“You!” I pointed at him with a sharp finger. “Last night on the news. I told you NO interviews!”
He rose to his feet, and his voice leveled up a notch to match mine. “I know I did terrible, but where were you?”
I perched a hand on my hip and haughtily answered, “At home, watching and dealing with your social media disaster! I told you no interviews, and now you’ve created this huge mess! Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried calling, but you never answered your phone!”
“What?” I knew he was lying, but to prove a point, I yanked my phone from my bag, checked it and found no such evidence. “No, you didn’t!”
“Yeah, I did. Your phone must not have been working, because I tried calling you about twelve times.”
I flashed the screen at him, annoyed he thought he could get away with this lie. “I didn’t get any missed calls.”
“Let me show you.” He grabbed his phone, and before he dialed, he asked, “Make sure I have your number right. Is it 566-5565?”
“Yes,” I answered dryly, amazed he was still dragging this excuse out.
He dialed the number and put his phone on speaker, holding it up in the air, and we listened to it ring. My phone didn’t light up, or even chime. Then after one ring a voice said, “This number is unavailable,” and the call ended.
“What?” I stared at my phone like it was speaking a foreign language. “That’s impossible.”
“Give me your phone.” He reached his hand out to me, his voice friendly, not at all like the troll on the news last night. “Let me check your settings.”
I reluctantly handed over my phone while keeping my brow lowered. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with my phone, but I knew this was clearly all his fault.
“Yep, just as I figured. You blocked my number.” He held his finger next to my contact list. “See, right where it saysBeaunezer Scrooge. It has my number and it’s blocked.”
“Wh-what?” My eyes zoomed in, seeing he was, in fact, right. Heat crept into my cheeks. I had no recollection of blocking him, and it made no sense, since I had agreed to work with him. Of course, I would need to talk to him. It must have been subconscious, or an accident. I also had forgotten I had given him that nickname and clearly never planned on him seeing that! “How did that happen?”
“You tell me?” He handed my device back and offered a good-natured shrug.
I kept my eyes on him, hiking both brows defensively. “Are you saying this was my fault?”
“No, that’s not what I’m sayin’,” he started slowly. “I’m sayin’ I did what you wanted me to do, but you were unavailable, so don’t be mad at me. I tried to reach out to you.”
Feeling this failure deep in my gut, I lowered my eyes. I also didn’t know what had gotten into me acting so upset. Beau just brought out the worst in me. I hated how he seemingly had invisible powers over my emotions, just pushing all the buttons that set me off. This wasn’t the way I normally treated people, especially my clients. I needed to be better at controlling myself. “I’m sorry,” I said in the sincerest voice I could. “I had no idea.”
“It’s okay.” His eye contact was firm, holding me accountable. I held it as long as I could, but he made me uncomfortable. I looked away as he added, “It’s not the first time I made everyone on TV mad at me, but now you have to help me fix it.”
I gave a shallow nod, knowing it was my mistake that I was out of reach, but I wasn’t the one who made him sound like an idiot. The good thing was that I was an expert at cleaning up messes, starting with my own right now. I changed the subject from me and back to him. “You started this dumpster fire. I will agree to fix it thisonetime. If you ever do this again, I’m going to walk away, waving at you while you burn everything down.” I didn’t give him a chance to say anything because I was so full of his stupid words I couldn’t take anymore, so I went on, “News cycles don’t last long. They’ll have someone else more interesting to talk about by tomorrow.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” he asked in an even voice.
I raked my weary eyes over his body, knowing it was time to crank up the electric fence. No more playing around. My voice was low when I asked, “Truthfully?”
His lips stayed apart while he watched me survey him, and his voice was even softer than mine when he said, “Yeah.”
“I need you to get a haircut.” I breathed out, a little afraid that I might offend him, but I didn’t see any way around it. “And some different clothes,” I tacked on when I remembered how rig-pigged he had looked during his interview last night. Aside from his brown eyes, I couldn’t tell what he even looked like because he had too much unkempt hair. “And maybe shave your beard. And your ears. And buy some stronger soap,” I added while staring at his hands, doing my best to infuse an empathetic tone in my voice.
“These are working hands.” He held his hands out in front of him, clearly proud of the stains. “Something your generation doesn’t seem to understand.”
“Beau, I understand how to work hard.” My lips twisted up into a sly smile. “I just like to make it look easy.” I turned on my heel, heading back toward the door. I was ready to move past this hard conversation, and I knew if I could do this makeover for him, he’d feel better. “We are cleaning up your entire image. I’m going to make it my mission to find you some industrial-grade soap, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll use acid.” I was only half-joking about the acid as I waved him over with urgency. “Come on. We start now.”
six
Beau
I’dbeenrockin’thisparty-in-the-back haircut since I was in grade-school. It truly was the best haircut God could give a man. Short on the sides so you didn’t get hair in your face when you’re outside sweating. Long in the back, so you had nice coverage from the sun. Could there be anything more genius?
