It's About Time (Hunt Family #5) (4 page)

Chapter 4

It was nearly three weeks later when I saw Evan Hunt again—only this time I wasn't covered in flour. I was in the break room at the salon when his sister, Mia, came walking through the door with a particularly odd look on her face.

"Amanda said your four o'clock was a no-show," she said, crossing the room to stand closer to me. There were two other stylists in the room but my four o'clock was a no-show, and she was staring in my direction, so I knew she was talking to me.

"It was," I said. "Do you need me to do something?"

"If you don't mind," she said.

There were a couple of booths back to back in our break room, and I had been sitting in the corner of one of them, reading a book on my phone. Mia sat across from me, smiling like she was about to ask a favor.

"Do you want me to help you stock the shelves?" I asked before she could get her question out.

"No," she said. "My brother needs a haircut, and I told him I'd keep an eye out for a cancelation today."

Mia only had two brothers, Cody and Evan. Cody's wife was also a stylist and owned the salon where I worked. I had never (and probably
would
never) cut Cody's hair, as that was a job for his wife.

"Cody?" I asked, even though I had already answered that question in my mind.

"Evan," she said. She rolled her eyes. "He's leaving for California in the morning, and he put off coming in for a trim." She paused and regarded me with a pleading expression. "He really needs it," she said. "He'll pay your commission, and he'll tip you good," she added, as if that was what I was worried about.

"Evan?" I asked. I felt breathless at the thought, and couldn't help but ask another obvious question to buy some time.

"Yes," she said. "He's leaving in the morning to go back west."

"Doesn't he have people out there who cut it a certain way or whatever?" I asked, feeling too intimidated to agree right away.

She shrugged. "He text me this morning asking me to try to fit him in. I guess he'll feel better heading back there with a fresh haircut."

"He doesn't want to cut it short, does he?" I asked since I certainly wasn't up for a major transformation on someone like him.

"I don't think so," she said, shaking her head. "I think he just wants a trim. Maybe we can get him in for a shave if Kevin has time."

I looked at the clock on the microwave, which read 4:22. "I have a haircut coming in at six," I said.

She smiled. "He can be here in like ten minutes."

I felt a buzzing sensation in my chest like there were a bunch of bees flying around in there. My whole upper-body turned into a big beehive the instant it sunk in that I would be cutting Evan Hunt's hair.
How in the world had I gotten myself into this?

"So, yes?" Mia asked with a hopeful smile.

I nodded and returned her smile. "Sure, no problem," I said, since there was no use letting her in on how nervous I was about it.
I did not want some hotshot, Hollywood stylist going through, checking my work while they styled his hair for some hotshot photo shoot.
I had this and other similar thoughts as I smiled while Mia thanked me and got up to leave.

"I'm gonna text him right now," she said. "He'll be here in ten or fifteen minutes."

I took in a deep breath and let it out of my mouth in a slow, long, calming way as I sat there feeling stunned. One of the other girls in the room had overheard our conversation and glanced at me to gauge my reaction. I smiled at her like I gave models haircuts every day, and she smiled back before going on with her conversation. They were talking about a color correction one of them had done earlier that day, but it just vaguely sounded like a bunch of noise coming out of their mouths.

I was normally a confident hairstylist. I knew I could give Evan a quality haircut.
So why did I suddenly feel like I was about to go on stage in front of a huge audience and dance a big solo? Why was it such a big deal? He's just a normal guy, after all. He's Mia's brother and Paige's brother-in-law. He was basically family.
I told myself he was just a normal guy for the next twenty minutes until Evan arrived.

I could see the front of the salon from my station, so I noticed when he came in.

"Basically family," I whispered to myself before I walked to the front to greet him. "Just a normal guy. Just Mia's brother. Normal guy."

"I was just coming to get you," Amanda said when she caught sight of me walking up to the reception area. She gestured at Evan. "Your client's here."

