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“Smart.”
“I do fidget and can’t sit still if I’m bored. Meetings. Death-by-PowerPoint-type deals. Sales calls, really anything having to do with money. School in general. Super hard. That’s what all the notes home from teachers said.” He affected a tone of fussy displeasure. “Dylan may be exceptionally bright, but he can’t sit still and is often rude to the teachers and his peers. His study skills are nonexistent.”
“Can’t imagine you being rude.”
Dylan studied Derek in the mirror. “I didn’t mean to be. I just didn’t always notice things. My parents always thought I was scatterbrained and that my issues were disciplinary. But you can’t spank the ADHD out of my brain.” Dylan wrinkled his nose to pull his glasses back up where they were supposed to be. “That came out wrong. My parents weren’t mean or abusive or anything. Well, I think spanking is abusive, but they didn’t do it very often with me… They were just out of their depth, so they did the same stuff they were raised with. My mom’s parents suuucked. My situation was fine comparatively…”
“So…”
Dylan really didn’t like the mix of pity and curiosity on Derek’s face. “You said you’d tell me how you learned to cut hair,” Dylan said, tamping down on his discomfort with talking about what it was like to grow up with his family.
“Aha. I guess I should give you my credentials, shouldn’t I?” Derek slid Dylan’s glasses off his face and put them on the counter.
“Only if you want to. Honestly, given that you’ve massaged my neck in a way that is basically hypnotic, I’d probably let you do whatever the hell you want.” Whatever was being sprayed onto Dylan’s hair smelled amazing.
“Excellent.” Derek started at the back. “I’m going to do a small fade here.”
“Hypnotized, remember.”
“Fair enough.” The clippers buzzed. Derek’s eyebrows pulled together in that irresistible scrunch as he worked. “After my dad died, my mom went back to work full time. She’d been working part time as a CPA for most of my childhood, doing the books for local businesses, that kind of thing, but then she joined a bigger firm to get better benefits.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
“It was a transition. My sister Amy was nine at the time and Michelle was six. They were both these two little angels. My mom would drop them at school, and then I’d pick them up and walk them home every day. Somewhere along the way, they got it in their heads they wanted to be ballerinas.”
“Reasonable.”
“I found a local studio—well, Olive helped because her sister took ballet classes. Olive and I were pretty much inseparable then. Emo high school misfits and all the clichés that go with that. Chuck Taylors. Dyed side parts. The works.”
“Still don’t buy you as a misfit.”
“This area was different back then. I was gay. Also, I was the most middling student imaginable. And I was also about five feet two and ninety pounds until sixteen.”
“Wow, you must’ve shot up fast after that. I was a late bloomer too, but no one did shit to me because they knew my brothers would kick their asses.” Dylan laughed.
“So, the girls needed to have these hair buns for their classes and recitals, and their hair kept falling out.” A small frown worried Derek’s mouth as he changed the setting on the clippers. “When my dad got sick, he told me that sometimes I needed to take initiative because a lot was going to fall on my shoulders.”
“That’s a ton of pressure for a sixteen-year-old.”
“Ha, I was thirteen at the time. But kind of like what you said about your parents… looking back, my dad was obviously terrified and barely holding it together. He loved my mom and sisters more than anything.” Derek swiveled the desk chair back and forth to examine the evenness of the sections he had done so far. “I think he knew it’d get bad. Just don’t think he knew it would get bad that fast.”
“Shit…”
“It was absolute shit.” Derek grabbed a pair of shiny silver shears out of a leather case. “One day, Michelle came out of class crying. Amy always let the bad stuff roll off her, so I could never get anything out of her, but Michelle was always a heart-on-her-sleeve kid. Even then.”
“What happened?”
“A kid in her class kept singing some truly offensive rhyme and making fun of both of them.”
“How badly did you want to beat up that kid?”
“Given that the culprit was an eight-year-old girl, I took a different route. I waited until the classes were done that day. Then I, an undersized emo boy in ripped skinny jeans and a thrifted concert T-shirt, marched into the studio to confront the teacher. Shockingly, the teacher profusely apologized and said the little girl wouldn’t be welcome in classes again.”
“Good.”
“Wasn’t expecting that. Usually, in my experience with teachers and stuff, white people tend to just brush off racism as ‘harmless’ when it comes from kids.”
“That’s bullshit.”