Page 128 of Staying Selfless

She takes a deep suck of air as she tries to catch her breath. “What’s wrong with me, Logan?” she cries. “Why did he have to mess me up like this?”

Chapter 34

Logan

“Hi, baby.” Eli barges into my room this Friday evening after spending the last few hours with his brother. “What are you up to?”

I’m sitting on a towel in front of my closet mirror as I catch his reflection.

“I’m coloring my hair.” I hold up the color bowl and brush through the mirror’s reflection to show him.

“What? Why?” he frantically asks. “Don’t change it.”

“I’m not changing it,” I laugh, unable to hide my amusement to his desperation. “I’m just touching it up.”

“Oh.” He relaxes on my bed as his shoulders drop. “What does that mean?”

A giggle accidentally falls from my lips as I remember that Eli didn’t grow up with sisters and some girl-things are a little foreign to him. “I’m just coloring my roots,” I hold my parted hair firmly to my scalp, showcasing my half-inch of natural hair color.

“Oh, I’ve never noticed.” Eli stands from my bed, walking up behind me. “That’s your natural color?” he asks, pointing to my hair and bending down as close to me as possible, eyeing my head like I’m some kind of science project.

“Yep.”

“I like it. It looks like the color of my hair. We kind of match.”

“Would you rather me keep my natural color?” I ask with a questioning glint in my eye. I don’t care what his answer is. I’m going to continue to dye my hair because that’s how I like it.

“I feel like you’re trapping me with this question,” he laughs. “And I’m sure the right answer is some bullshit about how I love your natural beauty or whatever, but no. I like your dark red hair. It reminds me of the color of wine. And the color of my jersey.” He twirls a piece between his fingers as he stands behind me.

“But just to cover my ass here in case this is a trap.” He shoots me a pointed glance through the mirror. “You could be bald, or blonde, or whatever else you could think of, and it wouldn’t change how beautiful you are.”

“Nice answer, babe.”

“Dodged that bullet,” he jokes, pretending to wipe the invisible beads of sweat from his forehead.

Eli takes a seat on my bed as I squeeze some color from the first tube into my bowl before adding the exact same amount from the second tube, creating my perfect shade of red. As I add the creamy developer into the mix, I sense Eli’s eyes on me the entire time.

“How did you learn how to do that?” he asks.

“My mom’s friend was a hairstylist. I’ve gone to her salon since I was a freshman in high school, but when I moved out here, she gave me her formula.”

I put on black latex gloves to avoid staining my hands. I’ve made the mistake before when I was too lazy to go back to the store and buy more when I ran out. I looked like I committed a murder with blood-stained hands for days.

I begin sectioning out my hair, keeping my gaze on Eli via the mirror the entire time. For some reason, he’s mesmerized by the whole process. Maybe he’s never seen someone color their hair before, I don’t know, but he looks like he’s watching magic in front of his eyes.

As I quickly slap some color on my first section, covering my naturally mid-tone brunette hair, I have to bite on my lower lip to hide my amusement at my boyfriend’s wonder.

“Can I try it?”

My brows shoot up, my eyes widening with surprise. “Sure. But I don’t have gloves that’ll fit you.”

“That’s okay,” Eli says. “I won’t touch the dye.”

That’s what I said my first time too. I came out looking like Elmo afterward.

I hold the bowl up by my head, the color brush sitting in the mixture, easy for him to grab.

“Grab the brush,” I tell him as he stands above me once again. “Wipe off a bit of the excess.”

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