Page 71 of Made For You
“Um… girls…,” I said calmly, trying not to frighten Talon. Chunks of his gorgeous hair laid haphazardly on the floor behind him. “Where did you get the scissors?”
Talon’s eyes opened and doubled in size as he began to turn and take notice of the hair lying around him.
“From our school bags,” Molly answered gleefully, but Eloise wore the kind of down-turned expression that said she knew she’d done something wrong.
“You know you’re not supposed to ever use real scissors on someone’s hair.”
“Yeah… but I wanted to play hair salon, and you don’t have the pretend scissors.”
“Did youaskif I had pretend scissors?”
Molly tucked her chin to her chest as she shook her head. I suspected tears were going to quickly follow.
“Girls, please apologize to Talon while I call your mom.”
There was still an hour remaining before Alex was scheduled to come pick up the girls, so I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of her. And I was right. Her phone rang six times before it clicked over to voicemail.
“Come on,” I mumbled in the kitchen as I tried Nate’s number. His did the same as Alex’s.
In my head, all I could think was,Glad this isn’t an emergency.I supposed they assumed I’d know what to do if it were.
Pulling up the messaging app, I typed out a text to Alex.
Me: You should come get the girls.
I hesitated to go back into the living room. The television was loudly playing a princess movie, so I couldn’t hear what was going on, but knowing Talon’s temperament, I was afraid he was ready to verbally explode at the girls. But when I walked into the room, I found the complete opposite. He’d tied what was left of his long strands at the top of his head and was helping them clean up the mess they made. There were splotches of nail polish on my rug and minute strands of Talon’s hair all over my floor, but I didn’t care.
Talon was there with my nieces, acting as if they hadn’t just destroyed his gorgeous locks.
I moved closer and crouched beside Talon who, by all accounts, looked freaking great with the green eyeshadow smeared up to his brows.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just hair.”
“Talon—”
“It’s okay, peaches,” he said, and then he leaned over to smack a chaste kiss on my lips. “Come on, girls. Let’s finish cleaning up.” Molly and Eloise kept their faces toward the floor, neither girl wanting to make eye contact with Talon or me. It killed me to see them so sad, but something worse could have happened with the sharp instruments than clipping hair.
I went back to the kitchen to pack up the few extra slices of pizza and put them in my fridge. It was too late in the evening to call the one salon in town to fix Talon’s hair, and I knew tomorrow was going to be a bust with the wedding. Thank goodness I didn’t need to be there for the rehearsal tonight.
When I returned to the living room, both twins were curled up against Talon’s side. He draped an arm around each of them as they watched the movie they selected. Seeing him with the twins, even after the chaos they just created, made something in my stomach knot. Something about him, in such a vulnerable state, made me realize he was turning into more than just my fake husband. He was quickly turning into my everything.
“Aurora? Are you okay?” he asked, and I quickly shook my head to clear my thoughts.
“Of course. What are we watching?”
“Tangled. It’s my favorite,” Molly said as she jumped up and down on the couch, nearly knocking her head into Talon’s chin.
I sat with the crew as the movie played. The clock was approaching 9:00 p.m. when I saw the headlights shineacross the living room wall. Neither Alex nor Nate returned my messages or voicemail from earlier, and I was fighting between not caring and being angry. To me, it felt thoughtless for them to saddle me with the kids last-minute, expecting I didn’t have anything going on. I realized this was the same thing my sisters always did to me when I was younger. I’d just never spoken up about it.
I felt… used.
“Hi, girls,” Nate said as he stepped into my house behind Alex, who hadn’t even knocked. She just barged right in.
I stood from the couch, eyeing Talon for a moment, then made my way over to them. The girls didn’t move from their spots. They only snuggled in closer to him.
“Did either of you get my messages?”
