You don’t like him, remember! He yelled at you and fired you three times.
But he had brought me my phone back.
You have such low standards.
“One other thing I forgot to mention that should make you happy,” Beck murmured as he released me, slowly, unless it was my imagination, which it very well may have been. “I told the girls they looked great with their haircuts, and if they liked their hair, I liked it.”
“What?” I glared up at him. “No, they can’t just chop off their hair like that.”
Beck’s nostrils flared. “You just yelled at me for not being supportive of their choices!”
“Treating them like individuals who are capable of making decisions about their own bodies is not the same as being supportive of terrible choices,” I countered. “They can’t go out in public like that. They look like their hair got hacked with a butcher knife. No, they need it styled, and they’re about to learn the hard way that short hair is deceptively high-maintenance. If they want short hair, they’re going to do it right.”
30
Beck
Tess traipsed behind me into the lobby of the 101 Park Place tower, hair a brown frizzy mess. She was still wearing her pajamas along with the large fuzzy bunny slippers and still not wearing a bra. But at least the giant skillet of apple pie covered everything.
“I don’t know why you couldn’t have put on clothes.”
“I told you,” she said. “All my clothes are dirty.”
“There he is!” several seniors clamored.
I paused.
“Beck, would you like to be a nude model for our art class? You have perfect proportions!”
I opened my mouth then shut it because, really, what could you say to something like that?
“If he’s doing a nude class, I might have to join,” Tess said.
That gave me pause. I knew Tess had been angry at me. I wasn’t under any illusions that she actually liked me. She was clearly coming back for the girls.
But still… the way she had felt in my arms, like she’d belonged there, made me want to hold her again.
It’s the stress and the people here.
“Maybe you can talk to one of my brothers,” I said diplomatically.
“We did, and Greg said you’d love to do it,” they said giddily.
Shit.
Greg was clearly planning on throwing me under the bus to steal this tower. He obviously hadn’t forgotten that I had snuck into his condo. The man knew how to carry a grudge and wield it like a weapon.
I gritted my teeth. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”
“Oh, he’s free,” Tess said with a wink. “I’m his assistant, and I control his schedule!”
Tess was backin the kitchen making breakfast the next morning. I wasn’t exactly sure where we stood. She had been flirty in the lobby last night. Then when we had picked up the girls, she was telling them about the apple pie and the exciting things they were going to do the next day and that she was going to take them to get makeovers.
Now she was cooking breakfast.
“What are those?” I asked as she opened the oven.
“Bagel pizzas,” she replied. “They are the baking goddess’s gift to all humankind.”