"Is
this
who's supposed to be doing my haircut?" Evan asked, directing his question toward Amanda and looking disheartened.

I could tell he was joking, but a worried look crossed her face as she regarded at him. "M-M-Mia said you would be fine with whoever had a cancellation…" she started to explain, but I cut her off.

"Is
this
who's supposed to be my client?" I asked, pretending to be disgusted at the thought of it.

Amanda glanced at me with wide eyes that told me she had no idea we were joking.

I groaned and let my shoulders slump. "Just go ahead and follow me back, I guess," I said in a frustrated tone as I gestured aggressively for Evan to follow me.

Evan smiled and walked toward me instantly, and I glanced at Amanda with a wink. She smiled as if she finally seemed to understand that we were joking around.

I waited for him to catch up with me before walking him back to my station.

"You look fancy," he said, making me giggle a little.

"It's my all-black uniform," I said. "It's slightly fancier than my biscuit-covered uniform."

"Mia didn't tell me it was gonna be you cutting my hair," he said, following me to my station.

"Is that all right?" I asked as we both came to stand near my chair.

He smiled at me. "I think it's amazing," he said.

I patted the back of the chair since I was too shaken up to respond to his comment. "Have a seat, and we'll talk about what we're doing before we shampoo you."

"I get a hair wash?" he asked, running a hand through his long hair as he sat down.

I stood behind him and we regarded each other through our reflections in the mirror. He had on jeans and a windbreaker with a hood, and I reached out to touch it and give it a shake. "This will definitely be in the way," I said. "You'll have to take your jacket off."

He smiled as he unzipped and shrugged out of his jacket. He was wearing a threadbare Rolling Stones T-shirt underneath, and I smiled at the sight of it as I took his jacket and placed it on one of the hooks on the side of my station. I came to stand behind him again, and pretending that he was just a normal guy, I ran my fingers through his hair, testing its texture and movability.

For the next three minutes, I went into stylist mode, asking him all sorts of questions about what he wanted so that I could make sure we were on the same page. It was a straightforward trim with some long layers—nothing I could mess up, even on my worst day as a stylist.

I put a cape on Evan and brought him to the shampoo bowl just like I did with all my other clients. I wet his hair and turned off the water before pumping the appropriate amount of shampoo into my hands and massaging it into his hair. I begged myself inwardly to treat it like it was clinical, but my fingers betrayed me. They didn't see Evan as a normal client—they saw him as someone they enjoyed touching.

All scalps were different. Everybody had a different feel to their head. Some scalps were loose and squishy with barely any hair, and some were tight and hard with tons of coarse hair—there were tons of different combinations. Everyone's scalp had it's own "feel" and my fingers had decided for themselves that Evan's was the best. That thought made me close my eyes for a second as I massaged in the shampoo.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing, why?" I asked, opening my eyes.

"You were squeezing your eyes shut," he said.

"I was?" I asked, laughing it off. "You don't seem like you're limping anymore," I said, changing the subject.

"I'm getting there," he said. "My physical therapist says I should get back to a hundred percent if I keep working on it."

"That's awesome," I said.

"Yeah, they tell me I'm a real miracle."

I turned on the water and used the nozzle to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. "Can you just come to L.A. with me and be my personal hair-washer, please?" he asked, closing his eyes.

"If I had a dollar for every client who tried to hire me as their personal hair-washer, I'd be rich."

"Yeah, you might get tired of having only one customer, day in and day out," he said.

I wanted to say,
"Not if that customer was you,"
but I just smiled and said, "Uh-huh," as I continued washing his hair.

I ran conditioner through his hair, and we were both silent for a minute while I gave him the standard scalp massage that comes with all haircuts. Nothing special, nothing extra—just the standard, three-minute, scalp massage during the conditioner segment of the wash.

"Mia said you're going back to California tomorrow," I said as I began rinsing out the conditioner.

