Canon (Klein Brothers 2)

A deep blush grew on Lisa’s face, making me want to punch him in the face for accidentally hurting her.

Realizing his fuck up, he shook his head rapidly. “No, not like that. I meant, if I looked like you, I’d spend every hour of every day staring in the mirror and drinking the tears of the rest of the world’s population.” Grabbing her hand, he said softly, “Girl, you have got to know you’re f-i-n-e, right?”

“Um,” she hummed, looking unconvinced, “okay?”

“He doesn’t lie, Lisa. Whenever I ask him how I look in an outfit or how my hair and makeup are, he gives me a brutal response. If I’m going out, I send Rockie photos of my dress choices because I know he won’t do me wrong.”

I only just held back the part where I wished he wouldn’t be so honest sometimes. Hearing that I look like three pigs fighting to get into a sausage skin once took a lot of getting over. I mean, he hadn’t been wrong, but couldn’t he have just said two pigs?

Knowing exactly what I was thinking about, he winked at me over his shoulder.

“She hasn’t forgiven me for the time she tried to go out wearing a red dress that didn’t flatter her, honey. I, of course, couldn’t let her go out looking like the love child of Jabba the Hut and Jessica Rabbit, so I told her so. Then there was the time she had a wig on that was a deep burgundy color. The cut was divine, and I loved it, but on Jacinda?” He shook his head and made a gagging motion with his finger in his mouth. “It was bad.”

Here was another reason why I’d known Rockie would excel at this—he had the ability to distract and put people at ease. I swear he went around making friends at a faster rate than Hugh Hefner had collected bunnies. Lisa was no exception to his superpower because the rigidness in her upper body left her as she grinned at his expressions and words—all of them at my expense, but to see her smile, I’d take it.

“I didn’t know you wore wigs,” she said softly after he’d filled her in on a couple more stories.

Pulling a chunk of hair over my shoulder, I studied the strands. “This is all my natural hair, but I do wear wigs occasionally. I don’t see why I should be stuck with just one style. There are also the times where I want a different color, but I don’t want it permanently, so I use them then, too.”

“Girl, wigs are life,” Canon’s mom, Gloria, said from where Sayla was styling her hair while a wig waited for the color to be applied to it. Yes, ma’am, if anyone understood my love for them, she would. I’d give my right eyebrow to get my hands on her collection of them. “I have a whole room—a climate-controlled one, no less—for mine.”

That declaration got Rockie’s attention off of Lisa for a moment. “You have a climate-controlled room full of wigs?”

She smiled brightly. “I sure do. My oldest one is an afro one I got about forty years ago. I don’t wear it, but I’m not parting with it. They’re going to have to bury me with it.”

“I’ll wear it,” he cried. “Oh, my God, I love the afro wigs, but nowhere I’ve been have them long enough. They’re either four inches long or made out of the crappy synthetic hair, and the weave of it through the lace is patchy. God,” he breathed, looking like he was off in his own world filled with the perfect afro wigs, “can we just normalize long afros already?”

Gloria pursed her lips. “I like you. If anyone gets that excited about a wig and the beauty of afros, you’re my kind of people. Y’all should come over for lunch one day. Do you like spicy food?”

And thus began the start of the perfect friendship. As he taught Lisa how to color correct and apply makeup over the scars on her face, Rockie chatted away to her and Gloria about wigs and makeup. Both women were completely enamored with him and hung on his every word.

Yeah, this was what we should be doing for sure. By the time she left, Lisa looked like a beauty queen and walked out with her head held high, something I’d never seen her do in all the years I’d known her.

Wiping under her eye, Gloria looked from where Lisa was walking to her car back to me. “You’re a miracle. I don’t care if my son never manages to win you around, I’m keeping you.” Then, looking at Rockie, she added, “And you, too.”

Shooting her a wink, he cleaned up the makeup that was scattered everywhere while I tried to remember how to breathe.