“Welcome back.” Camille walked to the front counter. “Are you in need of another cut?”
“Umm…” Drew looked past Camille to me, his brows rising in silent supplication.
“This conversation isn’t over,” I whispered to Amanda out of the side of my mouth.
She laughed and set my glasses on the half countertop. “Doesn’t look like I’m the one needing to spill. Better get your story in order in the next couple of hours, because the spotlight will be on you tonight, Wonder Woman.” She sauntered toward the front of the salon. “Hey, Drew.”
He dipped his chin. “Amanda.”
Her gaze roamed over his hair, her knowing grin widening before she walked out of the salon.
He touched his temple, looking at me for help again.
“I’ll take him, Camille.”
My coworker’s hand paused over the POS monitor. “You sure?”
Pins and needles pricked the tips of my fingers. I curled them into my palms. My fingers threaded through people’s hair every day. There had never been anything sensual about the act. Long, short, coarse, fine, curly, or straight. It was just a job. Or it had been. Nothing after Drew took my seat would be professional. It couldn’t be after the other night.
My breath caught as he walked toward me. Silly, really. We’d already kissed. All the build-up and anticipation should have passed. The wonder and expectancy. But if anything, all those pre-kiss marvels only intensified. Because now I knew. I knew what his lips softly pressed against mine felt like. What they ignited deep in my core. And now that I’d had a taste, I wanted more. Feared that perhaps I could never have enough.
His eyes slipped down to my mouth, and I felt the weight of his regard on my lips. His gaze felt like a caress even when he didn’t touch me.
He stopped, the chair between us, and his eyes rose to mine. How had I ever thought this man shallow? A person could drown in his depths.
“I missed you.” His voice sounded deeper.
Missed me when we’d seen each other only two days before. Committed to me when we’d only gone out the one time. His words worked like salve over wounds I hadn’t known still festered. I’d thought I’d healed after Greg’s betrayal and abandonment, but my soul soaked up Drew’s declarations like the cracked ground of a desert soaks up the oft-prayed-for rain.
Though relationships were scary, even more so after the hurt of a failed one, I’d never been a person to shy from the hard things in life. And so I voiced the honesty of my heart, the knowledge of which transferred the same amount of power and vulnerability his admission had handed me. “I missed you, too.”
He smiled. Not his cocky grin. Not his I’m-messing-with-you smirk. Not his boyish tilt of the lips. No. This smile was different than he’d flashed me before. Deeper. Brighter. Fuller. As if he were smiling with his whole heart.
I gripped the back of the salon chair for stability.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call last night.”
Ha. Maybe I should apologize for not waiting by the phone. It had been so long since I’d really dated that I’d forgotten the protocols.
“My sister went into labor, so I was on uncle duty.”
“How is she doing?”
His smile morphed into the mushy expression one can only get when thinking of babies. “Mom and baby are both doing well.”
“Another nephew, or niece this time?”
“A boy. Isaac. They stuck with the vowel theme.”
I remembered the mention of his nephew, Owen, but hadn’t known there was a whole theme. “Oh?”
“My brother-in-law is named Eric, then my nephew Owen, and now Isaac.”
“Can I see a picture?”
He pulled out his phone faster than a wrangler at a draw at high noon on the O.K. Corral. He tapped on the screen a few times, then handed me the device. A ruddy baby with a smooshy face, all swaddled and wearing a soft knit hat filled the screen. I looked up at Drew then back at the picture. “He has your chin.”
Drew brightened even more. “You think?”
