Rochelle leaned forward. “Everythingeverything?”
The whole shop laughed.
I closed my eyes. “You are entirely too invested.”
“Yes,” she said, settling back under the dryer. “Continue.”
By the time Mena rinsed me, wrapped a towel around my hair, and walked me back to her station, the whole salon had settled into my business like it came with the service. I sat again while she blotted the short layers, then began working foam through my hair with the careful precision of a woman restoring order.
I shook my head and kept going, but Rochelle’s question had already done its damage. Because now my mind was back on Micah with me bent over and open for him, one big hand spreading my ass while his tongue slid over the tight little place no man had any business being that good with. Slow at first. Then filthier. His mouth hot and patient, licking at my puckered hole until my whole body turned liquid and my dignity left the room. By the time I relaxed enough to let his thumb press inside, he was already deep in my pussy from the back, stroking into me swiftly, completely, while he opened me up everywhere else too.
So yes, Rochelle.
Practically, everythingeverything.
I crossed one leg over the other in the chair and cleared my throat.
“Anyway,” I said, reaching for calm like it hadn’t just abandoned me completely, “we’re together all the time. He’s at my place. I’m at his. We eat together, watch shows, play games. He came over Tuesday, held me, reassured me, did everything right.” I met my own eyes in the mirror while Mena combed the foam into place. “And then in public, to another man from the same exact circles where all this started, I’m just a woman he came out for a drink with.”
That sat in the room.
Mena’s hands kept moving, smoothing my hair close, shaping the crown, bringing the style back under discipline piece by piece.
“And online,” I added, “we communicate more openly. Teasing. Commenting. Still not doing too much, but enough that if somebody only saw us there, they’d think there was something there.” I frowned at my own reflection. “Only it would still look like flirtation. Like internet familiarity. Not the real thing.”
Mena nodded slowly.
“So in the comments y’all sound more connected than you did in the room that counted.”
“Yes.”
The fact that she assessed it so completely made me swallow hard.
She laid the comb down and met my eyes in the mirror. “Did he know it bothered you?”
“No.”
“Did you act like it bothered you?”
I thought about the way I’d gone quieter after Bryce left. The way sex had still happened later, but not with my whole mind in the room. The way Micah had looked at me in the dark when he asked if I was tired, and I had let that half-truth stand in for the real thing.
“No,” I admitted.
Rochelle made a little noise again. “Mmmmm.”
I looked toward the dryer. “You humming like a church mother is not helping.”
“It’s helping me.”
Ms. Mary, now at the shampoo bowl about to have the dark brown color rinsed, laughed out loud at that.
Mena wrapped a strip around my edges, adjusted the mold, and turned the chair slightly. “All right. Under the dryer. Sinceyou want to come in here with your hair and your feelings disturbed.”
“I came for a service.”
“And you are receiving several.”
The women laughed again as I moved to the dryer chair. I settled under the hood, heat blooming around my head while Mena leaned against her station and kept talking to me through the opening.