Page 45 of Escape Girl

Sloan spoke with that singular authority granted to obscenely beautiful women. “We all think you should go back to your old hair color.”

Heather nodded emphatically. “Seriously. You look like a young Ann-Margret.”

Andie chimed in. “I have no idea who that is. But it would be so, so pretty.”

The stylist beamed at them. “Yes! I wasn’t going to say anything, but I totally agree. The red would be so much better on her!”

I felt half bullied and half flattered. Yes, it was irritating to run up against so many contrary opinions, but they were also all smiling and excited and invested in the conversation. Clearly, it had been way too long since I’d spent time with female friends. The sweetness and camaraderie were kind of intoxicating.

I blew out a long breath. “I don’t know…”

The girls smelled weakness and jumped all over it.

Sloan: “You can always just dye it back to your boring color if you don’t like it.”

Andie: “Sloan! Rude!”

Heather: “Your current color is not boring, Emily, but the auburn you used to have is stunning.”

Jo, with the coup de grace: “If you want to find that better version of yourself, maybe you need to look like that version first.”

Oh, to feel like the old me. That would be impossible, but…it was suddenly tempting as hell tolooklike the old me. I threw up my hands. “Fine! OK!”

The four women and the stylist all burst into raucous cheering. In spite of myself, I started to laugh.

Chapter Fourteen

On the stageat the front of the bar, Andie finished a spirited, slightly off-key rendition of an old Fergie song, and we all stomped our feet, whistled, and raised our drinks.

So, the day might have gotten just a bit out of hand.

We’d been at the salon for so many hours that we’d ordered in pizzas for the entire staff. At one point, Jo had disappeared and reappeared with a bottle of champagne, which Sloan popped open as soon as the stylist finished drying my hair and whirled my chair to face the mirror.

I won’t lie. The first sight of myself with the auburn hair felt like a gut punch. With the last six years of age on my face, my mom peered out at me from the mirror, ashen-faced and wide-eyed. I had stopped breathing entirely. My hands had gripped the sides of the chair, turning my knuckles white.

Jo had offered me a glass of bubbly before tossing out another offhand remark. “Do you know what I hadn’t noticed before? You have your dad’s nose.”

It was a weird enough thing to say that it snapped me out of my paralysis and I started breathing again. Huh. She was right, actually. My mom had had a tiny nose that turned slightly up at the end, like a ski jump. My own long, straight nose definitely came from the Saturn side of the family. With that microanalysis, I stopped seeing my mom in the mirror and saw myself again.

I didn’t look like Emily at twenty-five, exactly. Too much had happened since then. My face was less plump, and I had dark circles under my eyes from years of poor sleep and a deep linebetween them from work stress. But I looked a hell of a lot better than the Emily of the last few years.

In the mirror, my lips turned up at the corners and my eyes crinkled.

“She likes it!” Sloan had yelled, and the entire salon applauded.

Well, they wanted to keep the celebration going after that. “We need to take that hair out on the town!” said Heather. Who was I to say no?

A stop at a wine bar on the Riverwalk had turned into a long dinner at a tapas place and somehow we wound up here, at a dive bar on karaoke night.

“Do not let Sloan sing ‘Fever’ again,” Jo said now to Heather, with a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t want every dude in here circling this table like a shark or leering at us from the bar after sending over cheap shots.”

Heather giggled. “What if they send over expensive shots?”

Jo grinned back. “That would be better. But I don’t really want to hear Sloan sing again either.”

We all laughed at that. Sloan looked like a movie star on stage, and she knew how to perform with breathless whispers, pursed lips, and slinky hip movements. But she couldn’t actually sing atall.

Andie plopped down next to me and handed out fresh beers to everyone at the table. “Thanks.” I took a sip and set it on the table. Andie was the youngest and quietest of the bunch. Sloan and Heather treated her like a beloved kid sister, and she looked at Jo with hero worship in her eyes. Apparently, she functioned as the team’s technology expert and research guru.

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