‘Just ignore him, he was raised by wolves,’ Ava says to me and then shoots an angry glance at her father. ‘Unpolite ones!’
‘It’simpolite,’ he corrects her, still grimacing underneath the hand held across his forehead.
‘Wolves that are sticklers for grammar, apparently.’ I try to ease the tension I can sense between them. I should probably keep my mouth shut, but anyone who calls my shop a hellhole deserves everything he gets. ‘And actually, both are correct. The word started off as “unpolite” but that spelling has become obsolete over time and “impolite” has become the more accepted usage, but that doesn’t make it wrong.’
She gives me a look that suggests she’s about to burst with joy, andhegives me a look that suggests he’d quite like to roast me into a pile of ashes on the spot with his strikingly blue eyes.
‘You are the coolest person ever! And this is the coolest shop ever! And look at your hair! Iloveyour hair!’ She comes over and picks up a lock of my long red hair. ‘Oh my God, Dad, look at this. Someone put colour in their hair and no one died!’ She tucks the lock back into place and turns back to me. ‘No one died, right? When you went to the salon and had colour put in your hair? Nothing bad happened?’
Right now, my cheeks are arguably redder than my Ariel-red hair. I’ve never been considered cool before and I’mreallynot used to strangers touching my hair without permission. ‘I, er, don’t go to a salon, I do it at home over my bathtub.’
‘And nothing catastrophic happens afterwards? No natural disasters? The world doesn’t end? No police? No serial killers?’
‘Er, no.’ I feel awkward because I’ve clearly got myself into the middle of an ongoing father-daughter argument.
‘Well, this random stranger is in her forties. When you’re?—’
‘I’m thirty-eight!’ I snap indignantly.
The man sighs before reluctantly correcting himself. ‘Well, this random stranger is in herlatethirties. Whenyouare thirty-eight, Ava, you can do what you want with your hair. Until then,nope.’
She rolls her eyes and huffs. ‘At least not everyone’s got a stick up their bum like you, Dad!’
‘You’re way too young to be talking like that!’ He shakes his head in despair. ‘Where do you even learn these things?’
I stifle a giggle as she stomps off into the other half of the shop without answering. It used to be a storage room, but when my father ran the place, he got the doorway widened so we could expand the shop space, and the staff area upstairs became a storage area instead. Back then, it was just me and him, and the house is within walking distance, we didn’t need a staff area, and now it’s just me, I’d rather use the space we do have for my beloved objects.
‘Sorry about that. And the age thing. I didn’t mean to insult you.’ The father’s eyes flick in the direction his daughter went. ‘Blame my tired eyes rather than your wrinkles. Not that you have wrinkles. Or not that I’ve noticed if you do.’ He makes a noise of frustration and scrubs a hand over his face, pulling my eyes to the way his fingers catch on the dark stubble covering his jaw. ‘I’m going to stop talking now. Sorry.’
When he takes his hand away from his forehead, I grimace at the sight of a bleeding cut and what will be anangrybruise tomorrow. ‘Stay there, I’ll get you something to clean that up.’
I race up the stairs, grab a cloth from the kitchen and soak it under the hot tap, and then run back down to find him hovering in the same place near the door. He takes the cloth from me and holds it to his head.
‘Is it bad?’ I step away to give him some space and accidentally back into a life-size resin model of a flamingo and steady it as it wobbles precariously.
‘What, the gaping cut or the thumping headache?’ He takes the cloth away and checks it for blood. ‘I’ll live, probably. Today has been stressful enough without the added head injury though, so thanks for that.’
It’s totally sarcastic, and after how insulting he’s been so far, no one would blame me for ignoring his earlier apology, but I’m intrigued by how utterly weary he sounds, and he’s still got a slightly panicked look about him, like he hasn’t quite recovered from Ava’s disappearance yet. He keeps looking in the direction she went, like he’s worried there might be a back entrance she can sneak out of and vanish again. ‘Long day?’
He looks at his watch. ‘Well, we left the house three hours ago, and I feel like this afternoon has lasted for three months. I thought this would be the perfect father-daughter outing to kick off the summer holidays but, apparently…’ He raises his voice to ensure his daughter overhears. ‘…Ever After Street is forbabiesand isseriously uncool!’ His voice lowers again as he looks at me. ‘So I’ve been told 24,601 times so far today, anyway. This is the first shop she hasn’t wanted to leave immediately in case she gets spotted by someone she knows and issoooembarrassed to be seen dead in somewhere sobabyish. Maybe I’ll get something right one day, but I won’t hold my breath.’
‘Teenager?’ I ask.
‘Thirteen. What gave it away? The sulking, the insults, or the tantrums in a public place?’
‘I heard that!’ Ava calls from the other side of the shop.
I often worry about the lack of customers, but with these two in here, it’s probably a good thing thereisn’tanyone else to get in the middle of the tension between them.
‘Andyouweren’t interested in hearingthat. My apologies, again.’
He’s got the whole Prince Eric look going on – bright blue eyes and the darkest black hair, a straight nose with a wide tip, not unlike one of Flynn Rider’s wanted posters. He’s the kind of gorgeous that makes your mouth go dry, and makes you stand up straighter, self-consciously smooth your hair down, and suck your stomach in without even knowing why. He’s highly unlikely to be single, and even if he was, I have no intention of trying to seduce him. My last relationship ensured I’d never be tempted to try to seduce anyone ever again, or let myself be seduced, in the unlikely event of anyone trying.
Even so, I can’t help myself sneaking a quick peek at his ring finger. No wedding ring. Promising?
No, not promising. Mickey! What are you thinking? He’s obviously struggling with summer holiday parenting and schools only broke up on Friday. Men with issues are even more off-limits than men without issues, and all men are no-goes for me for the rest of forever.
I watch him as his eyes wander around the shop, his lips pressed into a thin line that’s becoming thinner with every object he takes in, like he’s trying to figure out what to criticise first. Eventually he goes back to the hanging birdcage that nearly took him out just now. ‘Why do you have a birdcage with no birds?’
