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I let out a sigh and lowered my gaze. There was no point in forcing a friendship if she didn’t want one. “Sorry. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, and I’m definitely not asking for us to be besties or anything. I’ve been a little… lonely, I guess.” I peered up at her from under the long bangs that fell into my eyes. “Do you ever get lonely?”
“No, I don’t,” she answered without hesitation. “That’s why I moved out here.”
“Right. Of course.” I got to my feet and started clearing the table of the breakfast dishes. “I’ll see you for dinner, but I’ll let you eat in peace.”
“Thank you.”
She didn’t say anything more as I cleaned up the kitchen. She finished her juice, pulled on her work boots, and headed toward the door.
The floor creaked, but the door didn’t open, like she was lingering there behind me. I looked back over my shoulder, and sure enough, she was standing there with her hand on the doorknob and a conflicted expression on her face.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Your hair is shaggy and long. Is that how you like it?”
“I… I don’t know,” I replied uncertainly, thrown by her question. “I’ve been liking it longer, but it is messier than I’d want, I suppose.”
“I can help you clean that up. I might not look like it, but I’m actually pretty good with hair. If you want, I can trim it up tonight after supper.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. That would be great.” I smiled crookedly at her, because I had no idea what to make of her offer, but I didn’t think that I should turn it down.
The rest of the day went as normal, although time seemed to move much more slowly. A haircut was hardly something to look forward to in anticipation. The last time I had gotten one hadn’t been something I gave much thought about.
It had been in the winter, and I had come home one day to Harlow. She’d complained that my hair kept covering my eyes, and then she had offered to cut it in a way that was clearly a command, so I had let her.
I ran my fingers through my thick wavy hair, and I swallowed down the lump in my throat at the realization that Harlow would never cut it again. In that way, it made the thought of someone else – a virtual stranger – cutting my hair feel vaguely sacrilegious.
But in the back of my mind, I could hear Harlow chastising me, “Lazlo, you need to get your damn hair out of your eyes.”
I came back from hanging the laundry on the line to find Nova in the kitchen, already waiting for me.
“You can take off your shirt.” Nova had her back to me as she laid out her various tools on the counter –scissors, a comb, bobby pins, and a very sharp straight razor.
“What?”
“It makes clean up easier so you don’t get those little hairs all over.” She grabbed a big brown towel from a cabinet. “I’ll use this to cover you.”
I pulled off my shirt and set it aside on the table, and I was surprised by how exposed I felt standing shirtless in Nova’s kitchen. At the height of my career as a musician, I had posed half-naked on a magazine cover, and I had never even given that a second thought.
Now the memory of it made me cringe inwardly. It all seemed so … indulgent and unnecessary.
When Nova finally turned back to face me, she barely gave my uncovered torso a second glance. Maybe she sensed my unease, with my arms folded uncomfortably across my chest, or maybe she didn’t find anything interesting about it.
“You can sit down.” She motioned to a chair beside the kitchen table.
After I sat, she draped the towel across my chest, and she smirked down at me.
“You don’t have to be so nervous. It’s a haircut – not an execution.”
“It’s just been a while.”
When she grabbed the scissors, I inwardly flinched, but then she ran her fingers through my hair in a way that instantly calmed me.
“This isn’t going to hurt a bit. I promise,” she said, and her voice was low and comforting.
As she trimmed my hair and shaped my beard, our gaze met for a moment, and I noticed the flecks of gold in her dark eyes. She smiled at me softly, and there was a flutter of something warm and unexpected in my chest. Her very touch felt deliberate, gentle, and even affectionate.
Was I actually safe with her? And how had I never noticed how beautiful she was before?
