Chapter 8: Lauren

Chapter Eight

LAUREN

O f course that's his type. The slicked-back ponytail and the slim-fitting skirt with the four-inch red-bottomed shoes belonged to a woman I will never be. He's slept with her. His clothes are mixed up with hers. My stomach roils in revolt.

I shut my eyes. Why am I even upset? I've always known Griff is out of reach and not just because he's in a relationship with someone. Simply because I had my hands in his hair for forty minutes doesn't mean shit. I need to screw my head on, forget Griff, and get some money to bail Mick out.

I march off the elevator and enter the salon through the staff entrance. The door slams against the wall with a bang. Chloe looks up from a bowl of soup.

"Back from lunch already?"

"I wasn't hungry." My stomach grumbles again. The big traitor.

Her perfectly penciled eyebrow shoots up. "Did you get in a fight with the hunk of man meat?" She turns to her left where Stephen, another stylist, is sitting and thumbing his screen. "You should have seen the man that took Lolo out to lunch. He was built like a rock and had the face of an angel. His voice was so deep, too. I nearly came from just listening to him."

"That's nice." Stephen doesn't look up from his phone. He's not interested in any rock-like formations. He likes them young and slender because he claims they are the most bendy.

Chloe clucks her tongue in disgust. "You have the worst taste in men."

"No. That'd be you. The last guy you dated stole from your mom, remember," Stephen retorts.

"He borrowed cab fare," she says. "That's not stealing."

"It's stealing because he took the money out of her purse without asking and didn't pay it back."

As the two bicker, I grab a health bar and gulp down half the awful thing so that my stomach stops giving me away.

"Anyway," Chloe drawls, "can we get back to Lolo? What's the deal with you and him anyway? I heard you gave him a shampoo."

This is shocking enough for Stephen to drop his phone. "You did what? Did Misty okay this?"

"I had the time," I say defensively. The term "micro-manager" was made for Misty. She goes over every minute of our time, and at the end of the week, we get reports about all the time we wasted, the money that cost the salon and us, and how she expects us to fix it in the following week. Working here would be great if it weren't for Misty.

Stephen shakes his head. "Girl, you have to be more careful. Misty's already pissed at you because you were late last week. If you mess up again, you're gonna have drain duty for a month."

Drain duty is the task of cleaning the hair out of all the drains. It's as disgusting as it sounds. Misty gives it out as punishment. I've had to do drain duty a lot in the last year, so I'm almost numb to the gross task.

"I'd do drain duty for a $100 tip," Chloe declares. "Honey, give me the money and I'll do the dirty deed tonight."

"A hundred dollar tip?" I croak, nearly choking on the granola.

"Yeah, and you don't even have to share it with Rosalee because he left her a separate twenty." Rosalee is the front desk attendant who bears a striking resemblance to Wednesday Addams.

"I, ah, I..." I stammer.

"This is even worse," Stephen declares. "Misty's going to think you took that extra time to hump your boyfriend in the shampoo room. You know how she is about family discounts."

"I didn't give anyone a discount."

"It's true," Chloe confirms. "He paid full price."

"Still. Misty's not going to be happy. You know how militant she is."

I crumple the empty wrapper in my fist. "I didn't tell Griff to come here. He's not my boyfriend, and I didn't hump him in the shampoo room." I mean, I might have had a dirty fantasy or five, but there was no actual action.

"I'd have humped him in the shampoo room," Chloe declares. "He's that kind of fine—the kind of fine that's worth losing your job over."

"No man is that fine," Stephen disagrees.

"You didn't see him so your opinion doesn't count." Chloe spins in her chair. "Come on and help me out here. It's your boyfriend I'm defending."

"He's not my boyfriend." The intercom announces that my next client has arrived. I toss my wrapper. "But even if he was, I'd come down on Stephen's side. No guy is worth losing my job over."

After finishing the next three clients, I drag my tired ass to the breakroom and crack open a full-throttle, all caffeine, all sugar Coke. I deserve it. Halfway through the can, Misty appears wearing a frown.

"We have rules in place regarding seeing acquaintances during work hours."

I stare at her blankly, not registering her remarks because my head is full of hair spray and dye fumes. Her frown deepens.

"Griffin?" I finally ask. "I don't know what you think, but nothing happened."

"You gave him a shampoo."

I did, which was a mistake and I don't want to compound it by fighting with Misty. "You're right."

Griff isn't an acquaintance, but I made the mistake of agreeing to lunch. In Misty's eyes, that means something. Hell, in anyone's eyes, it probably means something except for Griff. He probably has a whole special note in his phone of the different women he's seeing.

"If it happens again, if you have anyone here during work hours that's not a legitimate client, you're fired. You're a great colorist, but I can't have you breaking the rules like this. It sets a bad precedence."

She sounds serious. I gulp down my anxiety and nod. "I hear you. It won't happen again."

"Close up today," she orders, and I don't argue even though that's not my schedule. Stephen and Chloe send me sympathetic looks as they file out with the rest of the staff at the end of the night. Chloe mouths an apology as if she's responsible for Misty's tyranny. As I'm cleaning out the last drain, I get a text.

It's not from the sexy manhunk or from my mom telling me she won the lottery. It's Roberta Ware. I'm to meet her at the park ASAP to discuss our next steps. I'll next step my heel into her throat, how about that?

In the end, though, I show up because she's got me by the short and curlies. And it hurts like hell.