Page 12 of Five Alarm Kiss

He felt like shit. He hadn’t meant anything by the comment. It’d just slipped out. “Princess, I’m sorry.”

Skye turned to him. “‘Princess’?”

With a giggle, the blonde tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to Laurel’s ball cap.

“What? … Oh,” Skye said, realization evident in her voice.

“‘Oh’ what?” Laurel asked. “What’s ‘oh’?”

The blonde tweaked the bill of the baseball hat and motioned to it with her chin.

Confused, Laurel took off her cap. All the color drained from her face, and her free hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness!” Panicked, her head slingshotted from the silk-screened fairytale princesses on the front of her cap to Jake.

He shrugged his shoulders, unable to stop a small grin. She looked cute in the hat. But, if he thought she was pale before, she turned practically arctic now.

“I look like a pie wearing a kid’s hat,” she whimpered, tears drenching her cheeks. “I’m gonna be?—”

Sick…. All over his new tennis shoes.

Chapter Three

“What did you do?” Skye asked in an accusatory tone. She lifted up a strand of Laurel’s hair like it was a dirty sock. “You look like a cheetah back here!”

Laurel was sitting in a chair in the middle of her kitchen, surrounded by old towels on the floor and covered by a black cape that Skye had brought from her salon. Spying in her hand-held mirror, she tried to see what her friend was referring to. The hair Skye was holding had splotches of both yellow and brown.

“There’s brown sections all over the place!” Skye made a face. “If you were going to trash your hair, you could’ve at least been consistent.”

“Make me feel worse, why don’t you? I didn’t do it on purpose!” Laurel snapped, then instantly regretted it. Her head felt like someone had squeezed her brain through a sieve. Downing three tequila shots and chugging a beer had been a horrible idea, and she was paying for it.

Skye’s expression softened. “I know you didn’t. It’s just bad.”

“Like I don’t know that,”Laurel moaned. Her head was killing her, and unless Skye could fix it, she’d be doomed to look like a pie for the foreseeable future.

“What kind of a jerk calls a woman a pie?” She didn’t actually remember Jake saying that specific word, but?—

“I never heard him call you a pie,” Skye said.

“Well, he must’ve. Why would I make that up?”

“Just throwing out ideas here, but might’ve had something to do with drinking like a frat boy on pledge night.”

“Yougave me the tequila shots.”

“Andyoustole his beer,” Skye countered.

Oh, cranberries. I did steal his beer.

For some stupid reason, the thought of her lips wrapping around the same bottle that Jake’s had made a tingle skip down her spine. She pretended she didn’t feel it and focused on the mess that was her hair.

“Can you fix it?”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Skye scoffed. “I can fix anything.”

She was probably right. Skye was extremely skilled in her profession. Getting a hair appointment with her was nearly impossible. She was always booked out over a month—if not two—in advance. Luckily, best friend status earned Laurel an emergency Sunday house call. Which, come to think of it, Skye owed her, considering she was the one who forced her to bleach her hair in the first place.

After mixing up some brown dye that matched Laurel’s natural hair color, Skye started sectioning Laurel’s hair, pinning the upper layers on top of her head.

“You have a towel down, right?” Laurel asked. She didn’t want hair dye accidentally getting onto the kitchen counter.

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