Page 11 of Chasing Home

“You’re here to get your hair cut?”

“’Course I am. Did you think I came here just to see you?”

Scoffing, I roll my eyes. “No.”

His grin grows at my blunt response, dimples popping. “Well, I won’t lie. It was actually a bit of both.”

“You weren’t on the schedule.”

“Were you looking for me on there?”

I huff, dropping my attention to the computer screen as I bend again and jiggle the mouse to wake it up. The schedule is already open, today’s date and every appointment scheduled for today sitting right in front of me. Ten, one, and four fifteen. A quick glance at the corner of the screen tells me it’s only 9:21, and there isn’t anything written down to tell me he should be here.

Clicking out of the schedule, I plop my hands on my hips and stare at Johnny, keeping my mouth in a firm line. “No, I wasn’t looking for you. It’s my job to know when clients are coming in. You’re not on the schedule.”

“Do you like coffee?” he asks.

“What?”

He leans forward against the desk and levels me with an innocent stare, his fingers tapping a quick beat. His question came out of left field, but he looks content with it.

“What does coffee have to do with anything?”

His shoulder lifts. “I’m wonderin’ if I should have brought you some. It seems I have quite a bit to do still to get you to warm up to me, and if you do like it, then I’ll slip out and go get you some right now.”

I cross my arms over my chest, needing to put more than just this desk between us. Coffee sounds really damn nice right about now. Especially if it’s coming from the place down the street where I’ve become a regular. But I’m not about to tell him that.

“I don’t need coffee. I don’t need anything.”

“Come on, sugar. Give me something here.”

The nickname has me physically reeling back, revolted. He doesn’t miss my reaction, and the laugh that comes out of him is deep and proud.

“Alright. No to that nickname, then,” he notes.

“No to any nickname,” I push out before rounding the desk and attempting to leave him standing there all by himself. “I’ll get Anna for you.”

“That your coffee on the desk there?” he asks before I make it all of three steps away.

I spin on my heel. He’s bent over the desk, his hand reaching for the empty clear cup beside the computer monitor with my name scrawled over the side. It’s empty, has been since before I got to work because I gulped the entire thing down on the walk over. I forgot to throw it out. Figures.

“Don’t touch that! God, you are relentless,” I snap, rushing right back toward him.

It’s already clutched in his massive hand, and his eyes are scrunched as he reads the printed white label stuck to the side of it.

“A caramel macchiato with extra caramel,” he says before glancing over at me with a smirk. “You got a sweet tooth just like me.”

“Don’t be creepy, Johnny,” Anna says, appearing on the left with her shiny black apron on and hair pulled back out of her face. “Come sit down so I can get started. How much am I taking off, anyway? You didn’t mention that in your text.”

Johnny whips his head to smile at her. “I’m not creepy. I’m just trying to figure out Aurora’s coffee order. And like . . . a quarter of an inch?”

“Oh. I could have just told you that. It’s a caramel macchiato with extra caramel,” she says before patting the spinning chair in front of her station. “And a quarter of an inch? That’s nothing. Definitely not emergency appointment worthy.”

“I just don’t want a lot off,” he says, the picture of innocence.

He doesn’t have hair so long that it looks shaggy or unkempt. It only hits the middle of his neck, but it’s healthy and silky. If I were him, I wouldn’t be cutting it at all today. There’s no need to. Not even a quarter of an inch.

Anna nods and pats the chair again, careful to keep her expression neutral as she looks between him and me. Johnny doesn’t bother with the same coyness. He winks at me before moving his tall body to the chair and flopping down onto it. Our eyes meet in the mirror, and I hate that I enjoy the view.

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