Second Chance Summer(48)

“No problem.” She took a bite of the candy bar. “Omigod, so good. You know, at my old job these were considered the work of the devil and were banned. I’ve been making up for lost time so much my dress was tight this morning.”

“Your old job sucked and so did your boss,” Jonathan said.

True enough.

“And Lily Pad?”

“Yeah?”

“You look like hot stuff in that dress.”

She finished her candy bar and hit the reception area. Waiting there were Danielle and Chelsea, two sixteen-year-old BFFs. They wanted matching updos for a rec center teen summer dance, so she took one and Rosa took the other.

“The dance sounds like fun,” Lily said to the girls after they’d each been washed. They were sitting side by side at the stations. “Are you going with anyone?”

“It’s stag,” Chelsea said, the taller, more outspoken one of the two. “But I’m meeting someone there.”

“Me too,” Danielle said smugly as Lily began to do her hair. The girl had a smile that revealed dimples and more than a little trouble.

Over at Rosa’s station, Chelsea’s eyes narrowed in the mirror at Danielle. “Who? Who are you meeting there?”

“I promised not to tell.”

“Why?” Chelsea demanded. “I’m your BFF. You have to tell me. It’s in the manual.”

“Can’t,” Danielle said. “Trevor doesn’t want me to tell anyone so no one gets jealous.” She slapped her hand over her own mouth at the inadvertent slip.

Chelsea pushed Rosa’s hands out of her hair and stood up, hands on hips. “Trevor? You’re meeting Trevor? You?”

Now Danielle’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’m not good enough for him?”

“Not even close,” Chelsea said. “And he’s my date tonight. So back off, heifer. And you might want to back off the cheeseburgers too. Just sayin’.”

Danielle leapt to her feet as well. “Who’s going to make me, you skinny, skank cow?”

That’s when they dove at each other and wrestled around on the floor, fighting like two cats.

Rosa stood there gaping. Jonathan ran in from the private client room, skidded to a halt, and looked horrified. Then he pointed at Lily.

Lily got the message. Deal with this. She pulled the handheld faucet from the hair-washing station and squirted both teens. Worked like a charm.

When they were gone and the mess was cleaned up, Jonathan shook his head. “I should give you a raise for most creative use of a station.”

“You should,” Lily agreed. Not that she’d hold her breath. Jonathan was so tight with his money he squeaked when he walked.

Her next client was a huge, thirty-something lumberjack with a Wild-Man-of-Borneo beard. He requested a shave.

Lily pulled out the clippers to trim the bushy beard but he stopped her.

“My head,” he said.

She looked at his beautiful thick, luscious mane of hair. “You sure?”

He patted the top of his head. “Positive.”

“But—”

“My wife has cancer,” he said, and then he ran a hand over his face. “So yeah, I’m sure,” he said hoarsely. “All of it goes.”

Afterward he tried to pay her, but Lily refused to accept any money from him.

When he’d left, Jonathan came up to her, arms crossed.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll pay for it out of my till.”

He looked at her for a long beat. “You’re pretty damn amazing, you know that? And you won’t be paying out of your earnings. I’ve got it covered. Because for cancer, anything goes. Always.”

It was six o’clock before Lily left the salon. It’d been a long day, made longer by the way she kept thinking about Aidan. This isn’t over, he’d said. And then there’d been the conversation with her mom.

Forgive yourself.

Promise me.

Lily got into her car, but instead of going home, she parked in the empty clearing at the trailhead to the hiking trails. There she drew in a deep breath and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. “You’re okay,” she told herself.

Her reflection didn’t look convinced.

“You just need to feel Ashley,” she said, testing that theory out loud.

It was the truth. She desperately needed to feel her sister. The first problem with that was that she was still in her work clothes, a sundress and cropped sweater with wedge sandals. Alone in her car with no one nearby, she first looked around for security cameras. Not seeing any, she quickly stripped down to her sports bra and spandex shorts, and then dug into the duffel bag in the backseat for a T-shirt and running shoes.

She got to the exact same spot she’d made it to on her first day back in town before stopping for a break. She sucked in some wind and checked her phone.

No missed calls. And no texts from a certain firefighter …

She sighed. Without water and supplies she knew better than to go much farther. She might be a little unbalanced and a lot messed up, but she wasn’t stupid.

So she went another half mile and then sat on a rock, taking in the view. If she’d been geared up, she’d have had several choices from here—the rest of the hike—another two miles up a near vertical. Or free-climbing down to the river.