“You’re so full of shit, Mer,” he said quietly. If he’d snapped at her, the way she’d snapped at him, it would have been easier to take, but he said the words with such authority, such soft assurance, that it stung more than it otherwise would have.
“I have boundaries,” Mercedes hissed. “You didn’t respect them last week.”
“You wanted to have sex with me, and I wanted to make love to you. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Yes! You make love to a girlfriend . . . or your wife. I’m not your wife!”
“I don’t have a wife, Mer. I’ve come to terms with that. Have you?” He hadn’t raised his voice, but his eyes gleamed.
“Yes. I have. But it’s irrelevant. I am not your wife. Gia is not my daughter. And that is not our relationship. I need you to respect my boundaries, okay?”
He shook his head, incredulous, and unclasped his hands so he could stroke his beard the way he always did when he needed time to regroup or a moment to think. He stood abruptly, and for a minute she thought he was going to walk out. He didn’t. He just stood with his back to her, his head down, his hands in his pockets.
His silence was so loud Mercedes wanted to scream at him to shut up. Her heart was pounding, and her palms were damp. She rubbed them on her skirt and headed for the door, desperate to move, to keep up with her pulse.
“I’ll be at your house Monday morning. Early. As usual. No more Sunday sleepovers unless it’s a double shift and you’re gone. Also, your hair is getting long, and your beard needs a trim,” she ordered, desperate to find her equilibrium and to help him find his. “We won’t have time today. Text me, and I’ll squeeze you in on Wednesday. And bring Gia. Her bangs are starting to fall in her eyes.”
“So this is how it has to be?” he murmured, turning back toward her. The gleam was gone.
“Yes. This is how it has to be.” She would re-establish Noah and Mer if it killed her.
He nodded slowly. “And if I’m not on board?”
“What does that mean?”
“What if I don’t agree? What then? We do it your way or no way at all?”
Mercedes shrugged helplessly. “But . . . it’ll be the way it’s always been, like it was before.” She heard the pleading in her voice and hated it. She shouldn’t have to beg him to be her friend.
He nodded again, but he wasn’t agreeing with her. He was nodding to let her know he heard. “The way it was before. Got it,” he said, monotone.
“So we’re good?” she asked, tentative.
He sighed and shook his head, resisting, but he said the words she wanted to hear, and she ignored the mixed message. “We’re good, Mer.”
“Yeah?” She felt a shiver of relief.
“Yeah.” He didn’t smile, and his eyes were bleak, but they weren’t arguing, and he wasn’t threatening to walk out of her life and take Gia with him. Mercedes could work with an unhappy Noah. It was no Noah at all that she couldn’t bear. He would see. In the end, they would both be better off. Everything would be all right. She would make it all right.
* * *
Mercedes didn’t have any early appointments on Wednesday, and Gloria was opening—she’d been opening since Keegan had left two months before. Mercedes walked into Maven at noon and was greeted by a beaming Gloria.
“He’s back, Mercedes. He’s back!”
Mercedes could only stare, her face blank, her breath trapped.
“What?”
“Keegan didn’t like LA, and until he has something substantial lined up, he’s promised to stay. This place has been buzzing all day. Word has spread, and we’ve had an endless stream of walk-ins and phone calls, all hoping to get on his schedule.”
Mercedes began to cough on her rising dismay.
Gloria made a concerned face and patted her back. “Are you okay?”
Mercedes nodded and smiled numbly before rounding the reception area and walking back to the long row of gleaming stations. The place was packed, and Keegan was in her spot. His old spot had been absorbed in a new layout, and she’d been the only stylist not working that morning. It made sense that Gloria would put him in her station temporarily.
He was smiling and making suggestions, turning his client this way and that, but when he saw Mercedes, his smile slipped a fraction and he winked at the woman in his chair—in Mer’s chair—and excused himself, snapping his fingers at one of the trainees and asking her to wash his client’s hair and bring her back when she was done.
Mercedes strode past him and felt him fall in behind her. She was breathing, but not deeply enough, because her lungs were burning and her exhalations were hot.
“You’re back,” she said, pushing her way into the locker room.
“I am.”
“That’s not what you agreed to.”
“Well, I have to make a living.”
When she stared at him, dumbfounded, he ran his hands through his hair and tried again. “Look, Mercedes. I just . . . can’t . . . I just . . . I don’t want to go. My life is here. I’m happy here. People like me. I have clients and I make damn good money.”
“Yeah . . . okay. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. You took twenty thousand dollars from me. Are you going to give it back?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s gone. I told you . . . I had a problem only money could fix.”
“And Gia?”
