Page 44 of Love Scenes

No relationship is ever worth sacrificing your talent.

As if I could forget.

Joseph is still in his own world of upset. Arms folded as he treads the same five-step path back and forth. I could brush his arrival under the rug, but it’s honesty that’s gotten us this far, and it’s honesty that will keep this movie afloat.

“Why did you come today?” I ask him.

He halts. He must know that my family gave it away that no one asked him to be here, because he moves to form words that don’t come out. One of the colorists tells me it’s time to go backfor the last round of the night, buying him some time to answer. Joseph takes all of it and more, staying in the back corner, his long fingers tapping along his lips as he stares off at a wall.

The lead colorist looks from him to me. “Lovers’ quarrel?”

“Oh. We’re not together.”

She nods at me through the mirror, giving me that sage, smug face that says she knows more about my life than I do.

At once, Joseph resolves something and marches up to me. “Because I wanted to see you,” he admits. “Because I think right now, you’re my only real friend. Because if I spend one more day by myself in my house, I might lose it. So that’s why I came. And I’m sorry I lied about it. That was shit. I’m working on it.”

The lead colorist, her three assistants, and I all gape at him.

“I’m your only real friend?” My insides seem to be free-falling, and I’m fighting to find something to grab. “You don’t even crack my top five.”

“What about people you’re not related to, though?” Before I can make up an answer, he grins. “See?”

“Daisy Montoya and I get coffee all the time.”

“Rodrigo and Doyle.The Seeker’s most underrated pair. When’s the last time you went to a diner with her at midnight, though?”

My cheeks are burning. “We do daytime meals, thank you.”

“Then come to lunch with me tomorrow.”

“I have my hair appointment.”

“Christ. This should not take as long as it does! They wash some brown into mine. It takes twenty minutes!”

The lead colorist puts a hand on my shoulder. “If they don’t want her as blond as Haven, we might be done tonight. One more round and we’ll have a nice color on her.”

“We’re not getting lunch,” I whisper, but he’s not listening.

“Glorious,” Joseph says. “Who can argue a nice color? I knowI can’t. You tell me where you and your real friend Daisy Montoya go, and that’s where we will—”

“We’re not getting lunch!” I yell. “Okay?”

Even though I want to, I don’t add.Even though you’re right, you’re my only real friend outside of my family or Glori. Even though I think I actually like spending time with you.

“No lunch,” Joseph echoes, prideful. Almost mocking. “Fine.”

Ever the stubborn fool, he stays through the last round of color, forcing his charm onto all of us in a way that still grates on me. All glimpses of the Joseph I know are gone and we are in full Brand Mode. He’s clomping around, leaning on every available counter, batting lashes at anyone willing to make eye contact, saying words likefaffin’andjammyand seeming to do it just to prove a point: that I know him well enough to know when he’s not being himself.

When I’m ready to leave, he insists on walking me to my car.

The street outside the salon is quiet. Most of the other shops are long closed by now. It’s still, only the rush of distant traffic thrumming in soft undertones. I try twice to go on the side closer to the street. Joseph loops around me both times.

“Christ, Sloane. Let me be the one to take on the possibility of a stray vehicle coming up onto the curb,” he says when I try for a third time.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. My mam was always very insistent on me being a gentleman.”