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"What exactly were you planning on learning from me?" Piper asked, going to town now back there.
Since he couldn’t ask if she was dating his brother-in-law while she had scissors in her hand, he said, "Do you know why she’s—" Caught on what would be the best word to use, he paused, unable to think one up.
"Why she’s what?" Piper demanded, sounding extremely defensive.
He sighed. "I don’t know how to explain it. She’s perfect in every way. But it’s like … like …" Might as well say it straight, he decided as he finished, "It’s like she doesn’t want to be happy sometimes. We’ll get to talking and she’ll be smiling and even laughing. Then, bam. She realizes she’s having too much fun and purposely tones it down."
He hated it. She really was perfect in every way. Beautiful, sweet, intuitive. And they connected. There were definite sparks. But she was purposely holding herself back. He just wanted to grab her shoulders and shake that stubbornness out of her. They could have something so amazing if she’d just allow it to happen.
"You’re right," Piper answered morosely. "She doesn’t want to smile. Being happy hurts her."
Drew twisted his head up to see Piper’s face, but she caught his skull, moved his head back to where she wanted him, and cut off another chunk. He stayed immobile.
"Why doesn’t she want to be happy?" he asked, growing impatient with this whole hair-cutting nonsense.
"Something happened to her."
"What?" he butted in.
"Something happened to her," she repeated a bit louder this time. "About three years ago and it still affects her. She suffers from survivor’s guilt."
He sucked in a breath. "Survivor’s guilt? You mean someone close to her died?" When she didn’t answer soon enough, he impatiently asked, "Who?"
"Someone extremely close to her," Piper said.
His mind spun. A boyfriend. It was the only explanation he could come up with. She’d been in love with some other guy, and now he was dead. She probably still mourned him. Jealously roared through Drew, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d thought about the other guy when she’d kissed him.
He shuddered, hating that idea. But it certainly explained why she froze up when he got too close. It was no wonder she needed to go slow. He did speculate though, how her boyfriend had died. It must’ve been traumatic, maybe even partly her fault. Maybe she’d been driving the car when he’d been killed in an automobile accident.
Ideas raced through him and he stared blindly ahead, wishing Piper would just tell him the rest of it, yet fearing it too. He didn’t particularly want to hear about some other guy if Mia had been so into him.
No way was he going to ask though. He had this unreasonable fear she’d cut his throat with one of those old-time shaving knives if he pressed too much or said the wrong thing.
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Yeah, okay, he’d seen too many mobster movies.
"I’m done," she said, unsnapping the cape from around his neck and carefully pulling it off him so it’d catch most of his cut hair.
Spinning his chair around, she had him face the wall of mirrors. "What do you think?"
He gaped at his reflection, amazed. She’d been right. It wasn’t exactly short, though it wasn’t as long as it had been. It looked totally different. Restructured. Unable to help himself, he reached up to touch it, making sure it was really his hair.
"Not too bad," he murmured.
"Yeah, I’m pretty handy with scissors," she said. "Don’t hurt my roommate and I won’t show you what else I can do with them."
Freezing, he met her eyes in the mirror. Then he lifted his face. "Excuse me?"
There was no way he’d heard that right.
Her brown gaze was dead serious. "Mia’s my best friend in the entire world. And she’s been through a living nightmare. If you don’t go slow enough or if you push her into something she’s not ready for, you’ll regret it. I’ll make sure you regret it."
Swallowing, he gave a brief nod. "Message received." It was nice Mia had such a faithful friend. But anger spiked through him at her self-righteous attitude, like she was the upstanding, good guy here.
He wasn’t the one involved with a married man. He wasn’t the one hurting a mother of three and making her paranoid and bitter. He wasn’t the one breaking apart a family.
Suddenly remembering he was here for Mandy, not Mia, he studied Piper’s face, trying to think up something to say to dig into her head and find out her deepest secrets.
