Page 5 of Grayson

“Word is you left with Gia the other night.” I don’t reply but instead hold his stare. “Aren’t you a little old for hookups?”

“No, you’re a little old for hookups,” I counter back. “I’m twenty-nine, not sixty.” He holds my stare, and if I didn’t know him I’d worry I’d pissed him off.

“You should probably know that Scarlett heard all about it this morning at her yoga class.” Uncle Issac is grinning from ear to ear. “You know how much she loves Gia.” This time his laughter echoes over the kitchen.

Just for clarification, Scarlett hates Gia. The two of them have never liked one another. It could have something to do with Gia sleeping with my cousin’s ex-boyfriend two weeks after they split.

“I can handle Scarlett,” I tell them all but they see right through my lie. Out of everyone in my family Scar is the only one that can set me back ten steps. The girl is sweet as pie, but growls like a grizzly when necessary.

“Boy, I’ve been Scarlett’s dad for twenty-four years and I still can’t handle her. The day she was born, me and her mother knew she was a force to be reckoned with. Why do you think she is still single, because there is no man out there that can handle all that strength.”

“Here I thought it was because she could beat the ass of most men in Nashville and the neighboring cities.”

“Well.” Uncle Issac tips his head and pride rolls off of him in waves. “There’s that too,” he adds with a chuckle and as I sit there smiling at the memories of my dear sweet cousin and all the many men who have tried but failed to tame her, I can’t help by worry. She was going to read me the riot act, and then she was going to kick my ass.

I could feel it in my bones.

4

Skye Simmons

“Cut and color, followed by a beach wave perm and two more colors this afternoon. What’s on your plate?” she asks, sitting down in my chair and leaning back, before spinning it in a circle.

“Two cuts and style, one correction color, and I think my afternoon is open.” I still wasn’t quite sure how to take Vivian. She warmed to me from the very first day, but I’m continuously baffled by her bluntness. She reminds me a lot of Tori. She says what’s on her mind and I’m not sure she actually has the embarrassment gene. I swear, nothing phases her.

“It’s Friday,” she perks up. “I ditched my guy friend, because I’ll just say it, he was packing, but he had no clue how to use it. I mean I’d rather be with a guy with a small pecker that understood the assignment than a man that can’t move his hips for shit.”

I quickly look around, but no one seems surprised by Vivian’s conversation or lack there of volume.

“You can only take so much slamming and jerking before you wonder why in the hell you bother. No foreplay, just jab jab, seize and shiver. It was a pity really, with a pecker like he had it seems like such a waste.”

“Amen.” I glance over to a client in the next chair next to mine. “A man has to know how to use his gift. Big, small, average, it’s all about the skills they bring to the table. I once dated a man that acted like he was licking a lollipop when he took a trip down south. One swipe pause, another swipe pause. I remember looking down at him baffled and not because he was so damned good I’d lost my mind. The man was a menace, but he was so pretty to look at.”

Vivian reaches out and offers a fist bump to the woman and all I can do is look back and forth between the two of them.

I’ve had two sexual experiences in my life and the first one barely counts. My first time was in the back of an old Mustang with Nick Counterman. I can honestly say it was over so fast I wasn’t sure it even truly happened. The second time I’d been half drunk after a party and there was absolutely no foreplay of any sort. I am not very experienced, not enough to weigh in on this conversation. So instead, I just sit there and gawk as they continue on like they aren’t in a room full of people.

I guess what they say is true, salons are the hub of all gossip.

“Drinks are on me.” Vivian waves a stack of bills through the air with an overly exaggerated smile on her face. “The two of us on the streets of Nashville could be dangerous.”

“You go and have a good time,” I tell her, grabbing my bag and tossing it over my shoulder. “I have to get home to Tori.”

“Wait.” Her face morphs into confusion with her brows creased and her lips pursed. “You have a kid? How did I not know this already?”

“Because she is fourteen.”

“Well, this is awkward.” I know what she is referring to, because for me to actually be Tori’s biological mother I would have had to have had her when I was eight. So I continue on without allowing her to. “Tori is my sister, whom I adopted when our parents were killed in a car accident.”

“Oh my goodness.” Now it’s awkward for an entirely different reason. I hate when people pity us. Yes, we got dealt a bad hand, but we aren’t the only ones in the world. There are always far more worse things.

We are surviving.

“So no night out, but maybe a night in?” Vivian says and part of me wants to argue with her and come up with some excuse as to why I can’t. But honestly, she is somewhat refreshing. Her go get ’em attitude, her open honesty, and maybe the fact that I have no actual girlfriends other than my teen sister.

“If you don’t mind a mouthy teen that cusses like a sailor and has absolutely no filter then you are welcome to join us for our normal Friday night takeout and movies.”

“Are you kidding, the girl sounds like my kindred spirit.” She isn’t lying. I thought of my sister immediately after meeting Vivian for the first time.

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