His twin, Kevin, glanced up and grinned at Stacy. “I was obviously so great the moment I exited the womb, they thought they’d pump out a second one right away. I’m Kevin. Keith’s my little brother.”
“I’m histwinbrother,” Keith said in exasperation. “He’s thirteen minutes older than I am.”
Anything else they had to say was overrun by the rest of the family crowding around him like he was a of museum display. “C'mon, back off, guys! You’ve all seen somebody get their hair cut before!”
He caught a glimpse of his mother’s tearful face. “But notyou, sweetie.”
“Oh my God, Mom, it’s hair. I’m not cutting off my arm or getting a tattoo.”
“And jeez, Mom, it just means he’ll look more like me, you know, your beloved, devastatingly handsome older son? Wouldn’t you want that for him?”
“I’m so sorry,” Keith said to Stacy, whose expression was unreadable, at least from where he was upside-down in the sink. “I want to say they’re not always like this, but…they’re always like this. I might be able to make them go away.”
A chorus of protests met the suggestion. Beneath his family’s ruckus, Stacy asked, “Do you want them to leave? Because I can throw them out.”
“I just don’t want them tobotheryou,” Keith said desperately. Part of him did want them to leave, but that was mostly because he wanted to be able to gaze adoringly at Stacy in the mirror without anyone giving him grief. Mostly, he really just didn’t want them to drive her away. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than his fated mate deciding his family was more than any reasonable person could bear, and running away before he even got to know her.
Her fingers flexed against his scalp, a motion that was relaxing, reassuring, and tantalizing all at once. His stag, dreamily, said,She could rub my horns,and Keith choked on his own saliva. His eyes watered and he had to sit up, coughing. Stacy pulled her hands back in alarm, then grabbed a towel to keep the wet sopping mass of his hair from completely soaking his t-shirt.
“All of you!” she barked. “Back off! Keith says you can stay if you want to, but you willsit down and behave yourselves!”
Silence fell over the salon before his entire family shuffled off to waiting chairs, benches, and, in the case of a couple of his younger cousins, nervously perching in the other two salon chairs. Somebody mumbled, “Sorry,” and a murmur of guilty agreement followed.
Stacy continued glaring at them. “Whether it’s for a charitable cause or not, cutting this much hair is usually a big deal for the person getting their hair cut, and Iwillthrow you out if you aren’t kind and polite about it. Does everybody understand?”
As his extended family mumbled their understanding and their apologies again, Keith also understood something: Stacy really was going to be perfect for him.
His stag was overbearing. Keith knew it. He’d never been entirely able to counteract its tendency to strut and gleam and show off. It was sosureof itself, and honestly, it didn’t help that Keith was good-looking and that women often admired the apparent confidence that his habit of pose-striking suggested. They were generally less impressed by the fact that he was, at heart, basically a dork who was happier reading books over cups of cocoa than showing off during a night on the town.
But theylookat us when we show off,his stag said happily.They see how beautiful I am!
Technically they generally saw how beautiful Keith was, not that he’d use that word himself, but the stag didn’t differentiate. Which it shouldn’t, since they were one and the same, but it still had an awful lot of overwhelming personality and a more than healthy dose of vanity.
Stacy the salon owner could clearly handle overwhelming, and Keith bet she wouldn’t even mind that he was a dork.
“Okay.” Stacy smiled at him. “Let’s finish washing your hair, and do this cut.”
CHAPTER3
Stacy had never felt less grinch-like in her life. She swore her hands actuallytingledwhen she put them in Keith’s hair, which was absolutely ridiculous. She’d cut thousands of peoples’ hair! Many of them had been men! Cutting another guy’s hair was no reason to get cold-fingered and shaky! In fact, that was a terrible idea! Shaky hands gave bad haircuts.
But all that rich soft hair running through her fingers gave her far too many very clear ideas about clenching her hands in it, whether short or long. She had a hankering to give him a shave. She’d never given anything except her own legs a shave. She had images of that one photo shoot with k.d. lang and Cindy Crawford in her mind as inspiration, which was ridiculous, because those pictures predated her by several years, at least.
And yet the basic idea of them seemedreallygreat right now. Stacy could just close up the shop, pull down the blinds, and…
…throw Keith’s entire family out into the snow, which would be super subtle.
She guessed she should stop drooling and just cut his hair, then.
Sectioning that much hair for donating took some time, though, because it needed to be done right. She glanced in the mirror at his twin brother—somehow he wasn’t as good-looking as Keith, and Stacy didn’t think it was the hair—and said, “Are we going for a cut like his once the length is gone, or are you thinking of something else?”
Keith’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of that. What do you think?”
Stacy beckoned Kevin over and made him turn around a few times, modeling his own haircut. He didn’t pose as well as Keith did, either. He had some length on top, enough to put a bit of wax into and give his hair some height. It was a great cut on him, really, and Stacy said so, which made him grin. “Thanks. So you gonna make Keith here into my mini-me?”
“I’m half an inch taller than you.”
“I don’t think so,” Stacy said, trying not to be too amused. “I think we’re going to leave Keith a little more length, because he’s already going to feel naked with two feet less hair.” The idea of Keith naked was appealing. Stacy reminded herself his family wasright there.
