There was a tone there—something half-playful but edged, like she was weighing her words carefully. It prickled under my skin, but I didn’t say anything. I just dipped another fry in sauce and let the grease distract me.
We ate while the color set, the kitchen quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the cats occasionally thumping against the cabinets. My head felt heavy, wrapped in cling film and potentialtransformation. The dye timer on Rachel’s phone ticked down like a soft little countdown to whatever came next.
When it was finally time, I leaned over the sink. “Well,” I said, eyeing the purple streaks dripping into the drain, “at least it’s stainless steel. No one will think I murdered Barney in here.”
“See?” Rachel burst out laughing. “Positive thinking.”
I started to laugh too, and the sound felt rusty but real.
Then I looked up, and met her eyes. “Do you know who it is?” I asked. “The secret admirer?”
Rachel tilted her head, the corners of her mouth curling. “Do you really want to know? Or would that take the fun out of it?”
I hesitated. “I’m… not sure.”
“Then maybe wait till you are,” she said simply, and that was that.
She slipped the gloves back on and helped me rinse. Her hands were surprisingly gentle, fingers massaging my scalp in slow, soothing circles. The warm water and her touch blurred everything else—the note on the fridge, the weight in my chest, even Mathieu’s half-hearted whatever that was.
“God, that feels amazing,” I mumbled.
“Ah-ha! Now I know your weakness.” Rachel gave a low, mock-evil laugh.
“Scalp massages?”
“Exactly. I can use this knowledge for good… or evil.”
It broke through the bubble of sadness I’d been floating in, and I couldn’t stop smiling, even with purple water swirling down the drain like liquid twilight.
Once the last rinse ran clear, Rachel shut off the faucet and helped me wrap my hair up in a towel, tucking the ends carefully.
She stepped back, her grin bright and mischievous. “Now,” she said, sweeping an imaginary curtain aside, “for the magical reveal…”
My heart kicked, somewhere between nerves and excitement. Because, truthfully, this was about way more than hair.
Chapter
Eight
COOP
I’d been hitting refresh on her messages like it was a damn religion. Nothing. Not even a seen check. That was when I understood just how damn bad it was—when her silence really became its own answer.
The internet was on fire with Sharon’s little “exposé.” TheBoys Gone Badsummer tour. Nothing cute about it. Just raw, dirty, and far too exposed. I was front and center, bare-chested and stupid-grinning, with girls I barely remembered wrapped around me like we were in a bad music video.
Even worse—because that one video. The one that made me want to crawl out of my skin.
You think you can bury things, that the past was a private landfill—your messes, your lies, your stupid scoreboard games. But then Sharon—what a bitch—just lit it all up with gasoline and a match. I wasn’t just a dumpster fire, I was an EPA disaster ad for toxic waste.
And Frankie.
God, Frankie.
We’dfinallykissed. And it hadn’t been some sloppy, half-drunk thing—it was quiet and honest andreal.A kiss that left mychest torn out because even I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been starved for her.
Then, poof. One viral video later, I was radioactive.
I’d been trying to find her for days. She wasn’t answering calls, texts, DMs—nothing. The guys had no fucking clue, maybe they were trying to talk to her too. I didn’t know, I was ignoring them at the moment. Ignoring them, not talking to my mom because she was so painfully disappointed it hurt and then there was Trina. My pain in the ass little sister wanted nothing to do with me. I was a bad PR nightmare for her and any future social life she might have.
