Chapter 14

Trimming Off Ragged Edges

"Hi, welcome to Shear Bliss. I'm Marlena. Do you have an appointment?"

"Yes, ma'am, at twelve-thirty with Tyler." Haven replied, shuffling from one foot to the other as two women seated in the waiting area looked his way.

One immediately glanced away, while the other stared at him so hard he started to wish he'd never set foot inside the bright white and beige interior of the shop. Of course Mrs. Robles would recognize him. How could she not with how often he'd bounced into her candy shop to blow his lunch money on sweets instead of the tastelessly chewy meals they'd served in the school cafeteria. She'd fill a bright sack with a colorful assortment of jelly filled marshmallows and milky Japanese candy with bursts of caramel inside, all while reminding him to brush his teeth, then she'd laugh when he'd flash a gap-toothed grin at him to show the latest tooth he was missing. By the time he'd reached high school she'd just shake her head and fill a bag for him while he pointed out all the colorful treats he desired. She'd never once ratted him out to his folks, despite how many times she threatened to if he didn't start spending his money on proper meals.

Now, she narrowed her eyes at him, the look of displeasure on her face as unmistakable as the colorful masks she used to don every Halloween when she sat out in front of her shop passing out treats to every kid that wandered by.

"Perfect, you can go ahead and have a seat, and I'll let him know you're here," Marlena told him, leaving Haven no choice but to go sit in front of the large bay window right across from Mrs. Robles.

Sunlight streamed in through the purple and gold lettering and cast streaks of violet across his jeans, reminding him of how much he'd always liked to dye his hair that color back in his high school days. Where River had always experimented with different shades, going red one week and black another, Haven's go-to had always been some shade of purple. He'd learned how to dye his eyebrows both matching and contrasting shades, much to the detriment of the once gray wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom of his parents' home.

Watching people go in and out of the grocery store was easier than looking to see if Mrs. Robles was still glaring at him, though he could practically feel her eyes on him, and it was starting to make his skin crawl. A part of him hoped she didn't say anything, while another part just wished she'd get it over with. He supposed she had a right, considering it was her son who'd gotten a mudhole stomped in him, but she had to know how deep he'd been involved in everything that had led up to Haven getting sent away.

When the word did come, it was muttered in Spanish and half buried beneath the rattling pages of her magazine, but whatever, she could call him a maricòn if she wanted to, it was her little bastard who'd caused the whole shitshow to go down the way it had. If he'd manned up and admitted the truth, it would have saved Haven six years and the cavernous gap that existed between him and Archer that he doubted they'd ever be able to repair.

What the hell had he been thinking, leaving the relative seclusion of his shop to come out and have someone trim his hair when he could have just handed River a pair of scissors and told his brother to take off an inch? The moment the idea popped into his head, he recalled the one and only time he'd let River do anything to his hair, a disaster that had involved his brother giving him an uneven undercut and his mom seeing it as an opportunity to shave the whole colorful mess off. He'd have rather kept it uneven than have no hair at all, but there he'd been with a thin layer of fuzz covering his scalp and an unhealthy hatred for hats that he'd had to get over until his hair had grown long enough to keep him from getting another sunburn.

That shit hurt. Even laying his head on a pillow had sucked after he'd fucked around and spent a summer afternoon at the skate park and splash pad, alternating between running shirtless through the sprinklers and doing rail slides.

His phone blipped, so he checked it and the note he'd left himself to pick up cat food for The Notorious S.O.X, who was forever vanishing into shadows then popping up to scare the absolute shit out of him like a demented jack-in-the-box. The cat had scared him so bad he'd smacked himself in the face with his own wrench when he'd recoiled after the big asshole had popped its head up between two parts boxes and meowed in his face. The best parts though were that he was starting to climb up into Haven's lap whenever he sat down, and actually purred when Haven pet him, instead of swatting at him.

It might be a good idea to get him some catnip toys and a scratching post or something now that he'd decided to stick around. And proper bowls, so he wasn't eating and drinking out of the paper bowls Haven kept around so he didn't have to worry about remembering to bring his dishes back upstairs when he was through. Hell, okay fine, a cat bed might be in order, though he doubted the fuzzy little menace would use it unless he lined it with the work and parts orders the kitty loved to lounge around on. The furry devil had the nerve to bathe himself on his invoices and more than once had taken a swipe at Haven for attempting to disturb his naptime while he'd been trying to extract a page from beneath him. He was an awesome addition to the atmosphere of the shop, with a grumpy-faced attitude that reminded Haven of Maddox sometimes. One day, he hoped S.O.X. would be ready to accompany him upstairs to his room when the shop closed, then back down in the morning, so the fluffy purrbox wasn't alone at night. And yeah, maybe that was so Haven wouldn't be alone either, even if that meant losing half his bed.

"Hey, Haven?"

Blinking, he turned away from the window and the sight of Jeremy exiting the grocery store, to see a slender man with brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard standing several feet away beside Marlena.

"Yeah," he said as he stood and shoved his phone back into the pocket of his black leather jacket.

"I'm Tyler, I'll be your barber today."

"Cool," Haven said, glad to leave the waiting area behind and follow Tyler to his booth.

"So, what were you looking to have done today?" Tyler asked as they walked.

"Just get it trimmed so it isn't a ragged mess," Haven admitted. "The ends keep getting snarled and snagging sh…err stuff."

