choking me with that hair stuff. I’m sure glad we didn’t need to do my hair! I don’t want to smell like that!”
I jab him in the stomach with my finger, which makes him step back and laugh.
“Killy, I feel like you’re unjustly mad at me.”
“I feel like you’re going to look just as handsome with no hair.”
He’s all smiles. “Thankfully, it’ll grow out, but what I do to you probably won’t.”
I wonder if he knows that when he gives me that cocky smile, it makes my body heat up. It makes me want to reach out to him and have him pull me in close, but I know I need to respect what he wants and what he’s comfortable with. So instead, I turn away and head to the fridge to judge what he bought.
“Where’s all the food?” I ask when I peer inside.
“I only had enough arms to carry the dog food, so I just got necessities.”
“Pudding cups and cookies? And the dog’s not that important.”
“We have to keep Bear fat and full in case he decides to eat your face off, okay?”
I point at him. “You know… you’re right about that one. Let’s feed him these cookies too,” I say as I pull one out and hand it to the dog. When he comes at me, I quickly fling it at him, realizing he’ll probably eat my hand off. Instead, it plunks him on the top of the head, making him look confused but delighted as he eats it off the floor.
“Bear’s not going to hurt you,” Shepherd says. “Look how cute he is.”
Shepherd squishes Bear’s face so his wrinkles make his eyes look like tiny slits and it is kind of cute.
“It’s all a ploy to get me to trust him,” I say as I grab a cookie for myself and one for Shepherd. I walk up and hold the cookie before his mouth. “One for me and one for…” As he goes to bite down on it, I pull it back and bite it. “Also me.”
He pries the other cookie free and chews it while smiling at me.
“Stop giving me that look, you know it irritates me.”
He looks horrified. “My smile irritates you?”
I can’t fight off my own smile. “Your smile with your stupid natural hair color.”
He seems overly smug as he finishes off his cookie while Bear sits at his feet, waiting for even the smallest crumb to tumble into his mouth. “I feel sorry that you’re so easily angered,” he says, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “Now I feel like we were supposed to keep track of how long that stuff’s on your head. We don’t want to go white now, do we?”
That fills me with even more regret. “Let’s wash it out now. We might still be able to salvage it.”
He stares at the instructions for a stupidly long time. “Can you read Chinese?”
I snatch it from him and flip it over to the English side. “It says we should wash it out now.”
“I’m not sure it does.”
He reaches for it but I yank it away. “Yes, it does.”
He heads off to the bathroom, so I follow after him. He pulls out a white towel and gets the hot water started.
“I can wash my own hair,” I say.
“Oh, you’ll just bitch and complain that I tortured you by making you wash your own hair. Kneel down, your majesty.”
I do and he turns the water on before pushing my head down farther. I feel his fingers run through the wet glob on my head before he goes, “Huh.”
My eyes instantly open. “Huh, what?” I growl as I witness a chunk of hair get tossed onto the bottom of the tub where it instantly gets caught in the grate over the drain.
“Nothing,” he says as he aims the water on it, like he can wash the proof down the drain.
“Is that my hair?” I cry.
“Just a little bit of it. I must have gotten it too thick there or something. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits. “On the plus side, if the rest falls out then we won’t have to worry about the color of your hair. We definitely will look different then,” he says as he continues rinsing the hair away. This man is bent on destroying my life.
“Please save me. Someone, please save me.”
“It’s alright, your Prince Charming is here,” he says but immediately follows it up with an, “Oh, there goes another one!”