Nice Buns (Cheap Thrills 7)

“I can’t even imagine what I’d have done if my curling iron had burned a chunk off my head. How the hell do you fix that?” She shook her head as she got up.

“God forbid anything like that ever happens, come in, and I’ll put some extensions in it for you,” I assured her.

“Oh, I don’t like those things. My sister gets them done, and they’re like plastic.” She cringed and shuddered.

“I only use real hair or the top quality synthetic stuff for that very reason. The other synthetic ones might be cheaper, but until they make them more realistic and better quality, I’ll stick to what I know.”

Tilting her head to the side, my client looked at my hair. “Is yours all real?”

“Sure is. I’m lucky I’ve got thick hair, but I’ve got to condition the dickens out of it to stop it going psycho.”

“Mine’s fake,” Sayla called over to her. “Evie does mine for me.”

All of the clients in the chairs turned simultaneously, all of them staring at Sayla.

“I’d never have guessed,” Sabine Townsend gasped. “It looks so real.”

“I’m thinking I want to get mine done now,” agreed Ebru Townsend. “I swear being married to Cole is making me lose my hair.”

I hadn’t meant to start a marketing campaign for extensions when I’d mentioned it to my client, I was just reassuring her that we could fix it if, God forbid, she had a hair tragedy.

That said, I wasn’t against working on people’s hair if they wanted it done, and given that I had Ebru and Sabine as my next clients, I spoke to them about it as I did their hair.

Once the color was applied to one and their timer was on, I moved over to the other, talking them through the benefits and disadvantages of having hair extensions put in. I was always open and honest with people about what they wanted to get done to their hair. It was a must.

Just as I finished up the last foil in Ebru’s hair, her phone rang.

“Hey, honey. I’m just at the salon getting my hair done.” Figuring it was her husband, I moved to clean up the pots the color had been in. “You’re at the store? Oh, that’s great. Could you pick me up some tampons and pads, please?”

I smiled at the request, but Sabine threw her head back and burst out laughing. “We spoke about this, Cole Townsend. You knew you had this coming,” she snapped and then hung up.

“That was so mean,” Sabine chuckled, wiping under her eyes. “I can just imagine him freaking out in the store.”

Smiling wickedly up at me, Ebru explained, “My husband has a phobia of periods. Yes, he’s seen a therapist, and he’s better than he was, but it still freaks him out when he sees or hears anything related to it.

“Anyway, he hurt himself on our trampoline a few weeks ago, and then he hurt himself again at the hospital while he was high on pain meds. So now that his shoulder’s healed, I’m getting my revenge.”

“And that involves tampons?” I questioned, not quite getting what the big deal was. “Most men don’t like it when a woman has their period. My ex used to say it was dirty and disgusting, and if he even found a tampon in the bathroom, he’d lose his mind.”

“Cole has a legitimate phobia, and isn’t just being a dick about something we’ve got no control over like your ex. I’ve had to help him do everything for six weeks, and when I say everything”—she leaned closer to me—“I mean everything.”

Looking over her head at Sabine, I watched as she nodded and shrugged her shoulders.

At a loss as to what to say, I patted Ebru on the shoulder. “Enjoy tormenting your husband, girl. Do any of you want a drink?”

After making sure they were comfortable and getting them both a coffee, I went and sat behind the desk to drink my own.

Before last weekend, I probably would have laughed and enjoyed the craziness that family had in spades, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t just embarrassed about the fact Alex had put me in bed, I was mortified. And to make it worse, he’d slept on the couch in the living room and had left before I’d woken up.

Admittedly, I’d dropped a box of things from Nice Buns off on his doorstep with a thank you/apology note on it, but still.

Yeah, on his doorstep. He’d either been out, or he’d been hiding from me. Can anyone imagine anything more embarrassing than that? There was every chance my hot neighbor was hiding from his messy lush of a neighbor.

Feeling my cheeks burning, I groaned and hid my face in my hands for the millionth time.

“So, I saw Alex coming out of the police station,” Sayla said from in front of me, making my embarrassment impossibly worse.