Page 32 of Never Bargain with the Boss
Tension that I don’t understand shoots through Cameron and he says, “Braids?”
Confused by his suddenly sharp tone, I explain, “Grace asked if I could braid her hair. That okay?”
He clears his throat and I can sense a ‘no’ in the air, but then he nods stiffly. “Yes, of course.”
Peering at him curiously, I tell Grace, “Can you get a comb, a spray bottle of water, and two ponytailers?” I count out the three items on my fingers, noticing that I need to redo my nails. The bubblegum pink that matches my hair is chipped on a couple, and I could go for a bit of smoothing out, too.
“Got it!” Grace shouts, bolting upstairs.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper as soon as I think Grace is far enough away to not overhear us.
“Oh, nothing,” Cameron says, sounding like something is very wrong.
With no time for beating around the bush, I demandingly hiss, “What’s. Wrong?”
After a quick check that Grace hasn’t magically returned, he whispers back, “Her friend said something about her hair. I’m hoping this isn’t related.”
He barely has a chance to get the words out before Grace comes bounding back into the room, proclaiming, “Here you go!”
She thrusts the gathered supplies into my waiting hands, and after confirming the items, I set it all down on the coffee table. Grace sits on the floor in front of me, crisscrossing her legs, and I start to comb through her hair, parting it down the middle into two sections, my mind racing at the small amount of information Cameron had time to give me.
“Do you get your hair braided a lot?” I ask, keeping my tone light as I pry into what the hell’s going on.
“No. Dad can’t do it very well, so I usually just wash, brush, and go. If it’s wild in the morning, I’ll spray it all down and comb it back into curls.” As she speaks, she’s twisting the ends of the section I’m not working with around her finger and staring at it critically.
“Sounds like a good routine. Your curls are gorgeous.”
“Hannah doesn’t think so,” she mutters, telling her hair more so than me. Grace has gone still and quiet, two things the vibrant, energetic girl never is, which tells me how affected she is by whatever happened with her friend.
I lift my gaze to Cameron in alarm. His jaw is hard-set and his eyes meet mine, saying ‘see?’
“That’s the friend you said listens to Stray Kids like you, right?” I ask, my fingers deftly working from Grace’s crown to just behind her ear, leaving a neat, precise plait in their wake.
She’s talked about her friends in passing, mostly during run-on sentences in answer to the question ‘How was your day?’ but I don’t feel like I have a good picture of who this girl is and what she means to Grace.
“Yeah, she likes Felix, one of the band guys.”
Grace doesn’t say more, so after a second, Cameron does it for her. “Hannah is Grace’s best friend. They’ve been nearly conjoined at the hip for the last year, doing sleepovers, going to the trampoline park, having playdates, talking on the phone, filming silly videos, and more.Best friends,” he emphasizes, “but last week, she suggested that Grace straighten her hair.”
Grace’s shoulders climb up by her ears, but she nods. “She said I should straighten it so it’s not frizzy.”
I gasp. “She did not!”
Grace nods, adding, “But it’s not. I spray it in the morning and make sure it looks good.” Her voice goes higher and louder, showing how much the one comment from a friend affected her.
As I finish the first braid and secure the end, she turns around, her eyes pleading with me to understand that she’s doing the best she can.
“It’s always looked great when you go to school and still looks good when you get in the car after school too,” I assure her. She visibly relaxes, her shoulders dropping a bit. “The horse-riding helmet’s not doing you any favors, but I don’t think helmet hair looks good on anyone.” I throw her a wink, trying to be sure she hears the full honesty and understands that the compliment is equally as genuine.
“Did you talk to her like we discussed?” Cameron asks her.
“Yeah.”
It’s the right answer, but not the relief you’d expect her to have after a heart-to-heart with a bestie. Her reluctance to tell Cameron more is written all over face, and he bends down, getting closer to her, and softens his voice. “What happened?”
Grace nibbles on her lip but finally says, “She laughed and told me toquit being so sensitive.” She throws her voice with the last bit, so I think that’s exactly how Hannah said it to her… disrespectful and snide.
“That bitch!” I spit out before I can stop it. I slap my hand over my mouth, just as surprised by my outburst as they are. I meant it to be an internal thought, not an out loud statement, but now that it’s out there, I stand by it. So despite Grace’s dinner-plate sized eyes and Cameron’s frown, I shrug and dig my grave deeper. “Well, it’s true.”