I shrugged. “Glad you settled on the one you have now. It’s just right for you. You look like a man who knows how to make himself look good.”
He smirked. “That’s a very generous compliment. Flattering me because I deserve to be flattered?”
“Always.”
We set a timer on my phone, and when it beeped, I rinsed out the solution, then ran a towel through my hair, inspecting the color. Staring back at me was this whole other person, it seemed. A man I didn’t recognize.
The outside mirroring my inside again.
“You don’t like it? Would you like another color?” Liam asked, sensing my discomfort.
Unlike Liam, I couldn’t have been that hard to read, especially as I stood there, frozen in front of the mirror, that knot in my gut twisting far more than when I saw the box of hair dye.
It was silly, I kept telling myself. It was temporary. Wouldn’t last forever.
However, it was one more thing that made me feel as though my life would never be the same. LikeIwould never be the same.
“It’s not the color. It’s just, I don’t know… It doesn’t really look likeme.”
“You look hot, if that’s what you’re stressed about.”
I could tell by the way he said it that he was totally serious, but he was missing an issue I was just starting to pick up on. “I think it just embodies the thing I’ve been having such a hard time with in my life recently: not knowing who the fuck I am. All that shit we talked about—coming to terms with being bi, figuring out my job…feeling like a fuckup.”
He moved close behind me, wrapping his arm around me, tugging me firmly against his body.
If anything could make me feel better, that was it. But it couldn’t shake this thing nagging at me.
Through the mirror, I noticed his eyebrows shifting ever so slightly, his expression serious. “I’m sorry. I could tell something was on your mind, but I assumed this was all a lot to take in, not this specifically bothering you. But, Ty, as someone who’s changed his appearance a lot over the course of his life, I can tell you that it’s only a mask. Every day, the look you’ve put on has been simply a disguise to appear a certain way for the world. It’s not what matters. It’s what’s inside, and what’s in you is far more special than your hair…or your job. When I look at you, what I see transcends all that. You think you would be any less beautiful if you had a different face or name or another career? I admit I’d miss the lips, but you are so special beyond this body, which reveals only a fraction of the real magic that is Ty Winslow.”
As he assessed my reflection, I could feel the truth of his words, the way they penetrated my soul and eased that knot in my gut as though he was cutting away at a web of tense bands that had bound me all up inside.
“Do you think you would see me differently if I changed my hair?” he asked, further solidifying the ridiculousness of my notions about my appearance, in which, as he’d pointed out, I’d apparently tied too much of my personality.
I shook my head. “I know it’s dumb. Just having such a hard time figuring out who I really am right now that I guess it seems like the one thing I thought I knew is being torn from me.”
He rested his hand against the back of my neck and massaged gently. “If you get too confused about who you are, just ask me. Because the man I see is pretty damn incredible.”
I could tell by his tone that he wasn’t joking. If anyone could make sense of this jumbled mess that was me, this thing that seemed so elusive, I knew it was him. And it made me hope that he felt so much more for me than what we’d shared so far.
But…it was too much for me to think like that.
Too fast, too soon.
I shrugged off the thought.
“Why don’t you call your family? They can remind you of who you are,” Liam said. “And while you do that, I’ll dye my hair.”
“I’d like that.” I’d wanted to check in again, but hadn’t wanted to ask. I already felt like dead weight.
Downstairs, I passed by Kyle, seated on the couch, facing away from me. I hadn’t seen him much throughout the day, but when I ran into him, he made sure to throw a disapproving glare my way, surely because after his and Liam’s last chat, he knew better than to question my loyalty out loud. But I knew where he stood on that matter.
And really, why the fuck shouldn’t he have? I was the only one present he didn’t know…the only one who hadn’t proven himself to the team.
I stepped onto the back porch, just beneath the balcony, overlooking the woods and the pond that glistened in the sunlight. So quiet, so peaceful. In such odd contrast to my life at the moment.
“Hey, Dad. How’s it going?” I said when Eric answered.
“Very good. You still having fun in Boystown?”
