“How do you know?” Elizabeth put her hands on top of her desk, which showed off her red nails.
“Because I was hurting when I acted out. I had a biological mother who’d abused me. I had been moved from foster home to foster home. I didn’t think anyone loved me.” He stared at his mother. “Until I got to your home.”
“If you haven’t talked to Shay, how do you know she’s not hurting in the same way? It may not be foster care, but something else.” His mother took another delicate sip from her coffee.
“Do you know what it is?” Gunnar asked.
“What I know I had to find out from her. If you want to gain her trust, I suggest you do the same thing. What do I always tell you?”
“I don’t know. You say a lot of things.” He smiled.
“You catch more flies with honey.” She finished off her coffee. “Speaking of honey, how are you and Eboni?”
Gunnar stood. “I think I’m needed out in the salon.”
“Excuse me. I didn’t say you could leave.” She motioned for him to take his seat again. “What’s going on with you and Eboni?”
Gunnar slumped down into his chair again. “Nothing.” He shrugged. “We’re friends. That’s it.”
“No more?”
He shook his head.
“But you want more.”
Gunnar could never lie to his mother. He paused thoughtfully before answering. “What I want and what’s going to happen are two different things. We’re living in two separate worlds. You’re the only thing holding us together. Once you’re better, I’ll go back to my home and my job in Nevada.” If he still had a job, he wanted to add. “She’ll stay here. Her aunt, this salon, and the community center keeps her here.”
Queen Elizabeth took a deep breath. “If you want to make it work, you can. Don’t deny your heart, baby. I think you’ve done that for far too long.”
Gunnar considered his mother’s words carefully. “She doesn’t want me solving her problems.”
“So don’t. But be there for her. And tell her how you really feel before it’s too late.”
Gunnar started to stand again but stopped. “May I be excused now?”
His mother smiled. “Yes. Go do what you normally do when I’m not here.”
“I’m the shampoo boy.” He held his hands up and wiggled his fingers.
“You’re not styling?” Elizabeth cocked her head. “You do such great hair.”
“I style if there’s an empty chair. I’m a little rusty.”
“You think you would have had enough practice with your own hair. When are you going to cut that stuff off?”
On instinct, Gunnar ran his hand over his head. “It’s my look. I think the ladies like it.”
He wouldn’t tell her the real reason to keep his scalp covered. His mother had enough of her own issues. Gunnar didn’t need to test her heart with revealing this bit of news.
She shook her head. “Kids. Thank you for the help, sweetie. I’m going to look around my office and see how you’ve improved it.”
With that, he walked out without a word. He hoped he’d put everything back in its original spot. Knowing Queen Elizabeth, she would find something out of place.
Gunnar scanned the salon. Everyone had someone in their chairs and a couple of customers sat in the waiting area. He decided to address his easier targets before getting with his more difficult ones. He asked Tillman and Tisha if either of them needed help. When they both said no, Gunnar moved over to Eboni.
Eboni wouldn’t be a pushover.
“You need help? I’m free. I can help shampoo or something.” To illustrate his point, he pushed up the sleeves of his knit shirt.
“No. I’m okay.” She flashed him a smile. “Thank you.”
Gunnar started to walk away.
“It’s great having Queen Elizabeth back here. I’ve missed her in the salon.”
Unable to look at her expression, he moved over to Shay. “You need help?”
Still in her large, bug-eyed sunglasses, she turned to him. “You can buy a sistagirl a meal once in a while since it looks like drinking is off the table.”
Gunnar crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. You free for lunch?”
Shay’s mouth hung open as she pumped up the chair holding her client. When she didn’t answer, Gunnar turned to Monica.
“Monica, does Shay have any bookings for lunch?” he asked.
Monica scanned the computer screen. “Nope.”
“Good. We’ll go at noon.” He smiled.
Shay didn’t share in his happiness. She turned from him. In that motion, Gunnar thought he caught something. He hoped he didn’t see what appeared to be a swollen bruise around her eye.
An immediate feeling of anger surged through his body. Gunnar gritted his teeth hard enough for a sharp pain to stab his head. He turned away and caught his mother standing in her office doorway.
To act as though he hadn’t seen it, Gunnar smiled and continued to the back area. He braced his hands on the dryer and took a couple of deep breaths. If what he suspected had occurred, no way could he stand by and do nothing.
* * * *
Eboni kept her attention split between her clients and Gunnar’s whereabouts. When he’d asked Shay out to lunch, she couldn’t deny that a pang of jealousy had riddled her thoughts. Had he asked Shay out because she’d left him at two in the morning?
When she’d gotten home, as she’d suspected, everyone had been in bed sleeping. That didn’t mean she needed to get too comfortable. Doing that in the past had gotten her hurt. Now that she knew the score, she wouldn’t be blindsided.
Eboni put her client under a hairdryer. “I’ll leave you for about thirty minutes.”
Her client nodded. When Eboni turned around to clean up her station, she saw Queen Elizabeth standing in her office doorway.
“Darling, will you come here, please?” Elizabeth motioned to her office.
Eboni nodded and walked into the room.
“Close the door, please.” Elizabeth sat behind her desk.
