Loved Either Way, page 8
“Me, too,” Linda replied, her reflection winking.
Delaney moved around the chair, a hand gesturing at her boss all the while. “Thank you, I’ve got this.”
“Mmhmm. Mr. Dalton—”
“Lucas,” he told Linda.
It only seemed fair that—after everything the woman had helped him with here—he let her call him by his first name. Professionalism and privacy kept Lucas maintaining a wall between the person he allowed the public to see and the man who went home to a quiet, dark apartment every night. Almost always alone, now. It became something he could bank on. There was comfort in familiarity, after all.
Lucas wished he didn’t lean so hard into it, though.
“Lucas,” the woman echoed, nodding, “would you like a drink—coffee, tea, water?”
“I just came from brunch, actually. I’m good for the moment.”
“Great. Call over if you need something,” Linda said, spinning on her ankle-high wedge boots. She even waved her fingers over her shoulder as she went.
Delaney laughed under her breath as she pulled a clean cape and rolled towel from the shelves next to her workstation. She came to stand behind Lucas at the chair so they both faced each other’s reflections in the mirror. “She’s something else, that one.”
“I like her,” he noted.
“Oh?”
“She’s helpful. Kind, too.”
“She is definitely both of those things,” Delaney said, and her grin softened a bit at the kind comment. She went ahead and fit the towel around his neck before also covering him with the cape and securing it on tight, too. “I would think someone who knows about being kind might recognize it in others, though.”
Lucas, distracted with the way Delaney’s one hand came to rest on the top of his shoulder while her other swept through the hair at the top of his head, didn’t see where the conversation had headed. He enjoyed the way her fingertips squeezed tenderly, barely there at all, around tense muscles. Could she feel that—his stress? It weighed there and, in his neck, more than anywhere else. Not even a weekly massage helped to work it all out. He tried.
He couldn’t pretend like the tension seemingly forever knotted into his body didn’t melt away a little at her touch. Even seconds of relief were welcomed.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Kind people …”
“What about them?”
“Well, you.”
Lucas’ gaze snapped up to meet hers in the mirror.
Delaney shrugged. “Thank you for what you did. Paying for my chair rental, I mean. You didn’t have to—”
“I didn’t really think of that as a kind thing to do. The right thing, maybe.”
He’d not been able to stick around very long after his last appointment, but he had been able to see a vibrant young woman turn into a terrified, crying statue at the sight of a few sparks and a bit of plastic-smelling smoke.
Terribly, truly.
Even though he hadn’t been able to forget about it, Lucas didn’t think it was also his right to ask what brought on the reaction despite Linda’s comment to the peanut gallery about a fire and whatever else. So, he didn’t ask that day, but he had called the salon later in the day to check up on Delaney and offer to mail a check to cover her chair rental when Linda mentioned Delaney had taken a few days off.
“I try to be mindful about that sort of thing, but sometimes I just do it and never see it for what it is,” Lucas muttered, more to himself than the woman standing behind the chair.
“Of—”
“Kindness,” he filled in quickly. “Or of being kind. I forget sometimes, or I’ll do something and remember there’s a reason I try to wake up and choose kindness.”
“I don’t think you have to try, really,” Delaney replied. “You smile, and it radiates.”
Why couldn’t he see that in himself, then? Too busy seeing someone else, his thoughts quickly filled in. The self-awareness served to do nothing but make Lucas quiet in the chair as Delaney began her work.
She didn’t notice the somber change within Lucas, either.
He didn’t mind.
“Same as before?” she asked, her dainty features lighting up.
“Same as before, please.”
“No fade.” Delaney patted his shoulders and smiled big. “Let’s get to work.”
Lucas found peace in watching someone else work. Especially if their job took a skill he had never mastered. Not that trips to a hairdresser had been a particularly fun day in his past—simply an appointment he tried to keep up, despite never finding a barber he cared to visit more than twice—but it was a different beast for him to sit still while Delaney circled his prone form in the chair again and again.
She used but a few spritzes of water to get his hair damp enough for her satisfaction before using a stainless-steel comb and a sharp pair of shears to trim his length between two fingers. Other than a bit of safe small talk, like learning his age and letting him complain about his tiring week, she put all of her focus into keeping his hair even. His style was a short, simple crop that was easy to maintain and didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to upkeep in a stylist’s chair.
So, as Delaney approached the end of the trim, cleaning up the strays around his ears before changing out the comb and shears for the small trimmer, to do the edges of the back of his neck, he prodded her into talking once more.
“Someone likes Valentine’s,” he noted.
Delaney laughed, turning the buzzer on and giving him a look in the mirror. “You think?”
Yeah, one could guess, eh?
“What about you—do you have one?”
Maybe asking a question like that as she was leaning in to keep the edge of his hairline straight while the clipper almost touched his skin wasn’t good timing. He could have thought it through better, but Delaney just pulled back the clippers to give a bit of buffer room.
“A Valentine?” she asked.
“Mmhmm. Do you have one?”
