“Two feet, really?” Keith’s eyes widened again.
“A little more than, when it’s wet. Even if I leave enough to shape what you’ve got,” and she did, changing where she’d positioned the ponytails, “you’re going to have—what did you say? Five bucks an inch? Over a hundred dollars from all thirty-five family members.”
“Thirty-six,” he told her with a smile reflected in the mirror. “I’ll put my own money in, too.”
“Noah didn’t need to find seven other people to fund the playground. Your family is going to bankroll it all by yourselves!”
“Worthy cause.” Keith’s smile got a little nervous, just like everybody else’s had. Well, everyone but the teen girl. She had clearly really wanted a haircut for a long time. “Let’s do it before I chicken out, huh?”
“Nah, it’s too late,” Kevin said on his way back to his seat. “She’s already got you in the chair, so you’re just gonna hafta be scared. Deer in headlights and all that.”
Keith gave his brother a dangerous glare in the mirror, then looked at Stacy’s reflection and nodded a little. “Let’s do it.”
Stacy didn’t know who took a sharper breath when she cut the first ponytail, Keith himself or his eagerly watching family. If his mother started to cry, Stacy decided she would kick her out. Fortunately for everybody, no one cried, although Keith’s eyes stayed wide and his grin stayed nervous the whole time. When the length was gone, she ruffled her hands through what was left—a mess, until she cleaned it up—and his grin got a little wild-eyed. “Oh my God. My head doesn’t weigh anything.”
“It’ll take a few days to get used to it. And you’re only going to need atinyamount of shampoo compared to what you’ve been using.” Stacy tucked all the ponytails together into one big one and held it up, eyebrows lifted. “That’s a hell of a chop, if you don’t mind me saying so. A brave one.Twenty-seven inches.”
Keith’s twin said, “Holy shit!” as the rest of the family started to groan and laugh and take out their wallets, pretending to count their money and complaining about breaking the bank. Stacy, though, set the ponytail aside and slid her hands into Keith’s much shorter hair again, rubbing her fingertips against his scalp. Under everybody’s moaning and groaning, she murmured, “You doing okay? We’re gonna get you a Jaime Lannister thing going here, all right? It’s gonna look great.”
“It’s not going to lead to throwing anybody off a tower, right?”
Stacy grinned at his reflection. “Pretty sure that wasn’t the haircut. You ready?”
“You know what, I think I am. Work your magic, Ms. Stacy.”
“Carbone. If you’ve got to go with the Ms., it’s Ms. Carbone. But Stacy is just fine. Normally,” she added, “I’d ask you about your family, what you do, all that kind of thing, but I have a feeling if I do that right now,they’regoing to answer.”
“You are extremely correct about that, and also, I kind of wonder if hairdressers wouldn’t like to just work in silence for a while and not have to keep up a steady stream of chatter with clients. You don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to. I trust your hands.”
Stacy inhaled deeply, held her breath, and let it out in a sigh. “That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in at least a week.”
“Which part, the trusting your hands, or the not having to talk?”
“Both. But I was thinking of the not having to talk part.” She smiled at him again—this guy was like her own personal anti-grinch measure, or something—and got to work shaping the rough cut she’d already given him. It took a while: even with the length gone, he had a lot of hair, and although the waves were forgiving, she liked to do things right. But as the shape came clearer—tidier than the Lannister haircut, really, shorter in back and neater over the ears, but with a good hand’s length or more to play with—Keith’s smile slowly went from nervous to surprised and eventually pleased.
One blow-dry later, and his whole family was crowded around again, trying to touch his new haircut and making admiring sounds. Stacy stepped back, satisfied as she watched him turn his head, getting used to the look. Even sitting, he managed to pose. It seemed likely he’d been a model at some point, with the way he mugged for the mirror and anybody looking at him. His mother was sniffling. His dad kept looking between him and Kevin like he was trying to decide how much they looked alike now.
And Kevin was staring kind of enviously at Keith’s new hair. “That looks pretty great, bro. Like, maybe I should grow mine out levels of great. Can you make mine look like that?” he asked Stacy.
She eyed the length of his hair, particularly around the sides. “You’ve got that pompadour thing going on, so growing out the top wouldn’t take too long, but the sides are gonna take a while. Depending on how fast your hair grows—”
The whole family, a lot of whom were redheads or had that chestnut brown hair that red hair often darkened to, more or less shouted, “Really fast!” all at once.
Stacy took a step back, startled, and Keith put his hand over his face. “I’m so sorry. Go away, all of you. You’re embarrassing me. Go find that kid and give him all the money you owe him. Seriously.” He looked through his fingers. “I mean it.”
To Stacy’s astonishment, the entire family, looking various levels of guilty, actually shuffled out of the salon, although his twin brother lingered a minute. “You were saying depending on how fast it grows?”
“I could give you a cleaned up version of this cut in about six months,” Stacy finished.
Keith sniffed. “No, she can’t. This is my haircut. Get your own.”
Kevin reached out to ruffle his brother’s hair. Stacy, without thinking about it, smacked his hand away. “No messing it up!”
It was hard to say which of the three of them was more surprised, but Stacy was definitely the most embarrassed. She felt a blush crawling up her face as she mumbled, “I’m sorry. That was unforgivably rude.”
Keith’s surprise turned into a huge grin. “No, that was awesome. Buzz off, bro. I told you to go away.”
“You didn’t mean me. I’m yourtwin.”
