He looked up, amused, noticing me like he didn’t know I had been out here all along. He had one towel wrapped around his waist, low enough that I could see V-shaped taper from his obliques, but not low enough that I could see where his pubic hair began. He was holding a second, smaller towel in his hand, roughly drying the hair that I had told him not to get wet.
“It’s going to take like twenty minutes to dry, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” I stomped back into the bathroom and unearthed the hairdryer that he kept below the sink, which he hadn’t owned before meeting me. He hadn’t owned much before meeting me. No, that was inaccurate. He had owned plenty but all of it was junk.
“Sit down,” I told him, walking back into the bedroom.
He tossed the wet towel onto his bed and sat down, uncharacteristically obedient. I threw the wet towel onto the floor before the water soaked into his duvet. I was just a stylist but I had practically run a humanitarian mission on this man’s life.
I had completely overhauled his look, groomed him into an acceptable member of society but some things, it seemed would take longer to change. After all my hard work, his slob gene was still making itself known. I plugged the hairdryer in and blasted his ginger-brown hair with hot air. It was shorter now, so it was going to dry quickly, he was right about that, but I didn’t like it when he didn’t listen to me. That was pretty often, come to think of it. He was a mule.
No, he was a dog, an old, grumpy hound who was set in his ways and didn’t want to learn any new tricks. He sat quietly until I was done with his hair.
“Thank you,” he called as I walked back to the bathroom. I rolled my eyes again. One of these days, I would roll my eyes so hard they fell out of my head.
“Get dressed.” I put the hairdryer away, catching my reflection through the fogged-up mirror. Was this what it was like having kids? I asked myself that question often these days. Both of my closest girlfriends were mothers and I loved their kids, but they were nowhere as aggravating, argumentative, or temperamental as Easton Schultz. I wiped the mirror to check my makeup and hair. I wasn’t going to be in attendance at the event, but that didn’t mean I spent all my spare time in tracksuit bottoms and oversized t-shirts. As a stylist, I had no choice but to lead by example. When I walked back out into the bedroom, Easton was thankfully dressed. His trousers were on and he was buttoning up his crisp, white, shirt.
“Make sure you tuck it in.”
“I know that. I’m not a toddler.”
Wonderful, he was in a mood. Anything to make this night more turbulent than it needed to be. He was on his way to a charity auction. He had to walk the carpet, take pictures, and interview, the whole thing. It was a big night for him, and predictably, he was snippy about it. I came up and picked his tie up off the bed.
“Sit down,” I told him. He flopped down onto the bed. “Chin up.” He raised his chin. I fit the tie under his collar and started working it into a knot. Time to step into my other role of life-coach. Easy needed it all; a life-coach, stylist, acupuncturist, sleep doctor, a full personality transplant. He was impossible. I had needed the help of all those specialists and more dealing with him in the short weeks that we had known each other. “Why are you upset?”
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re sulking, Easy.”
“I don’t sulk. I’m not a kid.”
He said that but he could have fooled me. He was an easy enough person to talk to when he wasn’t like this, but this seemed to be his baseline mood whenever we were together. Saying Easton was my most difficult client would be an understatement. He was the most unlikely character. He was former military and had been thrust into the limelight after one of his tech company’s innovations made him a favorite among millionaire and billionaire industry gods.
He was… scruffy was not the word. He was as messy and unfashionable as you could imagine the worst stereotype of a straight man in his twenties to be. He didn’t have a single fashionable bone in his body, no distinct fashion sense, no respect for fine garments, he didn’t even own a shirt with a collar and sleeves before he met me. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to his new world, well, there was that, but he was actively against its culture and values at the same time.
“You’re getting free therapy, you might as well tell me.”
He scoffed. “Free? Last I checked, I was paying you an arm and a leg to dress me.”
“Keep complaining and I’m going to double my rate. What’s the matter with you?”
“Why do I have to go to this thing?”
“Because it’s your job.”
“No, my job is design and development.”
“Yes, behind the scenes. Otherwise, you’re the face of a company. You need to network. Make friends.”
“Those people are not my friends.”
“You’re right, they’re not your friends, but they are incredibly useful contacts for you and your company, and you need to get them on your side.”
“I have enough money. The company is valued in the billions. I don’t need to make more.”
“Huge companies go bankrupt all the time. Despite what you might think, you are not yet too big to fail. If you don’t rub elbows with the right people, your contacts will dry up and all your hard work thus far would be for nothing. Many people have business ideas, sometimes they’re quite good but they lack longevity. Don’t you want your company to have a future?”
He sighed, reaching for his socks and shoes. Getting up, I handed him his belt. He looked almost mournful. You would have thought I told him that he couldn’t have ice cream after dinner tonight. As long as he wasn’t angry. He had a hair-trigger temper which years in the military hadn’t ironed out of him and there were going to be cameras at the event. Any faux pas would be immortalized for everyone to refer back to in the future and use against him. He was dressed and I had mostly managed to convince him that his presence was required at the auction so finally, my work tonight was done. I swear, he wasn’t paying me enough. When I looked at him, he was fighting with his belt.