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“I have a lot of hair.”

“I noticed.”

Everybody noticed.

Clayton had called it bedroom hair since he’d learned the term, mostly because he enjoyed saying things he knew would irritate me.

I had threatened to cut it all off once just to shut him up.

Later that day Declan had passed me in the yard between our houses.

“Don’t,” he’d said quietly.

I’d stopped. “Don’t what?”

“Cut your hair.” Then, after a pause that had lodged itself permanently in some stupid tender part of my brain, he’d added, “Please.”

I hadn’t. Which was pathetic enough that I tried not to think about it.

Jade caught the ends of my hair and lifted them. “This is going to look ridiculous.”

“Good ridiculous?”

“The good kind.”

She showed me once.

This seemed more manageable for a first try than the others. It was. The movement brought my hair forward and then back in a long heavy sweep as I turned.

The reaction from the room was immediate.

Apparently men could be rendered feral by gravity and hair.

Useful information. I intended to do nothing with it.

Jade looked toward the table. “You broke one.”

I followed her eyes.

Asa had both hands over his face.

“He might’ve already been broken,” I mused.

Clayton was bent over laughing.

Ruckus had his head down on the table. Micah was staring at the ceiling like he was reconsidering every decision that had led him here.

Only Rook looked composed. He lifted his glass to me.

I bowed. That made the skirt move again.

The table lost what little dignity it had left.

I laughed. Really laughed. I hadn’t expected to have fun. Maybe that was part of why I did.

Nothing about the night had required anything from me. Nobody was asking what was wrong with me. Nobody was asking me to make sense of somebody else.

Nobody was looking at me like I was difficult to touch. That thought came and went before I could stop it. I pushed it away.