"Oh my gosh," Evan said in a low, growl that was a bit of a protest. "What did you just do to my head?"

"It always feels good when someone else does it," I said, smiling as I turned off the water. I expertly wrapped a towel around his head and set his chair in the upright position.

Evan took the towel from me and used it to dab more water out of his hair as he stood to follow me.

"A few days after I saw you at breakfast, my agent flew in to see what my situation was," Evan said as he sat in my chair. I took the towel from him and rang out his hair again before combing it out. "He didn't seem to think the scar was a problem," Evan continued. "He took some photos while he was here, and he's already got a few jobs lined up for me when I get back to L.A. Apparently, they all know about the scar, and they're okay with it."

"I told you it looked good," I said. "Were you thinking you'd be out of work?" I used the mirror to glance at him, and he saw me do it, but he didn't answer right away, so I went back to combing and sectioning his hair.

He sighed before speaking. "That accident changed me in more ways than just the scar," he said. "It changed me in ways I don’t think I'm even aware of yet."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I was at a pretty low place for a little while. I think maybe I thought I had it all figured out before that—I had planned for things to go a certain way with my life." He paused as if looking for the right words. "Everything just sort of got stripped away from me in a split second. I guess it just made me reexamine. I'm not sure I'll be satisfied with the same stuff I was satisfied with before, if that makes any sense."

"I thought you just said you were going back to L.A. to pick up where you left off," I said as I began cutting his hair.

"I am," he said.

"Then nothing got stripped away," I said. "Sounds to me like you just had to put your life on pause for a couple of months."

"Believe me," he said. "I know things could have been a lot worse. I'm thankful to be alive and to have use of my leg. I'm not trying to be dramatic about it or anything, but it is what it is. I was at a really low place for a while, and it sort of changed me from the inside. I may be going back to my job and my old life, but I don't feel like I'm quite the same person."

"You're not," I said. "You're better. That's why there are tons of cliché's about trials making you stronger. The storms of life truly do change you. Cliché's are cliché because they're true."

Chapter 5

Thankfully, my stylist autopilot kicked in and the nerves brought on by touching Evan's hair diminished as I worked. There's a lot to be said for muscle memory, and my hands and arms sort of just took over and knew what to do to give him a good haircut in spite of myself.

I really loved working with layers, so I had lots of tricks in my bag that helped me give him a style that matched his carefree, beach bum appearance. I loved how it came out, and I felt a genuine sense of relief as I ran my fingers through it at the end.

He told me his hair behaved better when it dried naturally, so I applied a little bit of product and unsnapped the cape he was wearing with the intention of calling it a day.

Up until that point, we had been regarding each other through the mirror, but as I was folding the cape, Evan swiveled in the chair so that he could look at me face-to-face.

I glanced at him, but I couldn’t stand to hold the eye contact, so I smiled and quickly looked back down at the cape in my hands.

"Mia said you might want a shave," I said. "I can take you to Kevin's station to see if he's still here if you want."

I was still looking at the cape (that I was folding ever so slowly), but I could see Evan rub his jaw out of the corner of my eye.

"It's all right," he said. "I think I can manage to shave myself." He hesitated before adding, "Unless
you
want to do it."

I laughed as I reached out and put the folded cape onto my station. "Kevin's teaching me a few things, but I wouldn't go trusting me with a straight razor quite yet."

"You just used one on my hair," he said.

"Yeah, but it's not the same on a face," I said. I glanced at him as I spoke, and my eyes automatically roamed to the line that went right across his eyebrow and cheek. I suddenly realized that we were talking about straight razors and faces, and I started to feel really bad. "I don't think you can really mess me up," Evan said with a casual smile as he watched me look straight at his scar and then away from it.

I swallowed, wondering if I should just come out and say what I was thinking. I had always been the type of person who did that, but Evan made me second-guess myself. I turned to face him and let out a sigh as I continued to doubt my instincts.

