“Good man. He chose well.”
“Thanks! I thought so too. I have to admit, when he said he wanted to pick it out himself, I was a little scared, but I was pleasantly surprised, and now I wear it every day.”
She dries my hair, and I follow her back to her chair so she can do the final touches on the top now that it’s wet.
When she’s finished, she reaches on her shelf for product and holds it up to me. “Do you want it styled?”
I shake my head. “Nah, I have my hat, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I gave you one hell of a haircut, and you’re going to cover it with a hat as soon as you leave here, aren’t you?”
I rub my lips together, guilt covering my face, not sure what to say.
She giggles, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve heard in a while.
“You look like my son when I catch him doing something he shouldn’t be doing.” She removes the drape from around me and places her hands on my shoulders. “I’m kidding. It’s okay to wear your hat.”
I place it on my head with a smile and look at her through the mirror.
“Ah. You’re a Terror fan. Okay, that makes more sense now with all the baseball talk.”
“Guilty as charged.” I smile, but don’t correct her from fan to player because that would just feel like I’m bragging at this point.
I stand and pull out my card to pay her. She takes it and processes it on her phone, then hands it back to me with the screen up for me to tip and sign. I do both, then hit Done.
“I need to reschedule too,” I say.
“Nope. Your sister already has you booked out for months.”
I shake my head with a laugh. “She takes good care of me.”
“That she does. I must have talked to her for an hour about anything and everything. It was fun. She told me she’s a hairstylist too.”
“Yep. It drives her crazy when my hair isn’t right. I’ve moved so much that it was hard to find someone who cut it to her standards. Since I’m here for good now, she wanted to make sure I’d be fully taken care of.”
“That sounds about right for both a sister and a hairstylist,” she says with a chuckle. “She said she had your schedule so she could go that far out, but do you want to check the dates?”
I pull up my calendar on my phone, which has all of our games and locations already entered, and see I have over ten requests to add to it from my sister. I hold my phone up to show Christy. “Yep, she’s got it on here.”
“Then you’re all set. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
“See you then.”
I wave goodbye and call my sister, Samantha, once I’m outside.
“Hey, sis,” I say after she answers.
“What’s up, little bro?”
“Just finished my haircut. Thanks for scheduling my next ones too.”
“I know, sometimes, the only consistent thing in your life is your haircut, so if I can’t be with you, at least I know you’ll be taken care of there.”
We lost our mom when I was just ten years old. My dad had to work a lot to provide for us on one income, so she may be my sister, but she’s never hesitated to fill the mother role as well.
“So, what did you think of Christy?”
I unlock my truck with the key fob and open the door. “She was nice.”