"I can take care of that for you."

"Thanks."

"Do you always wear it long?" Tyler asked as Haven got settled in his chair.

"Pretty much. I'd like it longer but at the rate I've been breaking hair ties and getting grease and crap in it, I don't know, maybe it's time to tame it a little more, maybe to my shoulders."

"It looks to be fairly thick as well, have you ever had anyone thin it for you?"

"Nope."

"If you're willing, I can thin it some and you can see how you like it," Tyler offered, "Might be lighter for you in this heat."

He'd never thought about it, but now that Tyler had brought it up, Haven didn't see any reason not to let him try to make it lighter with how much volume it had.

"Yeah, go ahead, please, even with the air on, the garage gets hot by mid-afternoon."

"I bet."

With classic Pearl Jam pumping from the smart speaker, it was easy for Haven to kick back and even start to relax as Tyler worked the hair elastic loose and started combing his fingers through his hair. It sure as hell started easing the tension from his neck and shoulders to be back there with the music and not being stared at any longer.

"So how long have you been cutting hair?" Haven asked, wanting to try being social now that he'd managed to poke his head out of his shop.

"Awhile now," Tyler admitted, "Soledad had a barber training program. That's where I learned. After I landed in Folsom, that became my job. I cut hair there for three years before getting paroled. Sheer Bliss is my mom's place. I'm grateful to be able to do what I love and see her every day."

Floored, Haven fell silent as he pondered what he'd just learned. Folsom was the real deal and a place he'd been grateful not to wind up when he'd aged out of the juvenile system. As Tyler brushed his hair out, Haven decided to own up to his own stint in prison rather than have the man mistake his silence for a negative reaction to his admission.

"The only one cutting my hair for the past few years has been my celli," Haven admitted. "And he wasn't exactly cutting it with anything remotely like a pair of scissors."

"I imagine not. The ends look like they've been hacked at."

"Yeah, all we had was disposable razors," Haven admitted. "Was enough to keep it from getting unmanageable, but no way was I getting it shaved off."

"Don't blame you. You've got nice hair, thick, but I can tell you take care of it."

"If by take care of it you mean wash the grease out every night then yeah, that I can manage along with a bit of conditioner. I've never liked it short, but the longer it gets, the wavier it is, and that becomes a challenge too," Haven admitted. "It used to take two boxes of color to get it the shade I wanted but at least I never had to bleach it."

"Nice. It feels like it would hold color well."

"I miss wearing it a shocking shade of electric violet, but I figured I'd wait a bit after getting out before I went back to putting color in," Haven admitted. "Give people a chance to get used to me being back before I gave them more reason to stare at me."

Tyler chuckled at that. "And how long have you been home?"

"Four weeks. I'm still waiting for it to feel normal. It's too quiet. I never thought I'd say anyplace was too quiet after all the noise and chaos I'd gotten used to hearing day in and day out but at night, when there's nothing but silence, a fucked-up manhole cover and the occasional clatter of something rummaging through the trash outside, it's almost overwhelming."

"I hear that. When I first came home the silence was the hardest thing to get used to," Tyler said. "Know what the easiest was?"

"What?"

"The food," Tyler said, laughing as he turned the chair towards the sink and leaned Haven back so he could wash his hair. "Having real meals and not having to worry about guarding my tray so no one tried to steal something off it."

"Man, I still wrap one arm around my plate anytime I'm at the table with somebody, even if they're family."

"You'll ease up in time. I did. You've just got to give yourself a grace period and not to try and rush to unlearn everything all at once. It'll just stress you out and make you more self-conscious about everything you're doing which isn't the kind of pressure you want to put on yourself."

"Yeah. I gotta be honest, this is the first time I've gone into any of the shops since I've been home," Haven admitted. "I'm technically the owner of Twisted Chassis, and I live in the apartment over it with my brother River, who runs Weedzillas. So, in the morning I guzzle coffee like it's going out of style and at night I flop on the couch and let him smoke me up until I sort of drift in a haze that could be interpreted as resting. I rode with a friend into the mountains last weekend on the back of a Harley, it was awesome, but I appreciated not having to stop any place where there were other people. That's the only life I really trust myself to have right now."

"Well then maybe you need to see that you can still do more than that," Tyler offered as he rubbed citrus scented shampoo through Haven's hair until he felt his eyes getting heavy. "This is a good first step and all, but you should try doing something fun."

"Maybe."

"It doesn't have to be something epic," Tyler said as he began rinsing the suds away. "That's where a lot of guys mess up. They get out and immediately try to do all the things they've been dreaming about all at once and it quickly spirals out of control. Pick one thing, maybe two. And if you're hanging out with someone, especially friends you haven't seen in forever, make sure you're with somebody who isn't going to push you to do more than you're comfortable with."

Haven let that sink in, because a part of him had been dying to catch up with Jeremy and go down to Pints n' Pool to shoot a few rounds and knock back a couple hard ciders, but he was more interested in spending time with him the way they used to, bullshitting around a bonfire in Jeremy's yard. Okay, so getting the dirt bikes back out would be fun too, but maybe he needed to take Tyler's advice and at least try going out and doing something fun that didn't involve isolating himself. If only he could go back to the year he'd turned sixteen, back when the best way to spend a Saturday night was laying on the concrete slabs at the skatepark, starting at the stars and thinking about his plans for the future.