He became hyper aware of the salon at that moment. All the time she worked and while they chatted, he paid no mind to the women with clients in their chairs, or the ladies packing up their stations to head out for lunch. They weren’t exactly alone. This was her place of employment, as well. He’d not considered that there should be a proper time and place for everything, but the two of them weren’t exactly afforded a different meeting.
Lucas would work with what he had.
“Delaney?” he asked quietly.
The buzz of the clippers continued, but he could tell when she squeezed them harder because of the muted noise. Her smile grew wide even though she tried to rub her lips together to melt it away. He took it as a good sign that she smiled, at least.
“Is there a reason you’re asking me?” she returned.
As fast as she asked the question, like perhaps she was scared of what his answer would be, Delaney bent down to get back to work. He felt the clippers at his hairline on the back of his neck, but he also noticed her gaze darting to him in the mirror.
She arched an eyebrow at him.
Waiting.
“Would you be interested in dinner—if you don’t have someone making you their Valentine, of course,” he tacked on at the end.
“Of course,” she echoed. “Hold still for a sec.”
Her steady hands worked across the back of his neck. Lucas had never been more nervous waiting for someone’s response. It made sitting still for her to get that straight edge right particularly difficult.
Then, Delaney straightened up, her attention zoned in on the back of his neck to determine whether or not she was satisfied. He couldn’t figure out if her parroting of his words had been a confirmation to his request for a date, or not.
Nor could he make himself ask.
“A little on that side …” Delaney muttered to herself.
At the same time his phone beeped where he’d sat it beside hers on the workstation before they sat down to begin. Well, he thought it was his phone until he reached forward to grab it, leaned back into the seat, and tapped the screen to light it up.
The image that popped up in the text banner on the locked home screen of the phone corrected his initial thought—it was not, in fact, his black phone. At a quick glance, it could be.
The clippers touched the back of his neck on the right side at the same time Lucas asked, “Is someone having a baby? That is a sonogram, yeah?”
He held the phone high enough that he thought Delaney could see, but at the same time, felt the slip.
The way the buzz of the machine revved slightly as it went higher on the back of his neck than it was supposed to. Apparently, he had not learned his lesson about keeping his mouth shut while she worked.
“Oh, my God,” Delaney breathed out, yanking the clippers back before her palm cupped the back of his neck. Immediately, the clippers shut off. Her horrified stare found his blank face in the mirror before she closed her eyes shut and bit her lip, muttering, “I am so, so, so sorry.”
He knew what she did.
He didn’t need her to say it.
Lucas tried his hardest to even be annoyed that she’d let the clippers slip up the back of his neck, but it had been partially his fault, too. All he could do was shake with his rumbling laughter that he desperately tried to hold in to keep from alerting the rest of the people in the salon.
He felt Delaney’s hand lift before it clamped right back down.
“Okay, it’s not that bad,” she told him. “Manageable.”
“Bad enough for a—”
She cringed. “Just a little fade.”
Her hand raised to show the inch or so she’d have to work with to blend in the mistake.
Lucas laughed harder.
“It’s not funny,” she insisted.
“It is, a little.”
Delaney huffed, her hand still pressed to the back of his neck. “Is not. I’ve got more practice than I need to know how to keep from making these kinds of mistakes. You distracted me with all your talk of Valentine’s and babies.”
“More the baby, huh?” he tried to joke.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, more the baby.”
“Here I was sitting here freaking out because you didn’t say yes or no to dinner, but now I’m thinking that I should be asking something else.”
“I said yes—of course, that’s what I said.”
“That’s what you meant?” he returned.
Delaney didn’t hesitate. “Next time, let’s keep any and all surprises until after the haircut, huh?”
“That’s what you meant.”
It wasn’t a question this time.
“I’ll give you an address to pick me up, you give me the time,” she said.
Fair enough. He could work with that.
“So, who’s pregnant?” Lucas asked, grinning.
Delaney smiled back, shaking her head. “Apparently, my best friend.”
Chapter 9
“Mira Belle,” Delaney suggested.
“I’ll put that one on the list.”
It seemed to be an elusive list. One Gracen protected because she refused to go back down over the names she agreed were worthy enough to make the list, proclaiming the name she did pick would remain secret until the baby finally came along.
In the mirror of the portable, lighted beauty mirror sitting on the table, Delaney’s reflection grinned. “Oh, that’s my first one to get on the list.”
“Stop saying it like that. Malachi does that, too.”
Delaney giggled. “You’re taking this name list very seriously, Gracen.”
“It is serious! They’re going to have this name for the rest of their life, Delaney. I want them to love it as much as I do, okay?”
Yeah, so it better be a good one, right?
“Eden Sophia,” Delaney said, adding a new one for Gracen to consider.
“I definitely like the Eden bit.”
“Eden …” Delaney dug in her brain for a middle name that would sound good—a parent had to realize not only would they say the name a lot, but they could also be yelling it often, too; one would want the name to sound good being said in any particular way. “Oh, Eden Reed Anders.”
