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Dammit, I knew I should have stopped at the taco truck and grabbed a couple of breakfast burritos before coming.

“Oh look, Jase, you have an orchid on your plate. It’s an omen,” Farah called out gleefully. “Now you have to take Bonnie out for dinner.”

I’m doomed.

3

“Hottie alert,” Shannon whispered. “I call dibs.”

Bonnie didn’t even bother to turn around. She concentrated on the cut she was giving to the new customer she had in her chair. The woman was a natural brunette who had warm caramel highlights from the sun. Her thick hair had been three inches past her shoulders, and it hadn’t been doing her any favors. Bonnie had been doing razor cuts for the last eighteen months, and her customer had been a perfect candidate.

She was almost done cutting the long hair so that it feathered in the front, highlighting the woman’s striking eyes and high cheekbones. She turned her around in the chair.

“What do you think?” Bonnie asked.

The woman stared and said nothing for almost a minute. For a moment, Bonnie worried she had made a mistake.

“Oh my God, I love it. I look like a whole new woman. This is phenomenal.”

Bonnie smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Seriously, I’ve never looked so good after a haircut. I can’t possibly thank you enough.” The woman touched her hair, then turned from side to side. Bonnie handed her a mirror and turned her around in the chair.

“Check out the back. See if that’s what you wanted.”

“I love it,” she enthused.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Bonnie smiled. “I hope you’ll come back and see me.”

“How often should I come back for a cut to maintain this?”

“Probably every six to eight weeks.”

“Great, I’ll book it now,” the woman said as she got out of the chair. Bonnie was taken aback when the woman pulled her in for a hug. That didn’t happen too often, but she had to grin. Even better, she left a twenty-five percent tip in cash.

After the lady left to go pay up front, Bonnie policed her area, sweeping up the hair on the floor and making sure her chair was clean and everything was put away the way she liked. She looked at her schedule for the day and grinned. She had forty-five minutes to kick back before her next appointment. It had been a busy morning, so a break would be wonderful. She could slip out and grab a bubble tea from the shop downstairs.

“Hey, Shannon, I’ve got a break. Do you want a bubble tea?”

“I don’t think you do, sweets. I went up front to grab Mr. Hotterson. He said he was waiting for you. How’d you score him? Have you been holding out on your girl?”

Shannon’s station had a better view of the lush lobby, which was fine by Bonnie. It meant that she kept focused on her clients. Shannon was a lovely woman and had been a stylist for over twenty years. Bonnie had learned a lot from her in the five years she had worked at Trinity Salon, but she tended to interrupt too much when Bonnie had a client in the chair. She’d addressed it a few times, but it hadn’t sunk in. Now Bonnie just ignored her like she was part of the music that the salon played. Amazingly, Shannon took no offense.

“Well, I better go get my new client. Are you sure he’s not a regular customer? It’s odd that he would ask for me as a new request.”

“Trust me, I would have remembered something that pretty sitting in your chair before. Even if he came in on one of my days off, everybody would have mentioned him, and Clare would have taken a couple of pics when he wasn’t looking.”

Bonnie shuddered. Clare was always pulling that kind of bullshit. Bonnie could only hope that the young woman would grow out of that kind of behavior. She headed to the front of the salon, a professional smile on her face. Her steps faltered as she saw Jase Drakos thumbing through Vogue magazine, looking comfortable as could be. He was the only man sitting in the lobby, so she knew he was the man who was her client.

“Hi Jase,” she said in her most professional manner.

He set down his magazine and took a moment to look at her, from her head to her toes, then back up to her eyes. Her blood heated every second he took perusing her.

Bad girl.

“Hello, Bonnie,” he said as he stood up and walked toward her. “It’s nice to see you again. I noticed I needed a haircut, and I realized we didn’t have time to finish our conversation last weekend. The coincidence was too obvious for me to pass up, so here I am.”

Damn. That smile.