It stays with me even after I've crawled into my own bed two hours later, with a hottie on my arm and a condom in my pocket.
And Denali on my mind.
chapter eight
Denali
He hasn't calledsince that one day, but I keep waiting. The other shoe has to drop eventually, right? It's only a matter of time before he either figures out what I'm doing now, or who I'm with, and makes my life miserable.
I can't keep living like this, on edge all the time. Hell, yesterday, when Kai dropped a pen in the car, I jumped and hit my head off the ceiling. He's bound to sort out that something's wrong with me, and then who knows what he'll do? Maybe fire me. I mean, I'm not failing at my job yet, but it's only a matter of time before I slip up bad enough that I can't cover it up or fix it before he notices.
Last night I gave Roger the wrong address to take us to, and had to correct him about six minutes after we started driving the wrong way. I blamed the map being upside down, but in reality, I was the one who read my own notes wrong. Today, I've managed to misname the girl working on his hair twice, grabbed the wrong brand of water on my last run to the fridge, and almost tripped over another idol wandering around backstage. The look she shot me could have melted steel.
I'm lucky she didn't make a big stink over it. The last thing I need to do is cause trouble for Kai.
"For the last time, you're going to give me a cowlick! Brush it down the other way, dammit."
Speak of the devil.
His poor stylist throws her hands in the air and groans in frustration. "They pay me to make you look good. So let me make you look good."
Kai scowls in the mirror, touching the work she's already done, grumbling in disgust. "The only thing you're doing now is making me a laughingstock. My hair won't lay flat like you want for long. And that stupid hair spray you have won't change that."
I'm rushing over to defuse the situation before another stylist quits on him. I slide effortlessly between them, offering the poor girl a smile and a sad nod. I pity the people who have to deal with him on a daily basis when he's in one of his moods.
"Here, why don't you go grab a drink, Sasha, and I'll deal with the grouch," I suggest, waving her off when she protests. "No, it's fine, really. I've got it. You come back with a fresh set of eyes and this will all be better, watch."
"Okay," she says hesitantly, "but I still have to finish the eyeliner he refuses to wear?—"
"I'm not wearing it. What part of sensitive eyes do you not understand?"
Kai's in a rare mood, acting like a spoiled child, and I've had it up toherewith his attitude for once. Usually, I can tolerate it, but right now? I'm frayed, dangerously close to breaking, and something in me snaps.
"Go, Sasha," I command, waiting until she's out of earshot before I turn all my pent-up frustration on my boss. "Look here, you ungrateful, spoiled, arrogant asshole?—"
"Spoiled?"
"Yes, spoiled." I tug a bobby pin from my hair and stick it between my teeth, reaching up to yank his head down so that he's looking at his feet while I work on the particularly trickypart of his hair that he's complaining about. He's right; hair gel and spray won't hold it down. But a well-placed bobby pin will keep it attached to better-behaving hair, and that's what I aim to do. "You know, a little kindness goes a long way around here. These poor stylists aren't making enough to take your abuse."
"I wasn't being mean?—"
"You were." The way my fingers grip his hair and twist it so I can secure it is far from gentle, but to his credit, he takes it in stride, not giving any indication if it hurts or not. When I'm finished, Sasha is still gone, taking advantage of the break she's been given, so I pick up the hair straightener she set off to the side and fix the strand she was in the middle of sorting out, standing right in front of Kai so he can't look in the mirror for more things to criticize.
He always manages to find something to bitch about, and I'm beginning to think it's less because he's unhappy with the things around him and more unhappy with something internal. Maybe the pressure's starting to get to him. I'll have to find a way to work in some downtime for him to decompress on his busy, packed schedule.
When I step back, there's a tense silence between us, like nothing that we've had to deal with before, so I fill it with more work—I happen to be a woman who wears makeup, one with a sensitive as fuck waterline on my eyes. So I know a thing or two about putting on eyeliner to make it not bother those spots.
"Hold still, open your eyes, and look up," I mutter, reaching for the nearby eyeliner pencil. I prefer liquid liners for this specific reason, but I'm not the makeup artist. So I work with what she's left behind. "Shit, it's too stiff. Does nobody here know that you need to soften this shit before you put it on a client? You could poke an eye out with this thing."
I huff hot breath onto the end of the pencil, and then, when it's not giving me the desired consistency or glide across my ownskin as a tester, I dab the end of it on the tip of my tongue, and then bring the pointy end down to Kai's face.
He stares at it like it's going to bite him. "You just put that in your mouth?—"
"Yes, and I'm clean and disease-free, boss, so unless you wanna fight the stylist some more, let me help you." He stills, and I lean in, a hand on his chin as I adjust him where I want him before I move that hand to the corner of his eye and tighten the skin there to gently apply the makeup in my hand. "Sheesh, you wanna whine ofer me licking the tip of an eyeliner, but we've literally shared a coffee before, from the same cup and everything."
That's about as close to kissing my boss as I've ever gotten in my life. I'm not mad about it. He's pretty, and if you can overlook the asshole tendencies, he's not all bad.
"Whatever," he huffs, crossing his arms. "On with it, I guess, you bully."
