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My brows flattened. “Braid hair? Not a chance, kid.”
Harlow laughed. Then her facial expression sharpened.
“What?” I asked.
“You could help, though,” she said slyly.
“How?”
As she eyed me, Harlow wiggled her fingers through her hair to undo whatever Sage had been attempting. The sweet, sweet smile she sent in my direction made me want to get the hell out of the house. Then she patted the floor. “You can put all those gorgeous locks to good use.”
Sage’s face brightened. “Oh yes.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Absolutely not.”
Harlow met my stubborn glare unflinchingly. “Ten minutes. That’s all we need.”
“Please,” Sage begged. “Mom can’t teach me on herself. I just need to practice a little.”
Weak. I was so fucking weak for these two.
Slicking my tongue over my teeth, I regarded them icily. “I swear, if either of you takes a picture of this and sends it to my brother…”
“We won’t!” Sage promised, her eyes wide and earnest.
“Fucking hell,” I whispered under my breath and unfolded my legs out in front of me when I braced my back against the couch. Ruthlessly, I yanked at the tie holding my hair back.
Harlow made a tsking sound with her tongue. “Easy. You’ll give yourself damage.”
She hadn’t moved off the ground yet, her shoulder brushing against mine, and slowly, I turned my head and glared at her. She dissolved into laughter, leaning her weight against mine briefly. Then she popped off the floor and took a seat next to her daughter, nudging her to the side so she could start first.
“I’ll do one first, and you can watch.”
The second her fingers sifted through my hair, the slight scratch of her fingernails along my scalp, I had to focus on keeping my breathing even.
Shit.
Shit.
“First, you’ll part it here like this,” she said to Sage. Her fingers slid through my hair, and my muscles became lax as she separated them into three pieces. “Then you kind of hold it like this.”
It had been years since anyone had touched me like this, and I had to swallow down the immediate yank of goose bumps along my arms and violently ignore the way I was starting to get hard. My hands stayed firmly over my lap, and I started doing algebra equations in my head. Recited the Declaration of Independence. Thought about those depressing commercials where starving dogs looked up at the camera with their big fucking eyes and made you feel like a shit human being for not adopting all of them.
“Good grief,” Harlow murmured. “Do you do hair masks or something? Deep conditioner?”
“I have no idea what either of those things are,” I said evenly, keeping my eyes firmly shut.
She snorted. “Figures. So unfair.”
Her hands kept moving, and she patiently showed Sage what to do, occasionally letting my hair fall so she could start over when Sage got confused.
I kept my eyes closed and my mouth shut, blocking out the feel of her hands. Instead, I focused on that great, shining, black wall in my mind, where I could keep everything safely where it was meant to be.
Chapter 20
Harlow
My ass was freezing on the metal bleachers, but you wouldn’t find me complaining. There were about thirty minutes left in Sage’s practice, and against her wishes, I’d snuck in early to watch how it was going without the glittering presence of a few professional football players.
