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This one is sitting in the corner, but she smiles and stands up to greet me. I find myself smiling at her. She looks like she’s barely old enough to be out of school, let alone be covered in all the tattoos that adorn her arms. She is dressed in the same dark colors that Jordan and the other woman, Amy, wear.
“I’m Addy. Please, take a seat.” She motions to the chair where she had been sitting.
“Hey, thanks. I’m Jake.” I sit down, and she puts a cape around me, securing it behind my neck. Then she turns the chair so that I’m looking back at her through the mirror over her station.
“Nice to meet you. Do you know what you want?” Addy runs her fingers through my hair, undoubtedly trying to gauge what type of clippers she will need on my head.
“Normally I go for a low fade. Is that something you can do?” I smile a little as she looks at me with an eyebrow raised after my question.
“Yeah, of course. Sit tight. I’ll get it done for you.” She moves away from me and pulls out an expensive pair of clippers from her station.
As Addy goes through the motions of clipping, combing, and then trimming my hair, I’m pleasantly surprised that she doesn’t try to make a bunch of small talk. It isn’t until she is almost done with the cut that she clears her throat and speaks.
“So. You’re the one?” She continues to look at my hair, not meeting my gaze in the mirror.
“I’m sorry, the one what?” She has piqued my curiosity.
“Margot’s one.” She smiles then, taking a step back to admire her work and look directly into my eyes.
“Yeah.” I smile, thinking of the fact that Margot is telling people about us being together. “I guess I am.” I have the shittiest-looking grin on my face, I know. I can’t help it, though. She makes me happy, and these strangers knowing about us makes my day.
“Well, good. I’d hate to have to slit your throat with a straight razor. Don’t you hurt our girl, you hear? We like her.” She nods to the other two women, who are watching our conversation, unashamed of their obvious eavesdropping.
“Never,” I say with conviction that a lesser man wouldn’t feel.
I’m turned away from the door, but I hear it open as another person walks in. “Oh, hey, guys!” Jordan exclaims, getting up from her seat. “You’re a few minutes early, but we can get the first two started now if you want.” I get a strange feeling, the skin on my arms prickling as the unknown people make their way into the salon.
Although when I see the familiar red hair in the mirror, I wish that I could just get up and leave. Ray, the man whom Margot had sort of been seeing, is standing less than five feet away from me with a pissed-off look on his face. Rather than start drama, I force a smile on my face and let Addy finish her work.
Deciding against asking her to wash my hair, I brush a hand through my hair and admire the excellent work she has done. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Amy try and get Ray to take a seat, but he just stands there staring at me like I’m the scum of the earth.
“Hey, man. Can I help you with something?” I can’t stop the smart-ass statement from coming out of my mouth any more than I can help the fact that I want to plant my fist in the other man’s face.
“You know she’s going to leave you. And when she does, she’s going to come back to me. We’re not finished.” Ray’s face is turning a funny shade of red, almost as dark as his hair.
“Ha. You never even started.” I can’t help but laugh. This guy has no clue about the connection that Margot and I have, and he won’t stand a chance of coming between us. “You don’t know the first thing about Lilly.”
“I know she hates that name. I know that you broke her and that she left. I know that we’re lucky she came back,” he says with a malevolent grin, looking to the dark-skinned man across the room. The man doesn’t smile back and looks uncomfortable to even be part of the conversation by association.
“Yeah. She likes it whenIcall her Lilly. It’s something I’ve done since she was five years old. And trust me, bud. You’re the one who doesn’t know anything about my girl. You don’t know that she hated the idea of being helpless so much that at ten years old she became an expert marksman with both a handgun and a rifle. You don’t know that she can read four books a weekend if there’s nothing going on. You don’t know that she refuses to get a tattoo in case she has to join witness protection because she doesn’t want anyone to be able to recognize her that way. And guess what else you don’t know.” I feel the anger rising, even though I’ve nothing to worry about.
The women working in the salon don’t say a word as I tear the cape from around my neck, suddenly feeling silly that it’s still there. The other men, firefighters by the looks of them, don’t move to interfere either. Ray isn’t paying attention to that; instead, he’s moving into my personal space, acting like a jackass.
“What, huh? What else don’t I know about her besides random facts that you only know because you were a cradle-robbing prick?” That is it. I can’t help it anymore. I can’t hold the anger back, and I let it go with the deceptively calm words that come next.
“You don’t know anything, really. You don’t know the taste of her skin. You don’t know how it feels to be connected to her. And you never will. Because you may have caught her eye when she first came back to town, but Margot’s been my soul mate longer than either of us has known what it means. You don’t stand a chance, and I don’t even have to do a single thing about it. Margot handles her own wet work.”
20
MARGOT
“Hey,girl. You should come out for drinks tonight. It’s been too long.” Poppy walks into my office just after three in the afternoon. “You and Jake start sleeping together, and you fall off the face of the planet for a month.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?” I ask her. Normally, Poppy works the night shift, and today will be her first day on shift in our rotating cycle.
“Oh, that’s right. Your head has been so far up Jake’s ass that you don’t know. I got moved to days. Finally moved up in seniority when David retired last week,” she says with a smile.
“Uh… I’m sorry I didn’t even think about that.” I feel like a tool because Ihavepretty much had my head stuck up Jake’s ass for over a week now. “I’ll make it up to you.”