Gracen’s muffled laugh chirped over the phone before she muttered, “You know, that actually sounds good.”
“I know, right?”
Delaney pulled that one entirely out of her ass, too. Not that she expected Gracen to use her last name even if she was the first official, not-blood related auntie of Baby Anders. Or, that’s what she had taken to call Gracen’s unborn baby in her head.
“Pizza sounds perfect,” Gracen told her companion on the other end of the call. “Especially if you’re the one making it.”
Malachi’s rumbly laughter echoed in the background of the call, but his words were a muffle that Delaney couldn’t properly distinguish. The lull in conversation allowed Delaney the time to resituate her makeup on the table before putting the call on speakerphone.
Across the room, her cousin acted uninterested in the phone call. Or Delaney’s makeshift beauty counter with every piece of makeup she had spread out like a buffet made of shimmers and rouge from one side of the table to the other. They didn’t have a large enough bathroom to comfortably do much other than get in the bathtub or stand from the toilet to immediately be against the sink under a very small mirror.
She needed more room to work.
Not that she would use all of her makeup. Despite the mountain of makeup that took three bags to keep contained, Delaney rarely wore more than a natural look. A light foundation. Faint highlighter on the high points of her face. A nude shade of lipstick. Her most difficult choice was which eyeliner to use to make her favorite wing, but in the end, she almost always picked the same one for that, too. It was the blackest of black liner, and it went on smoother than anything else she had tried.
When shopping, her eyes were often needier than her hands and heart. If it looked pretty, she’d buy it. The fact she might already have the same shade of eyeshadow—that she didn’t use—wasn’t that important. Delaney was trying to get better about those bad habits. Money didn’t grow on trees, but someday, the effects of her consumerism would end up in the ground when she tossed all of her expired products into the garbage. The trees wouldn’t like that, either, right?
“You know,” Gracen said, coming back to the conversation with Delaney while a familiar mewing filled the background, “I’m only ten weeks pregnant, and we’re sitting here going through names like this baby is coming tomorrow. It’s like when I went shopping and couldn’t help but buy at least ten different things that were gender neutral because the baby needs something.”
“Not even,” Delaney shot back. “And you already started the list, bitch. I was just helping you out.”
Gracen cackled. “Yeah, that’s true.”
“Mmhmm, see. Everybody probably does this, anyway.”
“You think?”
Gracen’s quiet question shot Delaney through the heart with a spear of sadness she hadn’t expected. That was probably a question a first-time pregnant woman should be able to call her mother and ask. Except Gracen no longer had a mother to call, and Delaney couldn’t help in that department, either. Her mother wouldn’t even pick up her fucking calls.
Not that she bothered to try anymore.
“Well, I don’t really know for sure,” Delaney hedged.
“Yeah, me either. I’ve got about as much experience with pregnant women and babies as Mister Kitty here.”
At the sound of his name, the cat in the background meowed louder.
“I know, buddy,” Gracen cooed to her vocal pet. “You’re my best friend, too, huh?”
“Friggin cat, stealing all my love,” Delaney joked.
“He does not. You sound just like Malachi.”
To be fair, the cat did get a lot of attention and love. Delaney didn’t have to be present in Gracen’s life every single day to know she doted on Mister Kitty as if he were another human in her home in need of her time and affection. He had more toys than he could reasonably play with, a choice in various foods, and a bed in practically every room. All things Gracen was solely responsible for.
“He’s not spoiled,” Gracen said as if she could read Delaney’s mind.
“Not at all, huh? Not even a little bit?”
“No, he’s loved.”
“Spoiled from love, sure.”
Her best friend only sighed on the other end of the line when Delaney challenged her.
“Hey, are we making a long list of baby names or picking on me and my cat?” Gracen suddenly asked.
“Both are valid things to tease you about, thank you very much.”
“Yeah, well … somebody here already does that everyday. You’re gonna have to pick something new. Next name, please.”
Delaney guffawed.
Gracen didn’t budge, laughing as she demanded, “Come on, give me another name.”
To be fair, Delaney didn’t mean any harm by joking about Gracen’s obsession over naming her unborn child. A baby, by the way, whose gender her friend did not yet even know. She thought it was sweet that Gracen wanted to put so much careful effort and thought into naming the child. Maybe someday, she could tell the story of how she picked the baby’s name and the way those around her, even Delaney, helped.
“Amber … Rose,” came a suggestion from across the apartment.
Gracen still heard it. “I like it, but I also think I’ve heard it before.”
“Probably a stripper name,” Bexley muttered. “Sounds like one.”
“It does not,” Delaney argued.
Her cousin only flipped a hand indifferently over her shoulder where she sat with the back of her head facing Delaney. “I mean, it does, and I’m the one who came up with it.”
More giggles rushed from the phone.
“That’s terrible,” Delaney said, more to herself than the other two women involved in the conversation. “How do you think a kid would feel if somebody told them their name sounded like a stripper’s name?”
Gracen’s amusement quieted.
