“Oh, Honey, what on earth happened to you?” Meg asks as I make my way back to the bar.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, but we are going to do something about it because you look like hell. Jake, we’re taking a minute,” she tells the bartender.
He glances at me and raises an eyebrow but then gives us a nod and a half wave as he continues filling drinks.
Meg takes me into the bathroom and immediately sets to work on doing a much better job at cleaning me up than I did.
“You need some good products. Just one minute. I’ll be right back.” With that she goes to grab her own makeup bag, About 10 minutes and a steady hand of blush, lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and concealer … and I actually look good.
Better than good.
I look better than I think I have in my entire life.
“There.” She sits back, proud of her work and I gape at myself in the mirror.
“Wow. I look … this is amazing.”
“I’m saving money to go to cosmetology school,” she tells me with a smile.
“You should be. You’re great. Especially considering I looked like hell when you started.”
“You kind of did,” she agrees and I give her a slight scowl but it’s hard to be mad at her when it’s accurate. “I don’t know what you’re going through. So maybe you have all the reasons to feel like hell.” She shrugs and I can tell there’s no judgment there. “But you don’t have to look like it. And now you don’t. You look phenomenal. If I do say so myself.” She grins, packs away her makeup and stands up.
“Now we’d better get out there before they send someone after us for an unauthorized break.”
“They want us to look good. This was a break to make sure we look good,” she says with another shrug and I manage a small smile.
Whatever else is going on, I look good. And that’s going to have to be enough for me. At least for now it is. Because I can’t do anything else.
So I head back out to the floor and set to work doing my job. At least if nothing else, I’m looking great, raking in the tips, and I can put everything else behind me for a short while anyway.
I’m still going to have to deal with whatever happens when I get back home but for now this is good.
Chapter Twenty-Five ~ Chris
Okay. She’s poor.
Does it matter?
I look down at the papers in front of me again.
No.
No, it doesn’t matter.
Ethan’s right.
I have more than enough money for the both of us.
So I drop the papers in the shredder bin where they belong and walk out the door.
“I’m leaving for a bit.”
Ethan looks up, startled. Which isn’t surprising because I never leave. When I’m here, I’m here for the night. But this is something that needs to be taken care of right now. There’s no putting it off.
“Sure. I got things handled here,” he tells me and I give a sharp nod. That much I know.