"Evan," I said in a quiet tone even though no one could hear us. "You are exactly who you're supposed to be—scars and all. It's not like God was taken by surprise about your accident. Everything that happens in our life, good or bad, He allows. Nothing happens to us without it going through God first."

He smiled at me. "That's sort of the type of stuff I've been thinking about lately," Evan said. He shrugged. "I'm not sure what it all means yet, but I'm starting to know it was all for a reason."

"Good," I said. "Then you should understand that you don't need to say things about not messing up your face and stuff like that. Your face is exactly what it's supposed to be."

I stared straight at his scar in a way that was not at all ashamed, and before I knew it, I was reaching out to touch it. "I'm sorry if you hate me doing this right now," I said. "I know you hated when Jemma Richardson did it at the restaurant."

I placed my palm on the side of his face and used my thumb to gently trace the line of his scar. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose when I crossed from his eyebrow to his cheek. "I just want you to know from a female perspective that it's flattering on you. It makes you look dangerous—in a good way."

The corners of his mouth lifted in a slow grin as he opened his eyes to peer up at me. "I
am
dangerous in a good way," he said.

I was already nervous as it was, but his statement had me taking a shaky breath. I dropped my hand and smirked at him. "I was trying to help you out," I said. "I thought you were having some confidence issues, but I can clearly see that's not the case."

"Oh, you were just saying all that to make me feel better?" he asked, smirking back at me.

I smiled. "I guess so."

His face crumpled into a depressed expression. "Then, I'm all torn up," he said.

I laughed and pushed at his shoulder. "It's too late now," I said. "You had me feeling bad for you—giving you a pep talk and everything, and all the time you knew what a hunk you were."

I had begun cleaning my station as I spoke, and when I finished talking, Evan put his hand on my arm to get my attention. I looked at him to see that he was regarding me sincerely. "I loved your pep talk," he said. "And I needed it in spite of all the kidding around. You're awesome for saying all that just now, and I'm not even gonna tease you for using the word hunk like my grandma."

"But saying
you're not going to tease me
as a means of bringing it up
is
teasing me."

"You said hunk," Evan said, looking like he was stifling a smile.

I widened my eyes and shrugged as if I stood behind my choice of words. "You
are
a hunk," I said in a matter of fact tone. "You know you are, and you know that scar looks good on you." I narrowed my eyes playfully at him. "You're just acting insecure to get me to compliment you."

"I wasn't trying to act insecure," he said, smiling with his hands raised. "I was just being serious when I said I'd let you practice shaving my face. I mean, compared to this, a little nick from a razor is nothing."

"Don't ever let a girl shave your face," I said.

It was perhaps the dumbest thing I could come up with to say, but I honestly didn't want him letting other girls shave his face. I hated the idea of him offering to let some other girl do that.

"Are girls bad at it or something?" he asked, looking slightly amused.

"It's best just to do it yourself," I said. "You know all the contours of your own face. It's just better for you to do it."

Evan let out a laugh as he got to his feet. He stood there, watching me straighten my station with his hands in his pocket. "Amanda can help you at the front," I said, glancing at him with a casual smile. "It was good seeing you again."

"That's it?" he asked.

"I can walk you to the front if you want, but it's just right there, so I thought you—"

"What are you doing right now?" he asked.

"Me? I'm just cleaning up my station."

The easy smile remained on his face. "I meant after that."

I glanced at the clock that was hanging on the wall. "I'm just gonna go read or whatever for a few minutes till my six o'clock gets here."

"You have someone else coming in tonight?" he asked, looking taken aback as he glanced at me and then the clock. "How late do you work?"

"Andy's my last one."

"My cousin, Andy?" Evan asked.

"I don't think so," I said. "His name's Andy Fields. He's a writer for the Charlotte Times."

Evan shook his head like this description didn’t fit that of his cousin. "What time are you done with this Andy character?" he asked.

