Page 29 of Game Changer
“I didn’t know you had such an interest in skincare,” she replies, with a sly grin of her own—a grin that lets me know she’s aware Leo’s lying. “But I wouldn’t ask that of you. Fragile masculinity and all.”
“You think I care about cultural standards?” I say it without thinking, and dammit, I hate how she makes me so quick at the mouth when I’m around her. I want to be the guy who thinks rationally, but I’m beginning to slip more and more in her presence, which is why I’m following her into her room thirty seconds later, a cackling Leo in the background as she closes the door behind us.
“I can’t believe you’re offering to do this,” she says, setting the yoga mat on the floor. I watch her go to her desk and get everything set up, loving how energetic and excited she is. I’d do anything she asked me. That’s what she fails to realize. Painting my face with makeup only scratches the surface of the things I’d gladly sign up for if it meant putting that smile on her face.
“I’ve got nothing better to do,” I lie. I’ve got three papers due by the end of next week, but this is better than sitting in a library for hours, that’s for sure.
She instructs me to sit on her bed, and after she squeezes some lotion into her hands, she steps between my legs and tilts my chin up. My eyes meet hers, but only for a second. The connection is too strong, too insufferable. I have to close my eyes to avoid it.
She wants to be friends.
Just friends.
Her fingers gently apply the product to my skin, and I hadn’t realized just how good her touch would feel. I’m buzzing from the attention, tilting my head back to grant her more access. It takes everything not to moan at her caress.
“You look good in a backward cap,” she says. Her voice is nearly a whisper. Almost as if she can sense the intimacy of this moment too.
“Bad hair day.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but I can hardly get the sentence out. Not when she’s standing between my thighs. Not when I can smell her intoxicating scent, and her lips are mere inches from mine.
If I’d known it’d feel like this to get my makeup done by her, I would have offered to be her test subject a long damn time ago.
“So, when are you going to open your own salon?” I ask. “After you graduate, I’m assuming?”
She freezes for a split second before she uses a weird sponge to dab a thicker cream into my skin. “That’s the dream, but it’s not what my parents want for me.”
“What do you mean? Why else would you be getting a degree in business?”
She shrugs. “Become a CEO, work in marketing, be an accountant. . . . Starting my own salon isn’t guaranteed success, and they’d rather I had a job that’d give me a stable income instead of taking a risk on something that might not.”
“Even if it’s what you love to do? What you’re passionate about?” I don’t know her parents, but I can’t help the anger that surfaces. “What was the point of going to cosmetology school, then?”
“To feed my interests. I can work a job on the side with it, but owning my own salon one day? Making it my full-time career? I’d have to convince my parents that owning my own salon would prove to be a success, and—” She shakes her head, darkness entering her eyes. “It can’t happen. At least, not right now.”
“But that’s not—”
“It is what it is, Ethan.” Her tone is firm; no room for discussion on this.
The last thing I want is to upset her, so I drop the subject and allow her to do as she pleases with my face. I love watching her so focused and in her zone. I love watching her do what she wasbornto do. Cosmetology is her life. Running her own salon has been her dream since we met, and I know this because it was one of the first things she ever said to me. She braided Maddie’s hair one day and I complimented it in front of her, and then she rambled about the different styles of braids she could do. How becoming a cosmetologist so she could do everything under the sun was her goal.
And now she’s accomplished that goal, but it was all for nothing.
It doesn’t sit right with me.
“Has anyone booked yet?” I ask.
She grins while applying some sort of tan powder. “Actually, yeah! I’ve had three sign-ups already.”
“That’s incredible, Maya. I’m really proud of you.” I avert my gaze when her eyes soften, because the last thing I need is to start assuming things. Just because she’s giving methat lookdoesn’t mean she wants to be more than friends. She created a boundary, and I refuse to cross it.
I lean back on my hands to put more space between us, but all it does is expose my body to her. She’s still standing between my legs, and her eyes dart to my chest before she clears her throat and grabs an assortment of colored tubes from her desk. “Which color do you want?”
I tilt my head to the side, studying them. “For my lips?”
She nods.
“Pick whichever one you think will look best.”
With a decisive nod, she twists the cap off a dark red. “I know you’re going to kill me, but red is the hardest to apply. If I have you as my test subject, I’m going to make the most of it.”
