- Aiden -
ll she said was “yes.”
I asked if she got home okay and all she said was “yes.”
What a bunch of bullshit?!
I was glad she was alive, but why even respond if that’s all you’re going to say?
I don’t know what I expected from her. It’s not like I asked a particularly open ended question, but still. Twenty four hours had passed since the morning after we slept together. She could’ve said something mildly lukewarm.
Whatever. I couldn’t wait for her to come around and start making sense. I had to see her. Not just cause I had to, but because I needed to know if she would be my date for Claire’s wedding.
I considered texting her before I left work, but she always worked Mondays. And if I asked her by text, she would either take her sweet time getting back to me or she would just say “yes.” And frankly, that would piss me off.
I picked up some yellow flowers- the closest thing to sunflowers I could find- and drove to the salon. Worst case scenario, she wouldn’t be there. But even then, I’d still have an opportunity to intimidate her creepy boss, which might help me vent some of the frustration I was feeling.
The little bell rang when I pushed the door open. Sure enough, her boss was standing behind the desk and turned stark white when I walked in. As for Lucy, I saw her before she saw me. She was wearing black pants and a loose black shirt. Her hair was pulled back low, but a chunk of it was hanging in her face as she dragged a small paintbrush over some aluminum foil that was attached to her client’s head.
A moment later, she saw me through the mirror in front of her station and turned to look at me.
I raised the flowers as a little wave.
She held her pointer finger up and turned back to her client while the other stylists took turns looking my way.
I strolled over to Chuck. “Hi Chuck.”
“Hello.”
“Do you remember me?”
“Lucy’s boyfriend?”
“That’s right,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“You look great,” I said. “With all your teeth and no broken ribs.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No,” I said.
He swallowed and looked down so I was staring at his bald spot.
I kept my eyes on him until he raised his head again.
“You can wait for Lucy over there,” he said, gesturing to the seats lining the front window.
“Thanks, Chuck,” I said. “Good talking to you.”
He didn’t look like he agreed, but that was fine by me.
I took a seat on one of the chairs by the window, laid the flowers beside me, and watched Lucy work. Foil after foil, she painted strands of hair on her client’s head, nodding enthusiastically as the woman gabbed at her.
I tried to keep my eyes from lingering too long on the curve of her ass, but I let myself steal a few glances while I waited.
Finally, she laid her hands on her client’s shoulders, gave her a little squeeze and headed towards me, wiping her hands on her apron as she approached. “Aiden.”
“Lucy,” I said, standing.
“Are those for me?” she asked, glancing at the flowers.
“They were either for you or to put on Chuck’s grave, but he seems to be behaving himself today.”
“Thanks,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
She pushed the chunk of hair out of her eyes. “I’m working.”
“I can wait.”
“I won’t be done for another hour.”
I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You really think if I could wait fifteen years I can’t manage another hour?”
She smiled.
“Plus, we need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Not now. Over ice cream.”
“I haven’t had dinner.”
“So get pistachio.”
“Please don’t sit here and watch me for the next hour.”
“I swear I’ll only look at your ass and nowhere else.”
She shook her head and looked down.
“You won’t even know I’m here.”
“Of course I will.”
“No you won’t. I’ll be as silent as you were when you snuck out of my apartment yesterday morning.”
She rubbed her arm with her hand. “I’m sorry. I just-”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, I do an-”
“Buying my ice cream will be sufficient.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. As long as that isn’t a euphemism.”
“It’s not. Besides, money can’t buy the kind of sweet cream we can make ourselves.”
“Damn it, Aiden. This is my place of work.”
“You call this work? This is nothing compared to how you-”
“Just stop, okay,” she said, leaning towards me. “Just sit down, and don’t think filthy things about me while I’m trying to do my job.”
“I won’t if you won’t,” I said.
She marched back to her station. Without wasting a moment, she started peaking in the little foil flaps on her client’s head, and when she stole a glance at me, her face turned bright red.
I smiled and lifted the flowers to my nose, burying my face in them like they were Lucy’s perfectly groomed snatch.
The hour I spent watching her flew by. After all, now that I felt like I was seeing her for the first time, there was so much to admire about her. Every time she engaged with someone else, they left smiling. Every time she marched across the floor, she did so with purpose.
In fact, she was incredibly sexy. Even when she was sweeping the hair around her station, she had a unique grace, a grace she’d somehow retained when she was spreading her legs for me and soaking my eager tongue.
“Ready?” I asked when she finally approached.
She nodded.
I led the way, opening the door for her.
She waved at the other girls on her way out and exhaled when we hit the sidewalk. “You can’t just show up at my job like that, Aiden.”
“Cause I’m too distracting?”
“Cause it’s not professional,” she said. “The younger girls get in trouble when guys hang around waiting for them.”
“Why?”
“Cause it interferes with the client experience.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize,” I said. “Well, if anyone complains, you can assure them that the only person I’m interested in interfering with is you.”
She shot me a look out of the corner of her eye. “What made you stop by anyway?”
I stepped up to the passenger side door and opened it. “I had to see you.”
She rolled her eyes and tucked her feet in the car. “You should’ve called.”
“I thought about it, but I was sort of uninspired by your last text,” I said, shutting the door.
“What are you talking about?” she asked as soon as I sat down beside her.
“What do you think? We have this incredible night on Saturday, and then you totally disappear without a trace. Well, that’s not true. You forgot your underwear.”
She pursed her lips.
“And then you don’t answer my text all day, even just to let me know you’re alright.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want an explanation. Didn’t you have a good time on Saturday?”
“Of course I did.”
“So why the third degree?”
“I just needed to process what happened.”
“What is there to process?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We’ve never done anything like that before.”
“So?”
“So I guess I was just worried things would be weird between us.”
“Look,” I said. “I don’t want things to be weird either, but weird is not returning my messages. Weird is sneaking out of my apartment in the middle of the night.”
“I know,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “But hooking up with each other is weird, too.”
“Yeah, but that’s good weird.”