“She let you bleach her hair?”Chloe asked, incredulous.
“Just the underlayer.She wants it purple.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She says she’s trying to be more adventurous.”Bailey rolled her eyes.“Come on.You gotta see the bathroom!”
Cradling the bottle of champagne like a beloved child, Chloe followed Bailey through the living area, down a short hallway, and into a bedroom that was twice the size of her whole apartment.The enormous bed was covered in a fluffy duvet the same color as the walls and piled high with pillows, a tufted bench at the foot in the same white leather as the living room sofas.Her footsteps slowed, everything in her yearning to stretch out on that lake of a bed and rest her aching feet, her tired muscles.But Bailey kept going into the adjoining bath, and after a last, longing look at the bed, Chloe followed.
She stepped inside and stopped dead.“Holy shit.”
“I know, right?”Bailey set the glasses down on the acre of countertop.“Dibs on the tub.”
“Hey.”Sitting backward on what Chloe recognized as one of the chairs from the dining table, Gwen turned to scowl at them.Freckles dotted her pale skin, and most of her chestnut-brown hair was piled on top of her head.The hairdresser’s cape wrapped around her shoulders rustled when she shoved her glasses up her nose and glared out of eyes the color of bitter chocolate.“Why do you get dibs?”
“Because I called it.”Bailey snapped on a pair of gloves and rubbed the hair at the base of Gwen’s skull, yellowed now with bleach, between two fingers.“You’re almost ready to rinse out.”
“I’m the one sitting here with noxious chemicals on my head,” Gwen protested.“Tell her she doesn’t get dibs, Chloe.”
“She called it,” Chloe said absently, taking in the rest of the bathroom.There was enough floor space to line dance, the glassed-in shower could’ve fit the Detroit Lions offensive line, and Bailey was going to be able to swim laps in the tub.“Okay, weird question.There’s a toilet, right?”
“In there,” Bailey said, pointing.
Chloe poked her head behind the smoked glass partition.“Ooh, a toiletanda bidet!”
“Really?”Gwen turned to look, then jerked back.“Ow!You’re ripping out my hair.”
“Then stay still,” Baily advised.“Okay, let’s rinse.”
“How?”Gwen wanted to know.
“Good question.”Bailey eyed the sink.“Can you bend over backwards?”
“What is this, Cirque du Soleil?No, I can’t bend over backwards.”
Bailey planted her hands on curvy hips.“Well, then we’re going to have to do this in the shower so I don’t get bleach in your eyes.”
“We’re not doing it in the shower,” Gwen protested.“The bleach will run down into my hoo-ha.”
Bailey rolled her eyes.“It will not.If anything, it will roll down into your butt crack.”
“I don’t want that, either.”
“Bleached assholes are all the rage, but fine.We’ll put a towel around you.”
Gwen’s eyes went wide behind her glasses.“Bleachedassholes?”
“Why can’t you lay down on the counter?”Chloe interrupted.“There’s enough room, right?”
Gwen blinked.“Oh.Good idea.”
“That’ll work,” Bailey decided.“But first, we need a toast.You gonna open that bottle or what?”
“On it.”Chloe peeled off the foil and the wire.“Glasses ready?”
Bailey snatched them up.“Ready.”
Holding the bottle in one hand by the neck, she took a firm grip on the cork and with a practiced twist and yank, pulled the cork free with a celebratorypop.Wine bubbled over, and Bailey shoved a glass under the flow.
