Page 4 of Fires of the Forsaken
“Nah. It’s first date jitters.” I flipped through the color chart, comparing the shades to her complexion.
“First date…” she made a softhuhsound. “You know I was twenty years old when I had my last first date?”
The sad, faraway look in her eyes made my heart hurt; as though I was the one still grieving a deceased husband instead of her.
I’d never been married. Had no intentions ofeverbeing married. But I still understood her pain and confusion. I’d been in that dark spot before. Many times.
I tapped her shoulder. “You know dating ain’t that hard, right?”
She scoffed.
“Seriously. Start with a drink. An Old Fashioned will loosen you up.”
She smiled. I knew her well enough by now to pick out her drink of choice.
“Have dinner,” I continued. “Order whatever you want off the menu—don’t be like those weirdos who only getsaladsbecause they’re trying to impress their dates. I had a roommate who did that. She was alwaysstarvingwhen she came home. Anyway…talk to the guy. Y’know? And if he seems dull, pretend to go to the bathroom and ditch him.”
Elsie laughed. “Oh, Addie! That’s awful! Please tell me you’ve never done that?”
I winked at her and glanced at the chart again. “Ooh, wait!” I’d just held a color next to her face that looked hella gorgeous. “I think wewillgo darker with your hair. What about Sparkling Amber?”
Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”
“This color, with your eyes…” I made the chef’s kiss gesture. “You’re gonna have this guy drooling all over himself.”
She looked damn good when she left the salon. I’d cut and styled her newly dyed hair into a side-swept bob that accentuated her heart-shaped face. The darker color made her eyes pop. “You’re gorgeous,” I told her as she left. “Own it!”
My next customer, Scarlett, walked in a few minutes later.
“Addie,darling!”Scarlett strolled over to give me a spine-cracking hug.
“Hey, Scarlett.” Oh boy, how many times had I told this woman to go easy on the hair straightening? Her brown locks were damaged AF.
I bit the inside of my cheek—hard—as I swiveled the chair around for her. I tended to blurt my thoughts out loud. And I didn’t want to piss off one of my best tippers by saying her hair was sending me an SOS signal. “So,” I said once the nasty thought had passed, “how’s the hubby?”
“Oh, don’t even get mestarted.”Scarlett leaned back in the chair with a disgruntled sound. “He wants to take up woodworking. He can barely use a steak knife without slicing a finger off, but he expects me to be okay with him using apower saw?Ugh.” She gave a long, dramatic sigh.
A day in a hairstylist’s life. Exciting stuff, huh?
But I freaking loved my job. I literally got paid to play with hair and gossip. Can you saydream career?
Still, after an eight-hour shift on my feet, I was beat. And the thought of going back to my apartment and cooking was…meh.
“I need pizza,” I grumbled as I slid behind the wheel of my car. “With mushroom and olive toppings. Hmm. Definitely need pizza.”
The best pizzeria in the area (and I’d tried all of them, multiple times) was a dumpy little place calledDoughy Delights. The name was corny as hell and the place was nestled in the middle of a mostly abandoned strip mall, between an adult toy store and a beer distributor. Which, I mean, if a person was looking for a good time, they had the Unholy Trinity right there: pizza, booze, and sex. But a lot of people looked at the pizzeria, with its chipped siding and unfortunate location, and drove right by.
Thankfully, I never shied away from a restaurant. Because some of the yummiest places were the ugly little hole-in-the-wall shops.
I ordered the pizza before I started driving and was practically tasting it when I parked my car at the strip mall, a few spaces down from the front door of the shop. It was dark out. The only lightbulb in the parking lot was flickering, as per usual. That light had never worked right.
An icy breeze smacked me across the face as I stepped out of my car. I drew my leather jacket tighter around myself as I dodged a massive pothole and skipped up the curb toDoughy Delights’front door. Inside, it was stiflingly hot, thanks to the old-fashioned brick oven that dominated most of the space. The owner of the store, Bo, pulled my pie out of the oven as I walked in. My mouth watered.
“Hey, Addie!” He deposited my pizza into a box. “You’re still stopping by on Saturday, right?”
I gave him a thumbs up. “You bet. Still nine AM?”
“Yup.” Bo had a weathered face, and the skin around his eyes crinkled when he grinned. “But Morgan added Veronica to the list—the flower girl,” he added when I wrinkled my nose in confusion.
