“I guess I didn’t get all her voice last night,” he continued teasing the cashier, “but that’s what the honeymoon is for, right?”
She just laughed as she handed me back the change., “Ya’ll have a nice time in Georgia, ya hear.”
“Oh, we will,” he called back as I was shoving him toward the exit.
“Geez, Ryan, you’re an idiot!” I snapped, but I was starting to laugh under my pretense of anger.
“Hey, you’ve just got to have a little fun with people sometimes,” he said as he grabbed the bags and put them on the back seat, “See, I even got you to smile.”
He was right. I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face if I tried.
All the way back to Heaven’s Landing, Ryan was cracking stupid jokes and I was laughing in spite of the dismal mood I wanted to wallow in.
“Okay, home sweet home.” He pulled the truck into the garage and pressed the button for it to close. “It’s just you and me now, baby girl.”
I tried not to let my heart go wild on me. He and I spending time alone would be different from when Micah and I pulled off this feat. Micah was under the promise of being a perfect gentleman; Ryan and I had no such agreement. I wasn’t afraid of him; the problem was I was afraid of myself. Inside I was hurting so badly from what I’d done today, that I craved understanding and gentleness. Ryan embodied both those qualities.
It had only been a few hours ago that I had kissed him, and the feel of his tender mouth against my own hadn’t diminished. I needed tenderness so badly and I wondered how my heart could be so completely crushed, and my body could have these irrational needs. Learning about satisfying needs with Micah, set my body on a path I’d never traveled, and right now I hated my body and all the thoughts that came with it as I followed my handsome friend into the house.
I put my bags on the kitchen table and rummaged through them looking for the scissors as he put away the groceries. I hated the idea of cutting my hair, but it had to go, and I needed something to do to get my mind off the Ryan dilemma.
“You’re ready for a transformation right now? Don’t you want to relax a little bit?”
“The longer I look like me, the more likely someone will notice, and I don’t plan on leaving a bread trail to wherever we happen to be.”
“At least let me do that,” he said following me into the bathroom.
“You? Have you ever cut hair before?”
“Actually, yes. I cut my sister’s hair. Of course, I was eight and she was sleeping, but it looked pretty good considering I only got half of it.”
He took the scissors from my grip. At this point I didn’t care and I wasn’t expecting salon results. I only hoped he could at least make it even.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered in my ear.
“Gladly,” I said with a cringe.
I was facing toward the mirror as he began, but I never once peaked. One thing I knew was that he was cutting it really short. I could feel the cold blade of the scissors near the bottom of my ears and around the top of my neck as he worked. His fingers were running through my hair now, short as it was, and I could feel him pulling it upward, making cuts as he went. This was going to be a disaster. He turned me to face him, but I still didn’t open my eyes. He was pulling hair in front of my face and cutting somewhere around eyebrow height.
“You’re not giving me…” I had to spit hair off my tongue. “…bangs are you?”
“Bangs are cute and don’t talk unless you want another mouthful of hair,” he warned.
Several snips later and a few more times running his fingers through my hair, he turned me to face the mirror, “Okay, see what you think.”
I still didn’t open my eyes.
“Leese, you can look now.”
“I don’t know if I want to,” I whined.
“Come on you big baby.”
I didn’t budge.
“If you don’t look then I’m going to kiss you while-”
My eyes flew open. I wasn’t in a proper frame of mind to fend off a kiss from him. The sight in the mirror was a total surprise. “Oh, wow! Ryan you’re-you’re actually good at this. It’s adorable.” It was a slightly longer version of a pixie cut and he had pulled it with his fingers and made it somewhat spiky.
“I just wish you’d let me dye it black instead of blond. I think you’d look good with black hair.”
“It wouldn’t be that you are a little partial to black, would it?”
He smiled. “Time to shave mine off,” he sighed, handing me the scissors and leaving for the kitchen to get the electric trimmer.
“Do you really have to like shave your head? Couldn’t you just cut it a little bit shorter? It’s going to look different when we dye it.”
“I was going to have to shave it off for the military anyway,” he said, returning to the bathroom with the cutter in hand and found me crying.
“God, I can’t believe I managed to screw up your life, too.”
“You didn’t screw anything up,” he said, cupping my face in his hands. “I was going into the military for the wrong reasons and you are just slowing me down a little and making me reevaluate if it’s what I want to do or not.” He kissed the tip of my nose, scaring me in the process because I thought he was going for the lips.
He released me and plugged in the hair trimmer, selected a short attachment for the blade and sighed, “Would you care to do the honors?” he asked, offering me the trimmer.
“I’ve never cut hair and you will look bad if I do it,” I admitted.
“You can’t screw this up, Leese. You just put it against my head and slide it through the hair.”
Gingerly I accepted, but he was almost too tall for this to go smoothly. I could see him studying my hesitation from the mirror; he dropped to his knees.
“Better?” he asked.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said turning on the trimmer and placing it against his forehead. “Do you want to close your eyes?”
We looked at each other for a moment in the mirror.
“No.”
I took a deep breath and slid the trimmer forward, watching as all that black silky hair hit the floor. He was right about one thing; it wasn’t difficult although it hardly looked like he’d been in a barber’s chair. He was actually smiling, which I found completely odd. I thought he’d dislike losing one of his most popular features, but he seemed unaffected as the new Ryan emerged.
I hadn’t realized until I was finished how terribly my hands were trembling. It only became noticeable to me when his very steady hands removed the trimmer from mine.
“I’ll finish it up around the sides. You might want to find a broom; it looks like we scalped a yeti in here.”
I left and went to the kitchen to see if there was a broom. I found it and the dust pan and returned to the bathroom and began sweeping up the piles of brown and black hair.
“There,” he said, turning off the noisy trimmer, “how does that look?” He had removed the guide and trimmed closer in some places, but that gave it a finished look.
“Can I feel it?” I asked. I’d felt a buzz cut years ago and remembered how interesting it was.
He leaned his head toward me.
“Oh, that feels so cool,” I said, laughing as my hands slid over the soft, yet stiff ends of hair.
His hand went up immediately to feel the stubs, touching mine as he did. He looked at me and smiled. I removed my hand and went back to sweeping.
“Are you ready to dye?” he asked.
I didn’t intend to show my reaction when he uttered those words, but he caught my momentary expression of panic. “Yea-yeah, sure,” I said, trying to leave the room.
He gripped my arm, “I think you and I need to talk.” All his teasing vanished.
“About what?” I replied, trying to let the color return to my cheeks.
“You just freaked when I asked that question. I saw the same reaction when I asked you at the wedding if your life was ending. Has Micah ever threatened to-to kill you?” His eyes narrowed at me and I knew he was going to
