Page 26 of Whiskey Wednesdays

“Uh-huh. And I learned some paper folding stuff.”

“Origami?” Connor asked.

“Yeah, for my new friends. And do you know what?”

“No, what?” he asked.

“We got some hair stuff.” She deflated a little. “But I don’t know how to use it.”

“Neither do I, but Bella’s going to help us. She said she’d give me some lessons.”

My eyebrow rose. “Bella?”

He studied my raised eyebrow. “Yes. Definitely.”

Elodie grabbed both our hands. “Yay! And we can have lunch together too.”

I’d kind of walked into that one, so I forced a smile. “Sure. Hairstyles and lunch. I can hardly wait.”

“When?” she asked.

“When?” I echoed.

“Yeah, when?”

Dad piped up from the kitchen. “Why not now?”

I loved that man. It was too bad I was going to have to kill him.

Elodie smiled. “Okay! And you guys can eat dinner with us too.”

Dad gave her a thumbs up. “Sounds good to me. It’ll be hairstyles and dinner instead of lunch.”

“I’ve got chicken we could grill,” Connor added. “Javier, come over when you get back. We’ll be at my place.”

I wanted to make an excuse and run. The thought of hanging out with Connor and eating dinner with them at his house made me nervous and twitchy. But Elodie looked at me expectantly, so I plastered on a big, fake smile.

“Okay. Let’s go teach your dad a few hair things.”

The first lesson was interesting. Connor watched me pull out bobby pins, hairbands, ribbons, and a few other items. But his brow furrowed when he saw the small spray bottle and hair gel.

“She also needs a good shampoo, hair conditioner, and hair product.”

His eyebrow twitched. “What kind of hair product?”

It was annoying the man had such great hair, but didn’t seem to know a thing about hair products. “Detangler, maybe a leave-in conditioner. We can look online, and I’ll show you.”

After trying to teach him how to braid hair, I quickly realized he knew how to brush Elodie’s hair, and that was about it.

“All right. Let’s start at the beginning. We’re going to do ponytails today.”

An hour later, I’d covered basic hair care and Connor could do a decent ponytail. Both Elodie and I were ready to quit, but he wanted to keep going.

We’d set up our workstation in Elodie’s bathroom.

I stepped back and studied his work. “Not half bad.”

Elodie patted his leg. “I like ponytails, Daddy.”

---