Canon (Klein Brothers 2)

I was braced and prepared to hear them describe how differently they felt, but they both shocked me by agreeing.

Sinking down into a chair, Evie blew out a breath. “Thank God. I’ve been struggling with it, too. I love where we began, though, so I’d hate to lose it all completely.”

“That right there,” Sayla pointed at her. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

Sitting with his hands clasped between his knees, Tony looked between us. “So where does that leave y’all?”

Rubbing my hands together, I outlined the idea I’d had last night. “Okay, we have a bevy of products and wigs that we don’t use. What about if we did makeovers for people who have issues seeing their true beauty? One of the ladies who works with my sister, Asia, was in a fire when she was a kid. She’s got burns on her face and is missing some of the hair on the side of her head. I’ve got a wig that would look freakin’ beautiful on her, and I’d love—absolutely love—to show her how to apply makeup so she doesn’t feel so self-conscious.”

Both women’s eyes widened.

“Do you think she’d be okay doing it? If we went down this path, we could help other people like her. They can ask us questions about different problems,” Sayla said excitedly. “I love this idea.”

“I’ve been helping her here and there, and last night I texted her to ask if she’d be interested, and she said yes.”

Evie got up to get a pad and pen so she could write down our ideas as Sayla boogied in her seat. These were my people! I was changing our channel in a way that’d lose us viewers and might even be seen as controversial, but the end goal was to help people in any way we could, so I wasn’t worried about it.

After twenty minutes, we had to re-open the salon for our next clients, but the ideas didn’t stop there. Bless him, Tony walked between us, writing them down as they hit us.

But then something else occurred to me. Something that had me apologizing to my client and dancing around in a circle.

“What about if I bring in Regis Roquette? That bitch can make makeup do so much more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Both of my business partners had met Regis on numerous occasions because we’d all attended functions and conventions together, but Tony hadn’t.

“Who’s Regis Roquette?”

Pulling up a photo of us all together the last time we met up, I showed him the screen. “Only the best drag queen in the world.”

And that wasn’t a lie. The guy could work magic with all makeup, including color correction and contouring—both of which I couldn’t ever get right on other people.

“Why haven’t I ever met him before now?” Tony pouted.

Ignoring him, I pulled my phone out and sent a message to Regis. Not even two minutes later, my phone beeped with a “Hell yes!” from him.

This was where I could see us going long term. It was fun doing what we’d done at the start, but now we needed to use our skills to help people.

And I couldn’t freaking wait, so I sent off a message to the woman I’d mentioned, Lisa. I’d been doing her hair at her house for years, so we’d built up a good relationship. Her response was cautious because she wasn’t sure anything would make a difference to her situation, but she was also excited in case there was.

She had no idea. By the time we were done, she’d be a new woman.

CHAPTER FOUR

Jacinda

That weekend…

The things I did for my friends.

Sayla, Heidi, and Bond had all gone to New Orleans to see the new Kleins restaurant being renovated at the moment, and because Nemi hadn’t been feeling well, I’d offered to help Canon out with looking after her. Kids managed to pick up bugs even better than my ex-roommate picked up men.

Wait, that was too mean?

Probably…

Was it really, though?

Anyway, babysitting a kid sounded simple and straightforward, right? That would have been the case, except it meant being in close contact with Canon. I was going to need all the help and patience I could get—with myself.

Like I’d said, my issue wasn’t him as a person, it was with my reaction to him. He was the only man who brought out this kind of response from my body, and I didn’t like it. I was supposed to be immune to him, damn it.

Using the key Heidi had given me to let myself into the house with the shit I’d picked up from the pharmacy for Nemi, I went straight into the kitchen to put the Pedialyte popsicles in the freezer. When I was a kid, we hadn’t had cool stuff like that when we were ill. Previous generations had been so cheated. No iPads, the iPhone 3, flip phones, Pedialyte we had to drink, having to use books and the library for our school work instead of the internet…