Page 5 of Tough Guy
Chapter Two
Fabian wondered if he could pull off the Stila Enchantress Glitter & Glow liquid eye shadow. It was really fucking pretty.
He brushed a little of the tester on the back of his hand.
So pretty.
He tilted his hand under the florescent lights of the store and watched the eye shadow shimmer. The color really worked with his olive skin.
He set the tester bottle back on the shelf and returned to his stool behind the cosmetics counter. He perched himself on the edge and swivelled back and forth, bored out of his mind. There were only forty minutes left in his night shift at the Savers Drug Mart, but the store had been mostly dead for the past hour and Fabian was beyond ready to go home.
He checked his own makeup in the mirror that sat on the desk in front of him. Everything was still totally on point. He’d done a particularly good job on his liquid liner today.
He was, he supposed, grateful he had a job that allowed him to wear some pretty wild and experimental makeup looks to work. He wore a black button-up shirt and black pants—the uniform for all Savers beauty department employees—but he could get creative with his face. The job was far from glamorous—it wasn’t evenmall cosmetics storeglamorous—but there were jobs that would have been far more soul-crushing. At least here he could be himself.
The automatic sliding doors opened, and Fabian glanced up. It was his job to warmly greet as many customers as he could when they entered the store, but he had a feeling this guy wasn’t here to buy cosmetics. He was an enormous man, with a full bushy beard and long red hair sticking out from under his gray toque. He looked like an autumnal Hagrid.
“Good evening,” Fabian said cheerfully. The man looked startled, and glanced around until his eyes landed on Fabian. “Can I help you fi—?”
Holy. Shit.
“Ryan?” Fabian blurted the name out before he could stop himself. Even if itwasRyan Price, it’s not like he would recognize Fabian. Probably wouldn’t even remember him.
The man who was possibly Ryan Price stared at Fabian, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide. “Yeah?” he said finally.
“Sorry,” Fabian said quickly. “You probably don’t recognize me at all. It’s—”
“Fabian,” Ryan said, barely above a whisper.
Fabian beamed. “You remember!”
Ryan nodded. “Fabian,” he said again.
Fabian walked out from behind the counter and stopped a couple of feet in front of Ryan. Ryan didn’t move at all.
Ryan. Fucking. Price.
“Look at you,” Fabian said. “You look...humongous.”
He was even taller than Fabian remembered. Obviously he probably had grown since he was seventeen, but so had Fabian. Sort of. Fabian still had to be a foot shorter than Ryan. And the beard—his whole look, really—gave Ryan a rugged biker/Viking vibe. When Fabian had last seen him, his red hair had been short and his face had been smooth.
Ryan’s face finally relaxed into a shy smile. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said quietly. It then occurred to Fabian that Ryan might be a little weirded out by his (flawless) eye liner and shadow. The thought alone, whether warranted or not, made Fabian stand a little straighter, daring Ryan to say anything about it.
But all Ryan said was, “You look good.”
Oh.
Fabian relaxed his shoulders, since it seemed there wouldn’t be a fight, and said, “So what brings Ryan Price to Toronto?”
Ryan’s smile widened, and his eyes grew warmer. “Hockey. I play for the Guardians.”
Well, that’s embarrassing.“I probably should have known that,” Fabian said. “Sorry. I’m still not a hockey fan, I’m afraid.”
Ryan laughed. “S’okay.” For a moment, they just stood in awkward silence, and then he said, “You still play music?”
Fabian lit up. “Oh yes. This,” he gestured at the store around him, “is just my side hustle. Music is my main thing.”
“Like...your own songs? Songs you wrote?”
