balm in here, believe it or not. We really want it to look soft and conditioned, but we don’t want it too shiny under the lights, you know?”
She’s talking to herself at this point, at least as far as I’m concerned, and my attention is still pointed at Aidy as she rifles through her makeup case.
“Found it,” Stacia declares a moment later. She returns to my side, a brush tucked under one arm and a concentrating expression on her face. Her hair is dyed platinum blonde, and she wears skintight leggings with some space-themed print on them. Stacia reminds me of a Swedish pop star with a Brooklyn accent. “Here we go.”
She runs her brush through my hair, shaping it in the direction she wants it to go, and then whips out a can of aerosol hairspray.
“Close your eyes,” she says.
Psssst.
Pssssssst.
Psst.
Psssssssssssssst.
My nostrils tickle and I cough up half a lung, waving the cloud of chemicals out of my airspace.
“Smells like a beauty salon,” I say.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Stacia paws her hand at me and turns to pack up her stuff. When she passes by, she rests her hand on my shoulder, her gaze fixed on my hair. “All right. Looking good. One down. One to go.”
She shuts the door behind her when she leaves, and I glance over at Aidy again, and this time she’s tying some black tool belt contraption around her waist, loading it with brushes and other implements.
I watch her shoulders rise and fall as she drags her hands down her sides, and when she turns to me, her chin is tucked against her chest. Her pale blonde hair is parted deep on the side, above her right eyebrow, and she wears her hair tucked behind her ear on the right side. Lifting her gaze into mine, something about her registers as familiar. I feel like I’ve seen that face before, I just can’t place it.
“Hi.” Aidy avoids eye contact.
I can’t tell if she’s nervous or if she hates me. Probably the latter.
Her hand lifts to my face, her fingertips gently grazing the underside of my jaw, and she tilts it from side to side.
“Warm undertones,” she says. “You’re a W-45.”
Whatever that means.
She returns to her makeup spread, retrieving a bottle of liquid makeup and squirting it onto the top of her hand. Standing to my left, she produces a brush from her apron and dabs the tip into the tan-colored product.
Clearing her throat, she studies my face. “You have great skin, Mr. Amato. You don’t need much of this at all. We just want to make sure the lights don’t wash you out.”
Her voice is robotic, almost mechanical, like she’s focused on doing her job and little else. Nothing about her screams that she’s excited to be here, right now, inches from me, her hands on my face.
I sit still, hands gripping the sides of the makeup chair like I’m some kind of nervous. Truth is, I’m not nervous. This is just really fucking awkward, and I’ve never been good at ignoring giant elephants or acting like shit didn’t happen.
“Is it weird?” I ask.
“Is what weird?”
“Pretending like you didn’t tell me to fuck off last night?”
Her lips flatten and she exhales, hard. She knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“Or are we going to carry on like that didn’t happen?” I add.
“You made my nephew cry,” she says.
Nephew? Interesting.
“Yeah, and I felt like shit about it afterwards, which was why I offered to mail him an autograph . . .” my voice crescendos.
“Hold still, please, Mr. Amato.” She cups her hand beneath my jaw, holding tight. Her gaze is concentrated, brows furrowed as she dabs something under my eyes. She seems to spend a lot of time there, and I knew I had dark circles since I don’t sleep much these days, but I didn’t think they were that bad.
“You know, you were the second person to tell me to fuck off yesterday,” I say. “That has to be some kind of record.”
Her other hand freezes, brush still pressed against my skin. “Second? Who was the first?”
“Some crazy chick trying to leave her diary on my doorstep.”
Her tongue skims across her lower lip and her lips pull into a smirk. “Is that a regular occurrence for you?”
“Oddly . . . yes.”
“You get a lot of stalkers?”
“Not as many now that I’m retired.”
“This crazy chick, was she hot?” Aidy asks, one brow arched.
My lips jut forward. “I don’t know? That’s an odd question.