactly keep the lights on unless they did it frequently.
If things hadn't gone the way they had, the customer base we had would be more than enough to keep myself and Benny perfectly happy. Not rich, not rolling in it, but comfortable.
But there was no use thinking about the could-have-beens.
The reality was the reality, and that meant I kept Benny as happy as I possibly could so he didn't need to quit and find a better job and me, well, I barely, just barely scraped by.
Another year. That was all I needed. Things would be on track by then. And, maybe it was wrong of me to hope for such a thing, but I was hoping that the shop next door didn't get rented out. That was wrong of me because I knew that it sitting there meant it got no income for the owner. But I wanted it. I wanted that damn shop to expand mine to one big space. That had always been the plan.
Also, maybe it wasn't so wrong of me to think it since the person who owned it was Ethan, and the reason it was empty was that his stubborn ass wouldn't let me rent it at a slighted scale until renovations were done. Because it apparently was better business sense to let it sit empty.
Kenny, baby, you're too big of a risk right now.
That was what the jackass told me at She's Bean Around.
The worst part, though, was that I understood that. I truly did. I was, for all intents and purposes, still a risk business-wise. Through no fault of my own, but it was just how it was.
I was just having a really hard time accepting that there was a chance, even a good chance, that my dream salon could be out of my reach at literally any given time if someone else swooped in.
Then, blissfully bringing me out of my negative thoughts, the door chimed again and in walked my next appointment- a full set of gels and a pedicure. Benny had a labor intensive permanent straightening appointment that would last him most of the rest of the day while I took whatever walk-ins happened by. We always had a few of them- people looking for something trendy that not all the shops in town did yet like oil slick color or decorative undercuts. They would drop in to ask, and then if I was open, take a chair and get it done.
By the time night fell, Benny shooed his very happy client out the door after she insisted on taking about twelve selfies with him to show off his awesome work and Instagram and Snap about it to her friends. Which we both knew was free publicity, so we always posed when it was asked of us. He shook out his very sore arms and rolled his shoulders. "I need to get home to my man and have him give me a massage," he declared, going behind the desk to grab his stuff. "Come on, let me walk you to your place."
Because I didn't have a car.
Not because I didn't drive, but let's just say that things got bad enough that I had needed to sell it. Which sucked and made life even harder than it had to be, but it was a sacrifice I had needed to make.
Luckily, I only lived around the corner and down about ten houses.
"Nah, I am going to work on the website before I head out. Go enjoy your man."
"Oh, you know I will," he said with a smile, giving me a wave, and heading out the door.
I was no graphic designer.
I hated web design.
My first three attempts at a site for us looked like maybe a ten-year-old did it. I was slowly, but surely, getting better. Mix that with my absolute determination to get it right, and you would see why I was there almost two hours after closing still tweaking little things.
But when the coffee machine beeped off for the second time, I knew it was time to head out. I shut down the computer, grabbed my purse, slipped my fingers into this nifty kitty cat self-defense keychain, and went out the door, turning and locking it.
"Girls who look like you look shouldn't be walking around this town alone at night," a newly familiar voice said casually from my side. "All kinds of bad characters out around here." My head turned in his direction, finding him leaning casually against the wall, foot pressed against it, a cloud of cigarette smoke around him. The end lit up in his mouth as he took a drag before pushing off the wall, squashing the cigarette, and letting out the smoke as he moved toward me. "Guys like me with all kinds of ideas about what they'd like to do to you."
Oh, hell.