Eboni closed the office door and sat down. “What’s going on?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Eboni swallowed, unable and unwilling to talk about Gunnar to his mother. “What do you mean?”
“Your hair.”
Eboni quickly put her hand to her head, although a small part of her had been relieved that Queen didn’t want to talk about Gunnar. “What are you talking about?”
“I must admit. When you first had me put the weave in, I thought it was something you wanted to try. I didn’t know you were going to keep getting it redone. I like your hair. Don’t you?” Elizabeth looked at her with such warmth and concern in her eyes.
“I thought it looked nice. Is this your way of telling me I need a touchup?” Eboni smiled to lighten the mood in the office.
“It’s my way of telling you I know you’re hiding something.” Queen chuckled. “I swear you and Gunnar are so alike. Both of you are just fighting it though.”
“When you’re all better, he’s going to be gone. Where does that leave me?” Eboni felt her throat getting scratchy, but she refused to cry in front of this man’s mother.
“Are you sure that he really wants to go back to fighting?” Elizabeth asked. “And are you sure you want to stay here doing hair, taking care of a relative who doesn’t need caring and a place you’re giving your full devotion to while cutting yourself out of the equation?”
“Queen, I--”
Elizabeth held up her hand. “No. Hear me out. I’ve sat back and watched you and I’ve seen you try so hard to cling to something after Gunnar left. Trust me. I didn’t like that he left, especially with what was going on with you. But you two are adults. I thought by now you would have figured it out.” She clasped her hands together and rested them on her stomach. “I’m kind of glad to have had this health scare if it’s brought you and Gunnar t
ogether to figure out how to do it right. I will get better or die.”
“Queen!”
“Stop. I can’t live forever. Life is short. You remember that. Do you want to live that life authentically or with fake hair and lying to yourself that if that man walks out of your life again you’ll be okay?”
This time, Eboni couldn’t hide her feelings. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“I don’t mean to hurt you. But someone has to be honest with you and Gunnar. Don’t think he got away easy either. I love both of you. It hurts me to see you two so content to see the other go. You two belong together. Don’t you see that?”
See it? Eboni saw it, felt it, dreamed it, and wanted it. Wishing for a relationship didn’t mean she would get it.
Eboni stood. “I have to get back to my client.”
“It hasn’t been thirty minutes.”
Ignoring Elizabeth’s astute assessment, Eboni continued. “Thanks for the talk. Glad you’re here.”
By the time she walked out, she spied Gunnar walking out the back door with Shay. Could this day get any worse?
* * * *
Gunnar had made the mistake of asking Shay where she wanted to go for lunch. Little had he known she would ask him to take her to a restaurant in Hampton.
“We couldn’t have gone to a barbecue place in Virginia Beach?” Gunnar asked as he held out Shay’s chair.
“I love this place.” Shay sat down and scanned the customers around them. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Besides, you have to realize that when you roll with me I only want the best.”
Gunnar nodded but said nothing. He would wait to see if Shay would say something first about her tardiness, her absences, and her need to wear sunglasses all the time.
“For as far as I drove on icy roads, this place had better be better than--”
“Sex?” Shay winked.
“I was going to say the barbeque place off Princess Anne Road. You like going to the sex angle a lot, don’t you?” Gunnar kept his stare on Shay as she crossed her legs and returned his look with a more seductive one.
“It works for me.” She ran her tongue over her lips.
“It doesn’t work for me, so you can drop it. I’m taking you to lunch as a friend. I want to get to know you.”
“Oh, honey, there are other ways you can get to know me.” Shay put her hand on his thigh and crept it up to his crotch.
Fed up with her antics, Gunnar grabbed her hand, placed it on top of the table, and left his hand on top of hers to keep it still. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, but I don’t want any part of it. I think I’ve made myself pretty clear. If you keep this up, I’ll stop this lunch right now, understand?”
The smile dripped from Shay’s face. She snatched her hand from under his. When the waiter came with their menus, she grabbed it out of his hand. Gunnar showed a bit more tact and thanked the young man. They gave him their drink orders. With the distraction gone, the silence that hung between them felt eerie.
Deciding to break the ice, Gunnar asked, “How did you get started doing hair?”
Shay glared at him over her menu and dropped her gaze back to it without answering him.
“Okay, do you have any children?”
He heard Shay smacking her lips behind the menu wall she had erected between them. He put a finger at the top of her menu and pulled it down so that he could see her face.
“I’m assuming you’re not married. Are you seeing someone?” he asked, desperate to open up any conversation.
“You don’t care. You’re only here because Queen Elizabeth made you.” Shay slammed her menu closed and left it on the table.
The waiter returned and took their orders, although for a moment, Gunnar thought Shay would give up the lunch and demand to be taken back to the salon.
“I do care. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t. I would think working with me you would know that. So can we start over?” When Shay didn’t speak, Gunnar continued. “How did you get started doing hair?”
Shay let out a long sigh. “I hated school.”
“That’s something we have in common.” Gunnar smiled to let her know he meant that sincerely. He wanted to show her he could be on her side if she would allow him to get close to her.
