Second Chance Summer(25)

“Aw.” She grinned at him. “Always can count on you. Love you, baby.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “That won’t get you out of leaving a tip.” He nodded at Lily. “You want my specialist to do this. She’s the best woman for the job. Plus, I hate giving facials.”

Lily loved skin care. Actually, she loved all the different aspects of what she did: cutting and coloring hair, skin care, all of it. There was just something about making people feel good that made her feel good. She loved the easy, fast people connections, too, especially since in her everyday personal life she didn’t tend to make such easy, fast connections at all.

She never had.

She gave Jonathan’s mom a facial that did indeed make her look gorgeous. Then she did an eyebrow wax for a woman who’d worked for Lily’s dad years ago.

“Such a shame how he went,” the woman said, her eyes closed while Lily worked. “That heart attack. So sudden. And in his prime too.”

Lily stilled. “Yes,” she managed. “A shame.”

“He was a good man,” the woman said, not noting Lily’s discomfort since her eyes were still closed. “And your sister too,” she went on. “Such a tragedy. You okay with being back, honey?”

Lily was still having trouble finding her words. But her client had opened her eyes now and was looking at her expectantly, so she put on her best “I’m good” expression and nodded. She even added a smile, which she thought was a good touch.

“Are you?” Jonathan asked quietly after the woman had left. “Good with being back?”

“Don’t start,” she said.

“So you’re not. Damn, I knew it.” He slid an arm around her and pulled her in for a hug. “What can I do, Lily Pad? Anything for you, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.” She hugged him back, drawing on some deeply needed strength. “I’m working on being okay, I promise. I think I just need some more time to adjust.”

A truck drove up. The man driving it parked right out front in the no-parking zone like he owned the place and ambled into the shop.

Aidan. The only man she didn’t want to see, wearing sexy jeans faded in all the stress spots that she absolutely wasn’t noticing and a T-shirt that said KEEP CALM AND SKI ON.

“Mm-mmm,” Jonathan murmured for her ears only. “I tell you what. Channing Tatum and his gorgeous wife both own my heart, but Aidan’s a close third. The girls are going to be bummed. We love it when Gray sends Aidan to fix stuff.”

“Not this girl,” Lily said. She blamed the kiss. “And this place is falling apart,” she said, trying to redirect. “You should be as irritated with him as I am.”

“No can do.” Jonathan was not only an equal opportunist when it came to sex, but he was also eternally optimistic. “I’m a lot of things, but irritated isn’t one of them.”

“But he—”

“Shh.”

Oh, for God’s sake.

“Hey,” Aidan said in greeting to Jonathan before his gaze then slid to Lily.

She stood her ground instead of running in the other direction as her feet wanted.

“Lily,” he said with a nod and absolutely no indication that he’d played tonsil hockey with her just yesterday. “One of you called?”

Lily glanced over at Jonathan, who was very busy looking at Aidan like he was the sun and the moon and maybe also a lemon meringue pie. She gave him a nudge that was really a shove and then spoke for both of them since apparently she was the only one of them immune to Aidan’s dubious charms. “We need some renovations,” she said.

Aidan raised a brow. “We.”

“Jonathan,” she corrected and then shook her head. You know what? She worked here too now, and so far she liked it, dammit. It’d been weeks since she’d liked where she was. More than weeks. Way too much more. “And okay, me too,” she said, claiming the place in spite of herself.

Jonathan grinned and blew her a smooch.

“There’s a problem with the electrical,” she told Aidan. “We can’t run two blow-dryers at the same time. A pretty big problem for a salon.”

“Absolutely,” he said easily. “What else?”

“Nothing,” Jonathan said, pulling three sodas out of the mini fridge they kept stocked for clients. “We’re good.”

Lily glared at him. “The private patient room needs some plumbing help. The sink drips.”

“Drips,” Aidan said, taking one of the sodas and popping it open.

“Yes. It’s annoying.”

He smiled. “Annoying.”

“To the client, yes,” she said. “It’s annoying. They’re here to relax and be pampered. A dripping faucet isn’t relaxing.”

“Understood,” he said. “Anything else?”

Huh. She didn’t remember him being this agreeable. “And the lighting. It’s not bright enough in the client room, and too bright and harsh out here.”

Jonathan choked on his soda.

But Aidan just looked at the overhead lighting and nodded. “You also need a new paint job.”

“Yes,” she said, surprised. Huh. Maybe this was going to go a lot easier than she’d imagined. “Thank you,” she said genuinely.