I’ll text him.
Soon.
The afternoon blurs by in a haze of productivity. I confirm schedules, reach out to potential assistants for the event, start sketching ideas for the signature look they mentioned. My brain buzzes with possibilities—color palettes, styling techniques, ways to make this collaboration feel authentic to what I’ve built.
It’s good work. Important work. The kind of thing I’ve been working toward for years.
And yet.
In the gaps between tasks—the thirty-second pauses while waiting for an email response, the quiet moments while a client’s color processes—my mind keeps drifting to places I don’t want it to go.
To Bennett’s hands on my skin. To the way he looked at me when he said he wasn’t going anywhere. To the vulnerability in his voice when he admitted he was terrified.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this much.
I was supposed to help him. Fix him. Send him back into the world better than I found him.
I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him.
The thought stops me cold. Love. That’s what this is.
I’m in love with Bennett Foster, and I’m handling it by hiding in my work. The whole point of Operation Soft Boy was helping him learn to process emotions, not developing feelings so intense they make me want to hide in my work rather than face them.
But here I am. Hiding in my work.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I stand in the middle of my salon, surrounded by the evidence of everything I’m building, and feel something crack beneath the surface of my carefully constructed composure.
The rest of the evening passes in a blur. I finish my appointments. I meet Margot for wine. I talk about the partnership, the plans, the possibilities—all the safe topics that don’t involve acknowledging what I’m really feeling.
When I finally get home, alone in my apartment above the salon, the silence hits different than usual.
I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror while washing my face. Same person I’ve always been. Same determined set to my jaw, same careful composure, same practiced expression that says everything is fine.
But underneath it, something’s shifted.
Today was good. The partnership is real, and it matters, and I should be celebrating. I should be focused on the incredible opportunity that landed in my lap.
Instead, I’m standing in my bathroom at ten PM, thinking about a man I’ve been actively avoiding because his presence makes me feel things I don’t know how to control. Control. That’s what this is really about. I built a life I could manage, and Bennett walked in and made everything messy.
Made me messy.
And instead of dealing with it, I’m hiding behind a brand deal and pretending work is enough.
I built this life carefully. Brick by brick, choice by choice. The salon. The reputation. The person everyone in Sorrowville thinks they know—confident, put-together, never desperate for anything she can’t achieve on her own.
Bennett threatens all of it. And that’s terrifying.
I’ll deal with it tomorrow.
The lie tastes familiar, like something I’ve been telling myself for a very long time.
I’m not sure it’s working anymore.
Everybody’s Got Opinions
Bennett
