Page 87 of Somewhere We Belong

I was shampooing Iris’ hair; she was my last client before I was off for one whole week. Christmas was in two days, and I was ready to spend it with the guys and Theo’s family.

“Men are assholes,” she said under her breath, as she typed away furiously on her phone.

“Boy troubles?” I asked her, as I gave one last rinse.

“Yeah, I shouldn't have married this asshole,” Iris snapped.

My eyes widened as I processed her response. She kept typing, not realizing her mistake. Should I say something? I didn’t need to say anything because Iris sat up with her hair dripping.

“Fuck, I’m dripping.” She tried to lean back, but had already wet her entire back.

I put her hair back into the bowl, not sure how to proceed.

“You can’t say anything to my brothers,” she whispered, looking terrified.

“I promise I won’t. Girl Code.” I wrung out her hair, then wrapped it in a towel. “I’ll meet you at the chair. I’m gonna clean up.”

“Let me help.” She grabbed the towel from me, cleaning up as much water as she could.

We walked back to my chair in silence as I decided how to handle this.

“I won’t pressure you to talk about it, but if you need to, I’m here,” I said, releasing the towel and adding product to her hair.

She took a deep breath as she looked down at her lap.

“I did it to save our farm, but it's not going how I imagined,” she said, her lip trembling. “They aren’t adhering to the terms and I’m being pushed out. I was supposed to help run the farm and by marrying one of their boys, it technically would stay in the family. There's four boys and I got the cocky one who never answers his damn phone and is running from his family, so he’s hard to get a hold of.”

“Do we need to make him disappear?” I asked, grabbing my blow dryer.

“It might be hard to make him disappear, he’s a big Bronc rider.” She crossed her arms. “That’s why we haven’t gotten married because he's out and about on the rodeo circuit.”

“Then don’t marry him,” I said, hoping that was still an option.

“I don’t want to give up my family farm,” she sighed. “I’m hoping that once we get married it will be different and I will be brought in, and I can see my parent’s legacy live on.”

“So, you think marrying this guy is gonna do it?”

She shrugged. “I’m out of options here, but I have to at least try.”

“But what if this was all in vain and you marry him for nothing,” I said, playing devil's advocate.

“Then, I don’t know,” she whispered, looking defeated.

“Are you going to tell your brothers anything?” I put my hands on her shoulder for comfort.

“God, no. They would have a shit fit if they found out what I was doing,” she said, looking up. “My stupid naive brain thought I could marry one of the brothers, then live at the farm and keep working like nothing happened. The oldest was sweet. Hell, I would take the hockey player at this point and he’s younger than me.”

“I hear hockey players are hot,” I said, trying to ease the tension of the conversation.

“They are all gorgeous, unfortunately,” she grumbled.

“The audacity.” I rolled my eyes.

“I know!” She cracked a smile.

“Well, if you need to vent anymore, let me know. We can go get dinner and trash talk this family,” I chuckled.

“Deal, but thank you for listening. It feels good to tell someone and not keep it to myself.” She smiled. “I just gotta be patient and figure out what the hell I can do.”

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