Page 10 of Eye Candy

As he went to get dressed, I stood there, resisting my urge to roll my eyes at him. Kieran could get on my nerves sometimes… but he was like a fungus. He grew on you no matter what. Hot, cold, somewhere in between. He latched on and wouldn’t let go.

And now that I was nineteen… let’s just say he was tempting in a whole different way.

Chapter Five – Laina

The girls at the salon didn’t recognize me, which was good. Kieran had me sit in the back seat of his car as we left the house, so the paparazzi didn’t get any pictures of me, due to how tinted his back windows were. Because no one knew where we were going, there wasn’t a crowd at the salon, which helped me keep my identity a secret.

That would be impossible once it came time to pay, since my real name was on my debit card.

Again, it was the same debit card I had before, not yet expired. It just showed me that my Devil had taken me for me and not for money. I kept my bandaged hand close to my body. I’d thrown on a hoodie to come here, so I could stick my left hand inside the pocket.

Kieran sat in the front of the salon, on one of the chairs they had lining the windows against the sidewalk. His leg was crossed, his ankle resting on his knee, and he’d grabbed one of the fashion magazines from the small coffee table in front ofthe chairs, reading it page by page and making some hilarious faces as he went. It was harder than it should’ve been to resist laughing at the ridiculous man.

Cherise had been the one to answer the phone when I’d called, and she was the one who worked on me. She asked me about the history of my hair, if it was a natural color, if I’d used any box dyes or bleach on it, and all that stuff. I told her the truth: it was all natural, and that made her nod her head in approval. Maybe natural hair was easier to work on. She then asked what kind of color I wanted, and when I told her I was thinking something pink, she said she’d always wanted to do a combination of bubblegum pink and light, baby blue.

“That sounds pretty,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Cherise was a woman in her early thirties, but with all the makeup on her face, you’d never know. “Really? Are you sure you don’t want to stick with just pink?”

I shook my head. “No, go crazy on my hair.” As long as it had some pink in it, I’d love it. Besides, this was all about letting go of the girl I used to be and annoying my dad at the same time. What would he find worse than pink hair? Pink and blue hair, that’s what.

She hung something around me to protect my clothes, and then she got to work.

It wasn’t a quick thing. No, she had to section off my hair, and then she started dying it, section by section. She’d cut and style it after the dye. As she went along, she rattled off instructions about how to keep the color, how to make it last. Never wash it in hot water; it could cause the colors to get muddied and fade faster. I also had to use a special kind of shampoo, sulfate-free. I’d buy it on the way out of the salon. Inthe front near the chairs, they had racks of stuff she was suggesting.

When Cherise started to dye the pink, I tossed a glance over to Kieran. He’d set the magazine down on his lap, staring at me, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Yeah… I hadn’t told him about the color I wanted on the way here.

Cherise asked, “Is that your boyfriend?”

I had to tear my gaze away from Kieran at that. He was far enough away he might not have heard; the salon had music playing on speakers near the register, about five feet away from where Kieran was sitting.

“Uh, no. He’s not. He’s…” I trailed off, knowing I couldn’t tell her that he was my bodyguard—and also now an uncle. Step-uncle. Stepuncle? Whatever.

She chuckled softly at that. “Sounds like you don’t know what he is to you.” She leaned down to me, saying, “He’s cute, though, and if he’s willing to sit here all by himself for you for hours, I’d say he wants to be.”

All I could do was smile to that, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. Kieran wouldn’t be here if my dad hadn’t put him on me like a guard dog. Sure, we might’ve had a weird, intense, tension-filled moment earlier, but that didn’t mean anything.

Did Kieran have a girlfriend? It wasn’t something I’d ever asked, but I hoped not, given our earlier interaction.

I thought Cherise was kidding when she said we’d be there for hours, but she wasn’t. She took her time in sectioning my hair and applying the dye colors to it, and she made sure each and every piece was saturated completely. Only after my head was full of pink and blue dye did she turn my chair and lean me back against the sink, where she rinsed the colors out.

She took her time in doing that, and once she was done, she sat me back up and combed through my hair. It had gotten quite long. Honestly, I’d been in need of a haircut before getting kidnapped.

“How much you want me to take off, hun?” she asked, grabbing herself a pair of scissors.

I was too busy staring at my wet, colorful hair in the mirror across from us to realize she’d asked me a question. It took me a while to say, “I don’t know. Cut off all the dead ends, I guess, and give me some layers.”

Cherise nodded and got to work. Once it was cut, it was time to dry it and style it. She used some kind of heat protectant on me—something she told me was also important to help keep the color—and then she blow dried it, giving it a little bit more volume than its natural state.

By the time she was done, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stared at myself in the mirror in awe, turning my head left and right, taking in the cut and the color. Cherise stood behind me, smiling. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I love it.” And I did. The light blue with the light pink was perfection. My head looked like cotton candy.

“I think your hair beats out everyone else’s that I’ve ever done,” she rattled off, clearly proud of her work—and for obvious reasons. It looked amazing.

I got up off the chair, wearing a smile on my face as I followed Cherise up to the register to pay. Kieran had long since stopped pretending to read the magazines, his eyes on me. I didn’t look at him; I didn’t know what he’d think of my hair. Truthfully, I didn’t really care, but… maybe I wanted him to like it.

Just a little.

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