Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
“I got ya, Princess,” he whispers back.
I stomp on his foot for that. He looks at me, eyes big, but then he chuckles and leans back in the car with his hands relaxed behind his head.
Ugh, he’s not exactly man-spreading, but does he always have to take up so much space?
He stays quiet a couple blocks over to the hair salon, though. Quiet, but he’s still such a big, looming shadow over my shoulder as I check in for my appointment.
“And, uh, who’s… this?” the cute brunette receptionist behind the counter asks.
“I’m her personal protection officer,” Isaak answers for me, leaning in with an elbow on the counter and flashing his white teeth in a flirty smile at the receptionist. “What’s your name?”
She blushes and starts acting like a flirty idiot right back, reaching out to brush her fingertips across his muscled forearm. “I’m Lana. Wow, so you’re like a bodyguard?”
Isaak just keeps grinning. “That’s right.”
“Cringe,” I mutter under my breath as my stylist waves me over to one of the open stations behind the counter.
The next two hours include a painfully slow balayage process involving what feels like a million little pieces of foil that start to weigh my whole head down. After a few aborted conversation attempts—I’m in no mood—the stylist just comments here and there, “Whoa, you’ve got a lot of hair.”
Yeah, I’ve got a lot of hair, and it feels like she’s putting about ten pounds of foil on it.
“Are we almost done?”
“Nope. Got another fourth to go.”
I try to slump down in the seat, but she immediately chirps at me. “Sit up straight.”
So I do, and she continues working her way around my head.
Once all the foils are finally in, she tells me to go sit under the heat lamp, where I have a direct line of sight to Isaak, still flirting with the receptionist. He stands off to the side whenever a customer comes through to check in or pay, but otherwise, he’s got his damn elbow on the counter, regularly eliciting the most godawful high-pitched giggle out of Lana that I’ve ever heard.
Meanwhile, I’ve got ten pounds of torture metal on my head that—oh yeah, did I mention?—is currently being set ablaze by the damn heat lamp thing they’ve now got me sitting under.
“This is kind of hot,” I mention, calling out to the salon at large.
No one seems to hear me.
By the time I finally flag someone down, my head feels on fire.
“Oh, you should have told someone sooner,” says the stylist as she pulls me over to the hair wash station.
I can only glare at her at this point as another trilling giggle from the front sets my teeth on edge.
The stylist quickly pulls all the foils off my hair, which at least feels like a relief. It’s even better when she starts to wash it. Okay, this part feels nice.
The stylist takes me back over to her station with the towel on my head.
“Your mother sent a picture of the updo y’all want. Is that still the plan?”
She sets up a picture on the vanity. I barely glance at it.
“Whatever she’s picked is fine.” It’s always easier to agree than fight her. I pick my battles and hair isn’t one of them.
“Wonderful.”
She proceeds to blow-dry and straighten my hair with a flat iron. Ugh, I should have paid more attention to the picture. I’m pretty sure the woman in the picture has naturally straight hair. Of course, Carol would choose this style. I hate straightening my hair.
Carol adores it straight. If she had her way, I’d do this bullshit all the time.
The stylist can’t help murmuring about what a lot of hair I have several more times as she works her way through the mass of wet curls, spraying shit on it as she goes.
What a lot of hair you have, what a lot of hair you have, what a lot of hair you have, what a lot of hair you have, what a lot of—
“Are you alright, hun?”
She’s looking at me like I’m crazy, straightener in hand. Shit. Was I looping out loud? I only do that when I’m really fucking off.
What a lot of hair you have. I squeeze my lips together and jump up from the chair, finally managing to blurt, “Bathroom!” before sprinting off to the restroom in the back corner of the shop.
When I’ve got the door closed, I collapse against it, the frantic nonsense whispering immediately starting up. “What a lot of hair you have. What a lot of hair you have. What a lot of hair you have.” I stare at myself furiously in the mirror but can’t stop. “What a lot of hair you have.”
It gets faster and faster, becoming more of a nonsense string of sounds as I sit on the closed lid of the toilet. “What-a-lot-of-hair-you-have, what-a-lot-of-hair-you-have, what-a-lot-of-hair-you-have, what-a-lot-of-hair-you-have, what-a-lot-of-hair-you-have, what-a-lot-of-hair-you-have.”