Except Rex. He was still bent in, knuckles on wood, metal-melting stare. “There it is,” he growled.
Then some bell rang, and they all relaxed. And the people all left, except for my guide. Rex eventually stormed over, and she introduced me as Tabitha, the new stylist.
“Hello, Mr. O’Rourke,” I said.
“Haircut,” he said, seeming displeased. That was his hello. He sat on my mobile stool, and he barked an order, and the woman started reciting numbers off a pad like a strange alien communication.
“Excuse me, I’m gonna have you tilt your head back, and I’m going to put this relaxing, warm jasmine-scented cloth over your face for a moment,” I said.
The cloth-over-the-face thing is something I do to make my clients feel pampered and special.
Rex fixed me with a hard look. “If you put that thing on my face,” he growled, “I’ll rip it up and throw it out the door, and you along with it.”
The assistant stiffened and regarded me nervously, like maybe I’d freak out and run away.
I just smiled, because OMG, seriously? Who is so extreme? Rex is so extreme!!
But of course I didn’t say that.
“We’ll skip the cloth,” I said. Though I didn’t like it. This was part of my thing, and Rex was ruining it. Who doesn’t enjoy relaxation? He nearly lost his mind a minute later when I tried to do my special Tabitha Evans scalp-relaxing massage.
“Hey!” He pulled away and twisted around. “What are you doing?”
“A scalp-relaxing massage?” I said.
“No massages!” he snarled. “No. Massages. Ever. Got it?” This he snarled with extra rawr.
And I don’t know what rose up in me—some innate sense that he needed some pushback. Without even thinking, I looked him in the eyes and I smiled, and I whispered, “Rawr!” But my own fun version.
I could feel the assistant stiffen even more.
And Rex’s glower brightened like when you blow on hot coals. My heart pounded like crazy, but sometimes you have to meet people where they are. I knew he could fire me, but I always go with my gut when it comes to people.
“What was that?” he snarled.
He was challenging me to repeat the fun rawr, but I knew that would be too far. I’m good at finding people’s edges. I may not be brilliant or beautiful or fit and trim, but I’m good at people.
“Your scalp is too tense,” I told him. “I cannot work on such a tense scalp. The haircut won’t be right.”
Though honest, I’d never met a person who needed a scalp massage more than Rex. He needed a full body and attitude massage. It was too perfect he hates massages. Of all the details about him, that was my favorite.
“I meant the other thing,” he said.
“Oh, that,” I whispered.
His scowl intensified. Maybe I should’ve been scared, but I felt this strange happiness inside me when he did his turbocharged scowl.
“Make that sound again and you’re out,” he said. And then he waved two fingers. “Just get on with it.”
I got on with it. I did the massage. I cut his hair so beautifully, I wanted to kill myself. It lay perfectly on his crazy angry beautiful head. And I shortened and shaped his beard in a way that perfectly intensified his dark elegance.
I grabbed the mirror, excited for him to see, but the assistant caught my arm. “He doesn’t do…” She shook her head.
Doesn’t do mirrors? No vampire jokes. No vampire jokes, I chanted to myself.
However, I wasn’t going to let the cut go unacknowledged, so I went around in front of him and made a little square with my fingers, which is something my galpals and I do when we see something frame-worthy. “So good,” I said. “Thumbs up!”
He gave me a glower and that was that.
Afterwards I went online and read about him. You can’t even find a photograph where he’s smiling. Even in groups where everybody else is smiling, Rex always looks so serious—part of the crowd, yet apart from it somehow, a glowering presence among the polished elite, a man with a shell of ice around his heart.
And he chose me out of all of the possible fake fiancées. He picked me.
Jada and I head out for a night of dancing with the goal of consuming our weight in tapas and Bellini spritzers.
“I can’t believe it’s happening,” Jada says. “Does Captain Sternpants even have the skills to act like a doting fiancé? Do you think he can pull it off?”
“Oh, I doubt it,” I say. “Maybe that’s why he needs me, because I smooth over his total assholishness with a bright gloss of fun.”
“I don’t know how you tolerate him.”
“Jerks are my jam,” I say, cocky from my third drink.
Jada goes at her alcohol-soaked orange slice, ripping at it with her teeth like a pretty little mongoose.
“I really think my luck is changing,” I add.
Jada gives me a serious look. “Just be careful.” With my heart, she means.
“Dude,” I gust out. “Please. You’re telling me to be careful with a guy?”
“I am,” she says. “You’ve always had such a crush on him.”
“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I could write a book on the shittiness of guys. I could do a ten-part webinar on it. The shittiness of guys and how not to get sucked in. I think I’ll call my course, ‘Don’t Fall for Him, Sister!’”
She looks at me sadly. Thinking about my past. I make a funny face, and then my phone pings. It’s a message from Clark with an attachment—a schedule for me with two appointments with the personal shopper, the pickup time for when the car will take me to a private airport, plus the tracking code for the designer luggage that will be delivered to me.
We look up the luggage on Amazon. A supposedly tasteful set. Brown and tan. The opposite of my style, but what do I care?
One drink later, the questionnaire comes through.
“Wow, they’re covering everything,” she says.
But then we open it up and read it, and we’re just laughing. There are questions about employment history, school history and dates of graduation, where I’ve lived, place of birth.
“This is hilarious,” Jada says. “Are they repurposing a rental application as a fake fiancée questionnaire?”
“Where’s the space for date of last tetanus shot?” I joke.
Jada stirs her drink. “This is what you call a fake fiancée scheme concocted by two dudes.”
We snigger some more about the questionnaire. You know Clark wrote it. Rex wouldn’t involve himself in this level of detail. Or would he?
“Oh my god,” I say, pointing to an item that says, simply, “family of origin.” “What is that even supposed to mean? Asking me to do this was a cry for help,” I say. “I’m making my own damn questionnaire. For both of us to answer.”
“Let’s do it! Let’s do it right now!” she practically screams.
We order another round and start putting questions down. First thing: pets! Then name of favorite childhood pet. Favorite food. Foods you hate. Siblings. Briefs or boxers or boxer briefs. Top gross-out thing. Top bucket list stuff. Side of bed. Favorite music, favorite movies, favorite books.