Page 14 of Triple Threat

“What do you say, Miss Brooks? Allow me fix your hair for you?” I shuddered, dragging my eyes up from the counter to meet his in the mirror above my patchy blue, gray, and blonde head and saw… guilt, I think. I don’t know. Maybe I was projecting my hopes a little hard onto him.

I bit my lips together and sort of wanted to see if this was a peace offering or what and so I nodded. Once down, once up.

Roan smiled at me, and nodded back, once down, once up and said, “I’ll return in a moment. The supplies were delivered today.”

* * *

“Who did this to you?”he demanded, combing through my wet, damaged hair, sometime later. I’d gotten dressed, if you could call it that, in one of the fluttery, clinging, silk dresses that he provided me, and I hated the things. Not that they weren’t pretty, they were, and not that they didn’t feel nice against my skin, they did… more that they left little if nothing of my body to the imagination and that disturbed me.

“A girl I met in the soup line,” I said. “She paid me twenty dollars to dye my hair so she could take pictures for her cosmetology final.”

“A bit exploitive, did she pass?” he asked as he lifted the first section of my long hair and painted on the nearly black goop that would return my hair color to the rich, dark mahogany it’d originally been… maybe. I didn’t know what would happen, honestly, mixing so many things on my head.

“Better than some of the other things I could be doing for money,” I said softly.

“Have you ever?” he asked pointedly and my gaze flicked up to his in the mirror over my head, his green to my brown. I lost my nerve and looked away first.

“No.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d done something akin to prostitution once, before I was homeless, a long time ago. I had been in love with an addict, and he’d gone through what little money we’d had and still needed more. He’d brought his dealer home, had begged, and I had loved him so much, had hated how much he was hurting, and I had been weak. I’d let the man sleep with me in exchange for Simon’s fix. It was my greatest shame.

“I don’t care how hard it gets, that’s not me.” That was true, now. I’d sworn then,never again,and I’d meant it. No matter how hard it got, I would never… and I hadn’t, and I wouldn’t now.

When I glanced back up there was something like… I don’t know,pride? on his face, in his expression, as he painted another section of my hair, running it through his gloved hands which were covered in black nitrile gloves, to the ends. I felt sick with shame all over again. I didn’t deserve that look.

“You don’t look like your average hairdresser,” I said of him, his white sleeves rolled above his elbows, a black chef’s apron covering his front as he worked the glop through my hair, the acrid tang of professional grade hair dye tickling my nose. I shivered under the hairdresser’s drape he’d put over me and clasped my hands in my lap. He’d brought in what looked like a dining room chair for me to sit in, so I at least had the ability to lean back.

“I am a lot of things, Poppet. Whatever the occasion requires sometimes.”

“A Jack of all trades, and a master of none?” I murmured.

He chuckled.

“Oh, I’ve quite mastered a few,” he said shamelessly, but it wasn’t a boast. Just matter-of-fact.

“What am I doing here?” I asked again.

“Ah, now that would be between you and Lach,” he said.

“Who is this Lock and why isn’t he here?” I demanded.

“He’s off dealing with his comedown. He’ll be back when he’s ready.”

“Comedown?” I asked.

“Aye, love.”

“He a druggie?” I asked, apprehensively. That I absolutelywould notdo again. Be at the mercy of any type of addict. Roan laughed, and it was a good sound, surprising in its suddenness; rich and vibrant in tone.

“No, no, he needs time after a job to come down from it. He goes off and does his own thing, comes home when he’s ready.”

“Oh. Are you, uh, hispartner, partner?” I asked.

“Yes, but not like that. I’m quite enamored with the fairer sex even though they’ve little and less use for me,” he said mildly but it drew my eyes up to his face in the mirror. It was guarded now, solemn.

“You’re not awful to look at,” I said. “Not that I want to give you any ideas.”

His lips thinned in the frame of his fiery, trim beard and he chuckled slightly. “It’s what you haven’t seen, Poppet, and never mind all that now.”

We lapsed into silence and I didn’t really feel the need to make any more small talk.

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