"His appointment's at six, and it'll take me forty-five minutes or so." I hesitated but then added, "but he's taking me to dinner after that."

I was totally being silly, but I secretly hoped it would make Evan jealous.

"Is he really?" he asked.

I smiled and shook my head. "No, I'm just playing."

I thought he would walk off at that point, but he just stood there. "You want to hang out?" he asked.

"You mean after work?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I'd like to, but I can't," I said.

"It's the scar," he said, looking disappointed even though he was totally faking it.

I narrowed my eyes and pointed at him. "You better quit playing, or you'll make me give you another pointless pep talk."

"That pep talk was not pointless," he said. "I loved it."

"Good," I said, patting his shoulder casually. "Because everything I said was true."

"Why can't you hang out after work?" he asked.

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Because I want to hang out with you."

I wanted to drop everything and do it, I really did. I didn't even know what he meant by "hang out", but I didn't really care as long as it meant being in his presence. It was a terrible idea and I knew it. He was leaving for California in the morning, for goodness sake.

"I have to help my mom," I said.

"With what?"

I tried to keep my face expressionless as I decided how to answer his question. "Pumpkin bread," I said, honestly.

"Pumpkin bread?"

I nodded. "She makes one big batch of it every year at this time. Some of it goes to the church for the fall festival, and some of it we sell at the restaurant. People wait for it all year. A few people buy multiple loaves and freeze them."

"I guess it's a secret recipe," Evan said.

"Yep."

"No outsiders in the kitchen, I guess."

I stared at him sideways. "Are you trying to infiltrate my mama's kitchen?"

He smiled and nodded. "I think I am."

"Too bad," I said, shaking my head. "It's a secret family recipe."

"What if I promise not to look?" he asked.

"Look at what?"

He shrugged. "At whatever we're putting in the mix."

I tilted my head at him and stared at him with a confused expression. "Are you seriously asking if you can come to my mom's to make pumpkin bread tonight?"

He nodded as if yes were the only appropriate answer to that question.

I was so confused. "Why would you want to do that?" I asked.

"Because that's what you're doing," he said.

I smiled and rolled my eyes at him since I had no idea whether or not he was serious. "I'm gonna be leaving here at seven," I said. "If you seriously want to make pumpkin bread with my mom, you can meet me back here. If not, I'll see you when you come back into town for a visit or whenever."

"I'll be back at seven," Evan said.

"All right, but don't feel bad if you can't make it," I said.

"Stop making excuses for me," he said. "It makes me feel like you don't want me to come."

"It's not that, I just don't want you to feel like—"

"I don't feel like anything," he said, cutting me off. "I'm just trying to hang out with you a little more, even if it means making pumpkin bread." He smiled and reached out to nudge my elbow with his knuckle before he headed off toward the desk. "I'll see you at seven," he said.

"All right," I said in a
I'll forgive you if you cant make it
tone.

Ten minutes later, Amanda came into the break room wearing a huge grin. "I'm leaving early," she said. "You and Becca will be the last ones here, so just lock up and set the alarm on you way out."

"Okay," I said only vaguely wondering why she'd be wearing such a huge smile to say some everyday things like that. "Evan must've liked his haircut," she said, raising her eyebrows.

"Why?"

"Because he tipped you fifty bucks!"

"Nu-uhh," I said.

She smiled and nodded. "It's up at the front for you." Her face morphed into one of curiosity. "He also said something about coming back to pick you up."

"He said something about hanging out when I got off," I said.

"Like a date?" she asked with wide-eyed interest.

"Hardly," I said. "He might come by my mom's to help with the pumpkin bread."

"Oh, my gosh, I forgot about that stuff," she said. "Are you bringing some of it up here?"

I nodded. "I always do."

"All right, chica, well, have fun making pumpkin bread with the J. Crew model."

I smiled and rolled my eyes at her, and she winked at me.

"Your money's under the till."