Hailey gave her the stink eye. Then she opened her laptop, lowered her head, and began typing furiously again.
She supposed she was dismissed. She backed out quietly, like she was trying to leave a wild animal’s den without disrupting it.
When she got back to her desk, she texted Chris.
Rachel
News of big development project in the neighborhood.
Could be excellent for Clancy’s.
He got back to her right away, which meant he didn’t have much business. Unfortunately.
Chris
I’ll take anything I can get. The books don’t look good.
Rachel
Chin up! We’ll fix this.
She set her phone aside and bit her lip, worried about him. Clancy’s had been popular when his grandfather had run it, but all its customers had passed away or moved on. Chris needed to draw in younger people.
Hence her speed dating idea. She knew it’d work—as long as Chris could hang in there long enough. Maybe she’d ask Alice to take a look at Chris’s accounting to see if there was anything they could do to save some money.
But things were already looking up. A new development in the community would likely bring in more people, and that could only be good for Chris. Plus, her promotion was in the offing.
Plopping on the floor, she put her hand on the pieces of paper and closed her eyes. “Give me a sign,” she whispered before she picked a random word.
Opening her eyes, she read it.
BEGIN
Yes—it was time. It was all coming together. She could feel it. If she reached into the air, she bet she could touch the hope all around her. Finally.
Three
They sat in the living room, sipping Didier’s coffee like they were ladies at tea. Like nothing was wrong.
Except there wasso muchwrong. Jamie stared at Erik’s head, not sure what to say. Gone was the Viking romance model. In his place was a thug out of a post-apocalyptic movie.
Jamie shook his head. “You said you lost a bet?”
Wincing, Erik rubbed a hand over his violated scalp. “I didn’t think I was going to lose. It was a mathematical improbability.”
Didier stretched to put his empty cup on the table. “Who placed the bet?”
“Rodgers.”
Jamie exchanged a look with Didier. He knew Allen Rodgers from his days playing for Bayern München. Rodgers didn’t play fair, on or off the field. Erik had to have known that. The kid was smart, and no one wasthatnaïve.
He couldn’t help wondering if there was a part of Erik that wasn’t ready to find a nice girl because this had self-sabotage written all over it. Conscious or unconscious, it amounted to the same thing.
So much for this being an easy goal.
“We can take him to a barber,” Didier suggested.
He stared at the kid’s head. “I think the only way to fix this would be to shave it off completely.”