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Poppy sets her chin in her palm. “I’ve been needing a bit of drama in my life, honestly.”
“This place has enough drama for you. You just ignore it all,” Bryce points out.
I lock my phone and slide it back into my coat. “You should spend a few hours at the salon. You’ll hear enough drama to last a lifetime.”
“Do you like working there?” Bryce asks.
“I do. Despite the gossiping, I love doing hair. I would love to have my own salon someday. It’s been a dream of mine for like a decade now.”
Poppy’s eyes light up at that. “A fellow entrepreneur.”
“Someday.” I put emphasis on the word this time. “I’m broke after moving, and I’m not making nearly enough to be able to afford a place anytime soon. Plus, a town this size doesn’t need more than one salon.”
It was one of the things I had to accept when I moved here. Braxton was the one who chose this place for me after I spent a week straight trying to pick somewhere to go. She laid out a map on the coffee table of her rental and handed me a die, telling me to drop it anywhere on the map and wherever it landed would be my new home. When it hit the map directly on Cherry Peak with my lucky number facing up, I took it as a sign and got myplans together. It wasn’t until I began to research the town that I realized where I had agreed to move.
It’s not like I had the money before this to buy a salon. Not in the Vancouver market anyway. It’ll happen eventually. I feel it.
One step at a time, Anna. You’ll get there.
8
BRODY
I frownat the conversation on my phone and take another swig of my beer. Clearly, I’m a bit rusty when it comes to talking to women if I’ve already put my foot in my mouth after a handful of messages. I don’t want to woo her or anything, considering she’s a goddamn stranger, but I don’t want to leave such a terrible impression. I was raised better than that.
Me: Cause I’ve been here staring at my phone like a wounded pup waiting to properly explain myself.
It’s been over an hour since I replied to her, and considering she’s made an effort to let me know when she’s seen each one of my messages before now, it’s safe to say that she hasn’t yet since there isn’t a tinyReadshowing.
I’d been so busy this past year that texting more than a handful of people just wasn’t a priority. If it weren’t for the crew members with me every day, I probably wouldn’t have spoken to anyone when I wasn’t onstage. I didn’t care about the isolation back then, but after a couple of weeks at home, my newly formed habit has been a nuisance.
I could hardly make it through one fifteen-minute conversation earlier with the new farmhands Grandpa snagged after the harvest season ended.
The shop is hot, the heavy portable heater pumping off thick waves of warmth to the right of me. My hands are dirty, oil and grease caked beneath my nails. It’ll take hours to get them completely clean, and I don’t have it in me after the day I’ve had. The empty plate at my feet that used to be covered with my grandma’s famous gingersnap cookies is a testament to that.
Like some terrible joke, there are three pieces of broken-down equipment inside the shop, with another one waiting outside in the snow. I’m the only mechanic on the ranch right now after we lost the other two only a few days before I got back home. None of us can blame them for leaving, not after the sudden family death that struck them.
It’s just me now. Me and a million fucking things to do in too few hours a day.
I finish my beer and set the bottle on the ground beside the plate. Stretching my legs out in front of me, I ignore the hardness of the concrete beneath my ass and close my eyes.
Before I fall asleep sitting up, my phone vibrates in my lap, and I snap my eyes open, blinking to clear the promise of sleep away.
16045557841: Explain then.
Ignoring that Caleb would give me a verbal chastising about replying too quickly, I type out a reply and send it without a second thought.
Me: I’m not the best talker. Texter either. I didn’t mean to be offensive. You looked just fine.
16045557841: Maybe I shouldn’t have bought that dress then. No woman wants to look just fine, stranger.
I swallow my discomfort.
Me: Shit. Sorry. It was a nice dress. Can we move on now?
Tiny bubbles appear as she types, and I exhale slowly, a pinch growing in my back from sitting this way for so long. Shifting, I lean back against the steel bench and cross my ankles.
16045557841: Move onto what? We can go our separate ways now.
