Page 61 of Release Me

Our eyes meet in the mirror, and then all the weird energy falls away and we both burst out laughing. Zoe is laughing so hard she drops the blow dryer on the tray beside her and folds at the waist.

“Oh, my God.” she wheezes, her body still shaking from the giggles filling the air. “This is like the worst appointment ever.”

I shake my head, trying to reassure her even though I’m cracking up too. “No, it’s not.”

Zoe looks at me, and I can see how hard she’s working to try to pull it together. “No, it really is. Half of your head is wet, and the power just went out for no reason. You’ve been uncomfortable since you walked through the door because I tried to force you onto a live.”

I spin my seat around to face her. “You didn’t try to force me. You asked and I declined because social media?—”

“Isn’t your thing,” Zoe finishes for me as she drops into the styling chair next to mine. She’s not laughing anymore, and neither am I, but the lightness that’s filled the air remains in place despite our fading humor. “What’s with that anyway?” she asks, pulling out her phone. “I don’t think I know anyone who isn’t on at least one app.”

“Well, now you do.”

Her arched brow tells me my elusiveness didn’t escape her attention, and I’m thankful when she chooses to make a phone call instead of pressing the issue any further.

“Hey, Dad,” she says, smiling into the phone even though he can’t see her. Grief and pain claw at my chest as I listen to Zoe describe the electrical issue to her father because it reminds me that I don’t have a father to call when something goes wrong in my life. That I don’t have anyone besides Sebastian, and after his obvious hesitance around bringing me, the charity case in designer clothes, to his childhood home, I’m pretty sure I don’t have him either.

“No, I didn’t check that,” Zoe is saying now, rising from her seat to go to the glass door at the entrance of the shop. She opens it and peeks her head out then pulls it back in. “Yeah, you’re right. No one on the block has power.”

I fight the urge to throw my head back and laugh because of course there’s a power outage in the middle of my first salon appointment in years and of course I scheduled that appointment right before my first real date in forever.

“Real subtle,” I mutter under my breath, aiming the acrimonious words to the indifferent deity hellbent on keeping me humble. Zoe glances at me, and I shake my head to let her know I wasn’t talking to her.

She turns her back to me, peeking out the front door again. “Dad, I’ve got Nadia here, and she’s half blow-dried. Could you come start the generator?” Everett’s response is lost on me, but judging by Zoe’s tone, it’s less than satisfactory. “No, I can’t leave her like that,” she says. “Because it’s bad for business, and she’s got a date in an hour!”

A panicked gasp tries to work its way up my throat, but I suppress it, telling myself it doesn’t matter if Everett Adler knows I’m going on a date because that doesn’t mean Sebastian will find out. Then I put my head in my hand and ask myself who I’m kidding because of course Sebastian is going to find out. I told his sister—because it was the only way to explain why I brought a garment bag with the black corset, cropped blazer and matching high waisted slacks inside to my appointment—and now his dad knows, which means it’s only a matter of time before information I purposefully kept from to myself, finds its way to him.

Zoe, who is completely unaware of the anxiety her words have just sent racing through my veins, bounces on her toes and lets out a high pitch squeal that tells me her father has finally said something she wants to hear.

“Yes, that’s perfect, Daddy! Thank you.” She turns and gives me a thumbs up to confirm my suspicion. “Okay, bye!”

When she hangs up, she does a happy little dance and comes to sit back down across from me.

“Got it all worked out?” I ask, hoping she did and that, by some miracle, that solution has nothing to do with her oldest brother.

“Yep,” she says, all smiles and happiness that comes from having so many people in her life that she can count on. “Dad said Sebastian is on his way.”

It takes him twenty minutes to the salon and another five to get the generator going, and I use every second of those twenty five minutes preparing myself for the moment he chooses to question me about information I know was passed along to him by his father. He waits until my hair is done and I’m fully dressed to broach the subject, which I would probably appreciate if it didn’t feel so calculated.

“So, you’re going on a date.” He’s got his arms folded across his chest as he leans against the door frame of Zoe’s office in a black ensemble that matches mine perfectly.

I lift my hair off of my neck, freeing it from the inside of my blazer and fully appreciating how soft and bouncy Zoe got my curls. Sebastian waits for my answer to his non-question, and I take my time because we both know I don’t really owe him one. When my curls are settled back around my shoulders and face, I turn away from the mirror and face him.

“Yes, Preston and I finally made plans.”

He rubs at his jaw, and a grimace casts a dark shadow over his eyes. “You’re really going out with that guy?”

I let out a long sigh that contains every bit of doubt about my worth and importance in his life that I’ve felt over the last twenty four hours and leaves nothing in its wake but annoyance.

“Yes, I’m really going out with him because at least he wants to share a meal with me.”

One of his dark brows lifts. “Are you suggesting that I don’t want to share a meal with you, Nadia? Because we eat together all the time.”

“You’re right, which is why it’s all the more confusing that you don’t want me to come to lunch at your parent’s house on Monday.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yesterday your mom invited me to lunch, and before I could even say a word, you jumped in with some excuse about me being busy to keep me from accepting.”

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