“I didn’t want to do the college thing when I graduated. Except for working in a bank, it seemed like you had to have a college degree to get a high-paying job. So I first went to school for nursing.”
Gunnar felt his eyes go wide at that bit of news. “Really? You hated school and you went directly into nursing school?”
Shay chuckled. “Yeah. Not one of my best decisions. I dropped out after a month. But I didn’t learn my lesson, because I immediately enrolled in school for physical therapy. I figured out quick that I didn’t like helping sick people.”
“What clued you in to that?”
“I threw up on a patient when I saw his burn scars.”
Gunnar tried holding back his laughter, but he couldn’t stop himself.
Even Shay had to laugh at it. “I know. I felt so stupid. A friend of mine told me that I could do hair and makeup really well. I had a YouTube channel for a while when I was transitioning from relaxed to natural.”
Gunnar nodded, knowing that she meant she’d transitioned from getting her hair chemically relaxed on a regular basis to her hair’s natural, curly state. If asked, he preferred women with their real hair. He enjoyed the texture, the softness, the curls.
“So I went to cosmetology school. As soon as I got that certificate, I went door to door looking for a job. Queen hired me on the spot. She said she liked my vibe and energy. I told her I liked getting paid. It was match made in heaven.” Shay cackled and took a drink of her sweetened iced tea.
Gunnar wanted to tell Shay that getting paid meant she needed to come to work and when she came to work, to be there on time. As he thought it, he could almost feel his mother kicking him under the table to behave himself.
Lunch came fairly quickly. Although Gunnar had hated the drive, he did enjoy the North Carolina-style barbeque sandwich and coleslaw he ordered. It still didn’t justify traveling so far for this one meal.
“So any kids?” Gunnar asked as he downed the rest of his crinkle-cut fries.
Chuck would have hated to see him ingest a meal like this. For that reason, he dipped his next fry in a vat of homemade ketchup before popping it into his mouth.
Shay shook her head. “Nah.”
“You want any?”
She cut her gaze up at him. “Are you offering?” Before Gunnar could call her on her heavy-handed flirting, she laughed and put her hand on top of his. “I’m kidding. Had to get one more in. Yeah. Someday I’d like to be a mom to some little babies. I don’t think now would be a good time.”
“Why not?”
Shay kept her gaze down and shrugged her shoulders.
“Shay?”
She waited a beat before she looked up.
“You got a boyfriend?” Gunnar swallowed hard as he waited for her answer.
He knew what she would say. He had to hear it from her.
Shay released a fake laugh. “I thought you weren’t interested in me.”
Gunnar reached across the table and held her hand.
“I need to go to the bathroom, and then I’m ready to go back to the salon.” She slipped her hand out of his and ran to a side hallway.
Gunnar had gotten close to her, but she’d retreated when he’d started to open a painful wound. The one good thing about her picking a lunch spot so far away was he could talk to her on the long car ride back about her choices.
Gunnar paid for lunch and then helped Shay on with her coat. He walked her to his truck, helping her inside first before he got behind the steering wheel.
“That Eboni, she sure is a lucky woman.” Shay shook her head.
“What do you mean?” Gunnar blasted the heat as much as he could before dr
iving away.
“I prayed for a good man to come into my life, one who would love me and treat me right. You come in out of nowhere and she has you. You open doors for women, pull out chairs, pay for meals.” She looked his way. “You’re a nice guy.”
“Thank you, but Eboni and I are just friends.” Gunnar managed to cut his gaze away before he finished his statement.
“Liar.” Shay laughed. “It is so obvious you two are hitting it. I see the way you look at each other.”
Gunnar pulled out of the spot and got on to the interstate quick. What he thought would be a good thing as far as the time to get back to the salon now look like it may be an issue if Shay continued to ask probing questions.
“So you don’t have a man?” Gunnar asked.
“I have someone. I don’t know if I would call him a man.”
Gunnar felt that familiar ripple going up the back of his neck. When he glanced at Shay, for a split second, he suddenly saw his mother. She, too, had sported the same large sunglasses to hide black eyes and bruises. He gripped the steering wheel to channel his anger.
“You know when I first got with Queen Elizabeth, I didn’t treat her right.” Gunnar heard Shay gasp.
“Are you kidding? Everyone loves her. How could you not love the woman who took you in?” She gave him a playful slap on his arm.
“It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. Well, not exactly mine. I had some issues before she took me in. I had been abused.” He glanced at Shay, who quickly turned to look at the road ahead. He continued. “My biological mother didn’t want kids. She would beat me and Gideon all the time. By the time I had gotten to Queen, I thought all mothers were like that. I didn’t know any better because I hadn’t seen a good example of a kind mother. Then she showed me she loved me.” He wouldn’t go into the incident with the boys he thought had been his friends. “After that, I learned that not all mothers were like my biological one. If the man you’re with isn’t treating you right, you need to find one who will.”
Shay chuckled. “Easy for you to say. You got lucky in your situation. You got with Queen.”
“Yeah, but that was after years of being abused and bounced around. I was a child. I didn’t have a voice. You’re an adult. You have options. Hey.” He waited until she turned around and looked at him. “You have friends.”
The Look of Love Page 19
