Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(5)

Worst purchase ever.

Leaving the conditioner in to soak, I shaved my legs, armpits, and bikini area.

It was when I was finishing up with my ankles that the sensation of burning started to penetrate my head.

I gasped and touched my head, feeling the odd burn, and leaned my head back into the water to see about rinsing it off.

Was my skin having a reaction to the conditioner?

While I was rinsing my hair, I opened the bottle up and frowned.

There looked to be two different kinds of conditioner in the bottle. One a bright orange while the other was a lilac blue.

What the hell?

I frowned and ran my fingers through my hair, thankful that the burn was now disappearing.

Only, when I brought my hand to my face, I saw large clumps of my hair clinging to my fingers.

But it wasn’t enough that I was too freaked out.

Instead, I decided to take some Benadryl, never use the conditioner again, and go to bed. Hopefully by tomorrow, it wouldn’t feel bad any longer.

***

The next morning, I woke up and knew something was seriously wrong.

My head wasn’t just burning today.

It was on fire.

Also, as I picked my head up off the pillow, I felt a clump of my hair fall into my face.

At first, I was thinking it was just a lock of hair that’d escaped the bun that I usually slept with it in.

But then I realized that not only was it a lock of hair, it was a lock of hair that was attached to my ponytail… that was not attached to my head.

Meaning that I had my entire ponytail of hair… in my hand.

That’s right around the time that I screamed.





Chapter 1


Fuck.

-Things you shouldn’t think when you wake up in the morning Dax

It was the crying that made me pay attention.

“Baby, you need to slow down,” my boss and father’s good friend, Luke Roberts, said.

The woman’s sobs were heartbreaking.

Even worse, I could see the torture on Luke’s face.

“Tell me again what happened,” Luke ordered, sounding authoritative just like he always did.

The girl sat up from Luke’s chest and wiped her eyes.

“Theo’s new girlfriend decided to switch my conditioner with Nair.” The woman sniffled.

I felt my stomach drop.

“I don’t know what Nair is,” Luke said, sounding confused and sympathetic.

I did.

Mostly because my sister thought it’d be funny to give it to me to use as lotion one day. Only, instead of it moisturizing my legs, it straight up stripped my hair completely from them.

“It’s a hair removal cream,” the woman cried.

God, her tears were breaking my heart.

“Okay,” Luke said, sounding worried now. “What happen… oh, my God.”

She yanked her baseball cap off of her head—thank God it was cold and she actually had a reason to wear one—and stared at Luke.

I was flabbergasted as well.

The woman was straight up bald.

Like a baby’s ass, bald.

Luke stared at her head with his mouth hanging half open, unsure what to say.

Luke’s entire body stiffened then, and his mouth closed. His jaw tight, he stared at her head.

Then, as if he wasn’t angry at all, he pulled the woman’s bald head into his body and kissed it.

“Rowen,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

Rowen.

That was Rowen?

Holy shit.

She’d grown up since the last time that I’d seen her.

Granted, the last time I’d seen her she’d had much more hair, and a whole lot fewer curves.

I tried to pinpoint when, exactly, was the last time I’d seen her, and all I could come up with was my high school graduation party.

She’d come with her family—Luke, her sister Katy, her mom Reese, and her brother Derek.

Derek who also happened to be on the SWAT team with me.

Fuck, but his sister was hot.

When had that happened?

The last time that I’d seen her she’d been a gangly teenager that had yet to grow into her feet.

Now, though?

“On top of everything, I got a random email from my boss saying I broke client confidentiality, oh, and I was held at gunpoint in a convenience store on the way here.”

Luke’s eyes widened.

“You were held at gunpoint?” he asked, jaw tense.

“It wasn’t a big deal. It was a fake gun.” She paused. “But I made some decisions while I was thinking it was real and…”

I moved, causing Luke to look up, and his eyes trained hard on me.

“I have the paperwork that you were asking for,” I said to him. “Also, your wife is out front looking for you.”

The woman—no, Rowen—gasped and turned to see me standing there.

She wasn’t upset about her head being uncovered, though.

Instead, it had everything to do with her mother.

“My mother?” Rowen gaped. “What… how?”

Luke cursed and stood up.

“I’ll go talk to her…”

“Too late,” I said as I saw the familiar woman heading down the hall. “She’s already making her way down here.”