He stared at her blankly for a heartbeat before his expression cleared. He hadn’t known who she was talking about.
“I haven’t decided,” he lied.
“I see. And when will you decide?” She was so angry her voice was trembling, but she kept her eyes steady on his.
“I don’t know, Mercedes. And it’s really not any of your business. You inserted yourself into this, and I’m not going to be run out of town by you or anyone else,” he snapped, as if she had done him wrong and not the other way around. “You want to talk terms, I’m all ears. But unless you’re willing to part with some serious cash and some side benefits, I think I’ll keep my options open.”
Mercedes turned and strode from the room. Someone said her name, but she kept walking, her heels clacking, her stride long. She stopped in front of Gloria, who looked at her in surprise. There must have been something in her face, something in her eyes, because Gloria’s face paled before she even began to speak.
“I’ve worked here since I was fourteen years old,” Mercedes said quietly. “I’ve given Maven my heart and soul. I’ve given you my loyalty and my energy, Gloria, and you’ve always treated me well and made me believe I had a future here. But I won’t work here with Keegan Tate. Either he goes, or I go.”
“Mercedes,” Gloria said, stunned. “Why?”
“He’s a snake. He’s a cheat. He’s a liar.”
“Oh, no. Did you sleep with him, honey?” Gloria whispered, reaching for her hand. Mercedes stepped back. “No. I have more self-respect than that. I’m smarter than that too. But I did trust him, and I paid pretty dearly for that trust. It won’t happen again.”
“Mercedes, come on.” Keegan was standing in the arched opening between the style floor and reception. He’d apparently heard most of what she’d said.
“Keegan? What’s this about?” Gloria said to him, her eyes wide. “What did you do?”
“Mercedes is the one with the issue. I’m just here to work and glad to be back,” he answered mildly, folding his arms.
“Mercedes? Can you be more specific?”
Mercedes considered spilling the whole sordid story for all of five seconds, long enough for Keegan to pale and her protective instincts to kick in. She wouldn’t be telling a single soul that Keegan Tate might be Gia’s biological father.
“I don’t think Keegan would appreciate specifics, Gloria. He knows what he did. I know what he did. That will have to be enough.”
“Mercedes, I-I can’t just fire Keegan because you say so,” Gloria stammered.
“All right. Then consider this my two-weeks’ notice, Gloria,” Mercedes said flatly. She turned and brushed past Keegan, who was smart enough to step out of her way.
“Oh, and I’ve got an appointment in five minutes, and I need Keegan out of my work station and as far away from me as possible. Otherwise, today will be my last, and don’t think I won’t tell all my clients that he’s the reason I’m leaving.”
* * *
For several days Mercedes swam in an eddy of outrage and despair only to find herself at outrage again. By the following Friday, four days from her final shift at Maven, she’d escaped the whirlpool only to be thrust headlong into quicksand. Her fear was a soul-sucking hole that worsened every time she made a move. And worst of all, she couldn’t call for help. She hadn’t told anyone what had happened. Her coworkers knew she was leaving, but none of them knew why. Her clients knew she was leaving—they’d all been given a card, and she had their contact information—but she hadn’t filled them in either.
She’d quit her job. Her savings were severely depleted, and she had no immediate prospects. She’d never worked anywhere else but Maven, and she’d always had a plan. She didn’t anymore. For the first time in her life, she had no idea what she was going to do.
She didn’t want to work for someone else. She wanted to open her own place. Her clientele was huge, but many would not follow her to a new salon, simply because humans are creatures of habit. Many of her ladies would continue their patronage of Maven simply because it was what they’d always done. And if Mercedes didn’t have a place to bring them, one that was comfortable and accommodating, she would lose even more. She couldn’t take months to resettle. It had to be immediate. Seamless. And she had no prospects.
She’d been looking at retail spaces, crunching numbers, and making calls, but even amid her fears for her future, her thoughts had been filled with Noah. She missed him terribly, and for the first time in her life, she couldn’t confide in him. She didn’t know how. The story involved too many moving parts, too many secret pieces, and too much pain. Her story would cause him pain, and she couldn’t tell it, not even to save herself.
Noah had said they were good, but they weren’t good. She’d done what she’d promised herself she’d never do, she’d done what she’d intuitively known not to do. She’d slept with him, and she’d lost him. Maybe not forever. Maybe not completely. But their relationship was battered and bent, and at the moment, she didn’t have the focus or the fortitude to smooth it out.
Her life was a mess, and opening the salon on Friday morning and seeing Cuddy hovering at the back entrance, waiting for her, just added another layer of chaos. She cried out, startled to see him, and immediately raised her hand in warning.