Page 64 of A Pizza My Heart

I want to build a fortress around this chair and never let either of us leave.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

She glances to Blythe, who is “reading” a trashy magazine and “ignoring us”, and twists her lips around, trying to decide if she should make her inquiry or not.

“A question doesn’t guarantee an answer,” I assure her.

She nods once. “Going back to Slice…does it feel like you’re moving backward, not forward? I mean, you got out of here like you’d wanted to for so long. You did it. You were free. Now you’re back. What does that feel like? Failure?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I admit. “It’s hard to tuck your tail and run, which is basically what I did.”

“What happened out there?”

“Ugly. A whole lot of fucking ugly.”

“But—”

“Not now,” I snap, and she jerks at my reaction, sending the buzz cutter deep into my hair.

Toodeep.

“Shit!” She slaps her hand over her mouth, something she’s always done when she curses. “I didn’t mean to go that deep.”

I chuckle at the double entendre and she slaps the backside of my head at the childishness of it.

“Stop it, you jerk,” she pouts. “I’m being serious here. I feel like a newbie stylist right now, not to mention I didn’t want to go so short on your new do. I wanted to see your curls grown in again eventually.”

“It’s just hair, Wren. It’ll grow back.”

“Just hair.Just hair, Foster!” She throws her hands into the air, annoyed. “You can’t say things like that to a stylist!”

I reach for her wrist, lifting her limp hand to my scalp.

“Shut up and even this mess out.”

“Mess?!” she cries again.

“Good god, woman. Just cut my damn hair so I can get back to Winston’s. Some of us have to work today, you know.”

She slaps me again, and I can’t help but laugh.

Her lips lift in a grin and the buzzing returns.

“I’m sorry,” I say after several moments of silence.

She shakes her head. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have pried and I knew that. You’ll talk when you’re ready. You always do.”

“I do?”

The buzzing stops. “Oh, I know! We should make one of our dates the beach. You’ve always been apt to spill your guts to me there. Maybe that’ll coax something out of you,” she teases, brushing off my neck.

“Is that how you want me to court you?”

Her fingers swim through my hair again, and it takes all my energy not to lean into the touch. “It wouldn’t count as adatedate. It would just be a Wren-and-Foster date.” She fusses with my locks. “We could use one of those.”

“Oh, could we?” I fire back.

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