After an hour of massaging, scrubbing and painting, my feet look like those of a fucking newborn baby, and I’m taken to a hair stylist’s chair, seated next to Rowan once again, who seems to be getting tired.
“I don’t want to pry,” I tell her, “but can I ask…?” I incline my head toward her cane.
“Oh, yeah of course.” She adjusts in her chair to face me. “I have a couple of health conditions that make me a little unsteady on my feet and I get worn out pretty easily these days. I don’t like to leave the house without it anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I have a really beautiful life,” she says with a smile, “My family is healthy, I’m deeply and truly loved. Being sick can be really inconvenient, and it’s hard all the time, but it doesn’t take any of the good stuff away from me anymore.” Slapping her hands on her thighs, she changes the topic. “So what are you gonna go with?”
•
Rowan’s hair is done long before mine, and I feel a little bad about making her wait. I had assumed we were both doing something drastic, but she went for a simple trim and a blowout, which looks fantastic on her; her long hair cascades over her shoulders in wide, voluminous waves that frame her face the way you would expect to see on a model. It just didn’t take all that long in comparison to all of my dyeing, highlighting and treating. I still have highlight foils in my hair by the time hers is being fluffed over her shoulders.
After another hour of washing, drying and styling, my own hair is draped over my shoulders; now chocolate brown with caramel-colored highlights, andcurled. I don’t think I’ve worn a curl in my hair...ever, but I like it. The big, bouncy curls frame my face and soften the sharpness of my cheekbones – it makes me look nicer, more approachable. I’d never wear it like this to Envy, but to go back to Eric’s house? Sure, why not.
Walking back to Rowan’s car, I’m hit with the realization that I have let myself dive into this man. Sure, I’ve gotten to know him, but enough to uproot everything that I had established in my life? Enough for it to be okay that hekilledsomeone for me?
“How well do you know Eric?” I ask the woman walking next to me. “Last night, he did something that—”
“I know. I’m as horrified by it as you are.”
“Is that...something he does a lot?”
She shakes her head, her brow thoughtfully pinched together. “No, never. I mean, I’ve only known him for a couple of years, but he’s a good guy. He’s got a record, but nothing like that on it. Mostly just bar fights and vandalism, because he’s a thirty-seven-year-old man child.”
“Am I making a huge mistake here in trusting him so much?”
“I promise you,” she says, “woman to woman, if you weren’t completely safe, I would have come along to warn you, not to have a girls’ day out with you on his dime. I don’tdo toxic men. Davis is an idiot, but he has a good heart. I would trust him with my kids any day of the week. He’s in our will to take them if something ever happens to Colt and I, because we know that he would keep them safe. He might load them up on too much sugar and teach them new swear words, but they would be safe, and so are you.”
She stops her stride, offering me her pinkie finger, and I laugh. I can’t remember the last time that someone made a pinkie promise with me. I reach forward with my own finger, wrapping it around hers, and give it a firm shake, sealing the understanding between us.
•
Walking into Eric’s apartment, we’re met with the sound – and visual – of a pair of two grown up children playing what looks like an intense match of foosball, shouting and jumping around as they flick the handles at the sides to make their little plastic men kick the ball around. I’ve never heard two grown men throw so many obscenities at each other over a table game.
“Rat fuckin’ bastard!” Eric shouts with a laugh as his friend makes what I can only assume is the winning goal.
Colt brings his fingers up toward his face and blows on them as if they’re on fire, and Eric takes a few long strides toward him to playfully shove him in the chest, the two of them laughing together.
I wonder if his friend knows how gentle he can be.
“Billionaires,” I say, throwing on my best news anchor voice, “they’re just like real people.”
Eric’s eyes flick to mine and he lets out a low whistle as he abandons the table and heads in my direction. His hands move up to my hair, bouncing my curls. “You’re all fluffy,” he comments. “It’s nice.”
“Wow, Davis, you have such a way with words, I’m swooning over here!” Rowan taunts him, rolling her eyes asher husband wraps an arm around her, planting a kiss to the top of her head. He whispers something into her ear, but I can’t make it out. The blush that creeps over her cheeks tells me that I probably should be glad that I didn’t hear it.
I follow Eric into his kitchen, fully intending to tell him that it’s time for me to go home. Casey will freak out if I don’t show up soon, especially after that fight with Ethan, and Ava will send out a rescue crew if I don’t check in with her.
“You can call me Davis, you know,” Eric tells me, pulling me from my thoughts. “Everyone else does.”
“And everyone else probably knows Davis,” I say as I lean back onto the island behind me. “ButIknow Eric. And I happen tolikeEric.”
Stepping closer, he braces his hands on the counter on either side of me, sandwiching me between them, and he bends down to bring his mouth to the crook of my neck. His tongue slips from his mouth and he slowly drags it along the curve of my neck, up toward my earlobe, the metal of his piercing cold against my skin in contrast to the intense warmth of his tongue. My fingers interlock with each other behind his neck and I try to hold back the moan that fights to escape me when he circles my skin with his lips and sucks.
“Alright,” I faintly hear his friend say from his post ten feet away from us, “we’re leaving, Jesus.”
Eric laughs against my skin, flicking a hand up to his friends. “Thanks old bastard, see ya,” he tells him.
