Page 11 of Dependable Cowboy

“Having you here is the best thing ever,” Bonnie exclaimed, evidently one hundred percent won over by this latest nugget of intel.

“I have to agree,” Christine stated next, and it was times like this when Joy thought of herself as being a part of some entertainment news show.

They were enthralled, though. Her boss. Her coworker. Her customers and theirs. She’d feared that admitting the truth might limit the number of tips people would give her believing her to be well off. But that wasn’t what happened. If anything, the more celebrity names she dropped, the higher the amount of cash filling her jar.

That afternoon the salon received an influx of ladies all at once, and for several hours, the place was bustling with activity. Joy had long been accustomed to such spurts and could handle them without issue. She moved from one head to the next without stopping or slowing down.

Also, no one seemed to be exceptionally picky about what she was doing. Sure, many people came in with an idea in their brains, but none of them left unhappy when the reality didn’t quite line up either. At least no producer, showrunner, director,or actor breathed down her neck about whether to cut bangs or to not cut bangs.

As if such things really mattered.

But as interesting and fun as Salon 406 turned out to be, her house hunt wound up being the opposite. It was seemingly impossible to rent somewhere to live no matter what she tried. That was why Joy decided to tap into the hivemind with her quandary. Might as well use the grapevine for good as much as evil.

“Christine, you or Bonnie familiar with the housing market around here?”

“Call Raymond Piazza. He’s been a realtor here forever. If anyone has the insider knowledge you need, it’s him.”

She made a mental note to see if he might be able to help.

Every time an apartment or rent house had popped up so far, by the time she’d call, it would be gone. Since she didn’t have enough money for a down payment, that left her with rental options only. And since she hadn’t managed to secure anywhere else yet, that meant she and Kara had been forced to stay with her parents for the past handful of weeks.

It’d been far longer than she’d intended, and due to the strain, it’d been uncomfortable from the get-go.

Neither she nor her parents had brought up the massive elephant in the room, which meant every meal was filled with these awful and awkward silences.

At long last, a full month after her arrival, the Raymond Piazza guy located an apartment above a garage right across from the elementary school. Joy had been ecstatic. It wasn’t fancy, butit was more than suitable for her and Kara’s needs. She’d been overjoyed to move her and her daughter into a place that was their own.

The timing turned out to be perfect, too, because school started that next Monday. Joy’s days off were on Sundays—the salon was closed—and on Tuesdays, which gave her enough time to get their meager belongings at least partially situated.

On Wednesday as she finished up a customer’s cut and color, the three other women who worked there went quiet. Joy glanced over at them to see the last person she’d expect stepping through the door.

Aaron.

He literally had his hat in his hands, his face set in this sheepish expression. She couldn’t say why for sure, but she suspected that this was due to the salon having no men clientele.

“How might we help you, sir?” Christine asked him.

“Uh…” He peered around as if waiting for some giant bouncer to toss him out on his ear. “My barber couldn’t get me in, and I really need a trim,” he admitted, blowing his bangs out of his eyes.

All the ladies tittered. Joy almost did, too. For a moment, her memory took her back in time to when she was twelve again. She remembered a similar movement of his from their childhoods.

“Joy…” The shock in his tone was obvious. “You work here?”

“I do.” She felt surprised to see him in here at all considering how much shorter his hair was now. So much shorter than it had ever been then. “Are you looking for maintenance or something more special?”

“Maintenance,” he laughed self-deprecatingly. “And please skip all the facials and hair masks or whatever.”

“Facials and hair masks?” Christine ambled over, laying a hand on one of his broad shoulders. Had they been that broad prior to now? That wasn’t something Joy remembered, him looking so…sturdy. “You, Aaron Hunter, have no clue what stylists actually do, do you?”

Joy’s boss regaled him with the terminology of her career, and the glazed expression that roved over his features was pretty hilarious. Yet Christine and every other employee would be tied up with clients. Every other employee but Joy.

She didn’t have anyone else in her line. Nor did anyone have an appointment with her over the next hour. It would be plenty of time to trim a guy’s hair. The problem was that it wasthisguy. Even so, Joy couldn’t say no.

So, despite the inherent weirdness of the moment, she waved Aaron over. It wasn’t like he was some mass murderer or something. Besides, if she couldn’t rise above and take care of the man who used to be her best friend, what business did she have taking care of anyone?

“Planning to go platinum blond?” Christine teased him, and Bonnie jumped in on that, too.

“Or fuchsia? Such a bright pink would be gorgeous with your skin tone.”

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