He stalks over, managing to express annoyance in every fiber of his muscular frame, and sits himself down on the stool.
I nod to Amanda, who puts the cape around his shoulders, willing her not to shake too hard. I give her a reassuring smile upon her successful completion of the cape-snapping process. So far so good. Amanda begins to comb his hair. I stand where Rex can’t see me, smiling and nodding encouragement, breathing in Rex’s hard, spicy scent. She puts down the comb and places her hands on his scalp for the massage.
“No, no, no.” Rex shakes her off. “Fuck off with that. Cut it and be done.”
Amanda looks at me for help.
“Very well, she’ll skip that part,” I say brightly. I turn to Amanda. “Right here.” I smooth up the back of his neck with my good hand. “Just a very clean fade up the back and sides.”
“Why can’t you do it this one last time and she can watch?” Rex asks.
“Because this is better,” I say.
Amanda pulls out the electric razor and the mobile power station.
“So what the hell?” Rex rumbles. “Did you wake up one day and decide it was a good time to take a six-week vacation?”
I go around to face Rex, arms crossed. Our eyes meet, and my belly flip-flops. It’s so rare that I speak to him face to face. Usually I’m behind him or at his side, focused on his hair. His beautiful eyes glitter. It’s unnerving.
I keep my bad wrist hidden under my left arm, even though I have my sleeve all the way down. I don’t want him to even notice the outline of the brace. I told all my other clients about my repetitive stress injury, but Rex is different. Rex is different in every way.
“People do take vacations,” I say.
“A six-week vacation? Did you wake up one day and say to yourself, ‘I’ve built this business and now I’m going to abandon it for six weeks because, why not’?”
I smile. “So weird. That is exactly what I woke up one day and said to myself!”
“A six-week vacation,” he growls.
The buzz of the razor starts up. “Okay, you have to stay still,” I say.
“You know who takes six-week vacations? Losers.”
I stifle a grin. It’s such a Rex thing to say. “Maybe I’m finally taking that romantic vacation to the Hello Kitty amusement park in Tokyo that I’ve been dreaming about.” Rex hates my Hello Kitty thing. I have a tattoo of Hello Kitty on my ankle that I once took perverse glee in showing him.
Rex narrows his eyes, face lit with ire. It does something very wrong to my belly. “Romantic vacation? Is your boyfriend an axe murderer? Is that it?”
“How do you know I’m not going on my own steam? Maybe it’s romantic because of my love for Hello Kitty.”
“No way would you be able to go to Tokyo on your own steam,” he says. “You’re a wage slave in Manhattan. I don’t know or care what you charge, but you work by the hour, which means you’re doomed always to have roommates, never to have a retirement savings, and to eventually be a sixty-year-old ward of the welfare state being supported by people like me. Best case.”
“Rex O’Rourke.” I smile at him sweetly. “Do I need to put a relaxing jasmine-scented towel over your face?”
He glares.
Amanda looks like she’s going to have a coronary event.
“Maybe my axe-murdering boyfriend will be enjoying my jasmine-scented towel in Tokyo,” I tease.
Rex’s expression changes right then, and I don’t know what to make of it. There’s this beat where everything’s weirder than usual. Did I just cross a line? Everything is awkward. I go over to where Amanda is nervously perfecting his fade.
“Nice,” I say. “This is an amazing job she’s doing.”
I can feel the darkness rolling off Rex.
She puts aside the razor and takes up the shears, fluffing his hair with her left hand.
“Here’s where I kind of start…” I indicate the shape that works best with Rex. “See how…” I show her where I let the length come in.
“Right,” she says. “Got it.”
A top stylist like Amanda can tell a lot from the week-old haircut—enough that most mobile stylists might just send a substitute in their place without training them on the specific cuts, but I’ve been personally introducing her and giving her the lowdown on each person. I act like I’m all fun and games but I’m dead serious about quality. I don’t think my clients are even aware of it, but I am, and that’s what counts. So even though Amanda could probably get the cuts ninety percent right, I want my people to have a hundred percent with zero trial and error. I want my clients to experience seamless top quality. Especially Rex.
Half the battle of cutting hair is assessing somebody’s personality and what they want to project to the world and then making them look even more like that. Rex was easy. His message to the world is, I have this under control, so screw off! Brutal perfection wrapped in barbed wire. Keep out!
Not that he needs a haircut for that. I could do a clown bowl cut on him, and he’d still manage to project brutal perfection wrapped in barbed wire.
But I’d never give him a bowl cut. Rex gets this awesome long-on-top 1920s cut that looks as amazing when it’s perfectly combed back as when he’s all worked up and doing his hands-in-hair thing.
“I don’t have all day,” Rex barks.
Amanda stiffens. I don’t like him focusing so much on her.
Silently I indicate the other angle I want her to see. “So, in other news, remember how Stefano helped EJ kidnap Sami’s husband and put a lookalike in his place?”
“Did I just see that rewatch recap on your Instagram?” Amanda says.
“Wait, what?” Rex bellows. “Jesus Christ, it’s not enough of a waste of time to watch soap operas in the first place? You’re recapping old episodes on social media?”
“I certainly am!” I say brightly.
That’s one of the things I do with him—when he says something mean, I act like I think it’s a compliment. You can’t let a man like Rex see weakness.
“Soap operas provide amazing life lessons,” I add with a wink at Amanda. The menacing sound from Rex is beyond priceless. I can’t see his face, but I can practically feel his glower radiate through me.
Eventually it’s time for the beard trimmer. When I first came to Rex, whoever was cutting his hair was doing his beard in a full shape—so wrong! Shaping the beard is really shaping the face. Rex’s face is roughly sculptural, and the close way I do his beard enhances his looks.
“Amanda,” I say, “if you go slightly concave here, do you see the line that you create?” I indicate the sweep of the beard edge down from his cheekbones, hoping she sees it, how extra gorgeous he looks with the tight beard shape.
Amanda nods, but I think she really doesn’t see. People don’t really see him.
Doing facial hair is a very personal thing. Rex might not realize the magic that I work on him, but that’s okay.
Rex is an asshole who won’t miss me at all, but I’ll miss him.
“The line is here.” I slide my left hand down the side of his face, smoothing a swath from just below his cheekbone straight down to his jawline. That’s my absolute favorite part of his beard.