Denise and Cara: The Set Up

“Come on. You said I’m your hair inspiration, didn’t you?” Denise asked. She was smiling brightly from across the small table inside their usual lunch spot, Danielle’s Cafe, raising one perfect eyebrow before claiming another forkful of the brownie they’d agreed to split.

“That was back when you actually had hair,” Cara teased.

“I still have some,” Denise insisted. She shook her head, letting a few long locks — though only relative to the shorn left side of her head, buzzed down to about a half inch –slide forward to tease the tip of her nose and hide one of her hazel eyes. The shiny brown tresses of her asymmetric bob looked amazing, but Cara still couldn’t believe her friend had traded in her legendary, waist-length brunette mane for the edgy, clippered look.

She seemed to love it, though, for which Cara was glad — otherwise she would have felt guilty as hell for practically daring the other woman to do it.  All because she had mused aloud about cutting her own hair, a golden fall of cheerleaderesque tresses that were currently confined to a thick, French braid that fell down her back so it would stay out of her face. “Okay, I guess you do have some.”

Denise smiled and claimed another bite before setting her fork down, wiping her mouth, and using her phone to check her teeth to make sure none of the fudge had been left behind. “For now, anyway.” She ran her fingers through her hair, gathering the longest locks up in something of a makeshift mohawk. “I’m thinking of getting both sides clippered at my appointment this afternoon.”

Cara’s eyebrows lifted. She definitely hadn’t expected Denise to take the new bold outlook on life that far. “Seriously? Full on mohawk?”

“No! Well, actually, maybe techically.” She pulled her hair up again. “I want to be able to slick it back or pull it up when I go running, and, as it is now, it just looks lopsided when I do that. I think my hair’s thick enough to hide just how much I don’t have. Who knows? I’ll ask Bradley what he thinks.”

“Bradley is…”

“My stylist.”

“Ah yes. My stylist.” Cara laughed at how Denise flushed.

“Does that sound snobby?”

Cara waggled her hand. “Little bit.”

Denise shrugged. “Eh. I’ll be snobby. I’ll take the hit.”

“I think it’s a matter of how good they make you look. And he makes your hair look good enough to be referred to as ‘my stylist.”

“Noted, and thank you.” Denise glanced at her phone, again but before Cara could ask why, her friend said, “I’m going to be honest — I had no idea short hair would be so fun.”

“Really?” Cara took another bite of the communal brownie. “How so?”

Denise toyed with the sleeves of her oversized Irish sweater. “It’s just so easy to get messed up, but easy to fix again. And light and free — and you have no idea how differently people look at you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think people take me more seriously now. Not that they brushed me off before — it’s not like I looked like I was 16…”

Cara grimaced overdramatically at the obvious attack. “Hey. It’l be a blessing when I’m eighty and look fifty.”

Denise smiled. Cara felt a gentle kick under the table.

“But seriously. It’s hard to define, but I feel like I’m taken more seriously at school and at work. Even Derek the Hot Dork noticed.”

“Derek the Hot Dork? What did he say? Did he ask you out?”

Denise ticked off the answers. “Yes, a lot of stuff, and yes.”

The next several minutes dissolved into an interrogation of sorts, with Cara insistent on finding out everything about the guy Denise had noticed in her Chemistry lab weeks ago. The topic of Denise’s hair had never come up between the two, but Denise had her suspicions the change in style had something to do with Derek deciding to talk to her. And with a couple of dates under their belt, she had more than a small hunch that he really, really liked the new look.

“So is that why you’re going even shorter?” Cara asked as the bill arrived at the table. Denise slapped down a credit card and handed the bill back to the waitress before Cara could even take a look at it, something she made mental note to pick up the tab next time.

Denise nodded. “Well, partly. Mostly for the reasons I said before, but…” She lifted her hand up to the left side of her head and rubbed the dark pelt of her hair, closing her eyes for a moment before she opened them again.

Cara raised her eyebrow again.

Denise smiled, her cheeks reddening. “There are benefits you have to experience for yourself.”

Cara made a thoughtful sound as she forked away another chunk of the brownie. “So noted, should I ever decide to shave my head.”

Denise glanced at her phone again. “Have you actually given any more thought to that?”

“To shaving my head? No — I’ve never given any thought to it.”

Denise shook her head, then flipped her hair back out of her face again. “No, not shaving. Cutting. Have you given any more thought to cutting that braid of yours?”

Cara hesitated … Truthfully, yes. But did she want to admit that to her newly shorn friend? Something inside told her that might not be wise. It could start a chain reaction she wasn’t sure she wanted to start.

Denise looked a little smug. “You’re the one who asked whether I ever thought about cutting mine, so obviously you’ve thought about cutting yours. Just a matter of how recently.”

Instead of answering, Cara set her fork and brownie down on her napkin. For reasons she could pin down, her stomach suddenly felt a little nervous. “Maybe a little,” she finally admitted, not sure she liked where the conversation was headed.

Denise smiled like a shark. “You and I both know that if I stole your phone, I’d find more than one picture of Taylor Swift’s bob and bangs on it.”

Cara wished she could say Denise was wrong, but damnit… it was a cute style! And, frankly, Taylor was a beautiful woman. But focusing on the bob and bangs… it was a gorgeous style, and Cara thought her thick, perfectly-straight hair would look amazing if cut the same way. But, for one, that would mean getting bangs for the first time in her life, and she had no idea whether she could pull them off, and, two, she was so close to finally having waist-length hair. Her golden fleece had always hovered around her bra strap in length, but now she almost attained the length her friend had taken for granted up until a couple of weeks ago.

“I like my hair.”

“I know. But do you love your style?”

What was a valid question, not that there was an actual style to it. It was just long a blunt-cut; nothing complicated and stylish about that.

“What if I look bad with it short? It’d take years to grow back. Years.“

“Honey. Baby. Booboo.” Denise patted Cara’s hand. “Let me let you in on a little secret — You’re cuter than Taylor. If the look works for her, it’ll really work for you.”

Cara tried to decide whether that was some honesty from Denise, or whether she was being buttered up for something. Both options had an equal possibility.

“No pressure. I just think it’d look fantastic and might be a fun change.”

“I agree on at least the second part,” Cara finally admitted. “But when I said I didn’t think you had the guts to cut your hair, I think we both know I really meant I don’t have the guts to cut my hair.”

Denise pursed her lips around the straw of her iced tea as she took a long sip, her eyes set on Cara’s. Every passing second made Cara feel more like a bunny in a hawk’s line of sight, and without realizing it, she started to hug her long braid against her chest protectively.

“How about we leave it to chance?”

“Im not sure I like the sound of that.”

Denise smiled. “No, it’ll be fun.” She checked her phone. “My appointment with Bradley is in… fifteen minutes. Let’s both go there, and if trombone is free to take you, you’ll get the Taylor Swift bob and bangs. And if they can’t… You keep your braid and wait for me or head on home. Whichever you’d like.”

“This doesn’t seem like an even bet.”

Denise shook her head and pointedly held up a finger.  “It’s not a bet. We’re just leaving a decision to chance. Giving the universe the final word, if you will. What do you say?”

Cara considered the possibilities. She would be lying if there wasn’t a bit fo a thrill involved in the idea of leaving her hair’s fate to the proverbial toss of the coin, but at the same time… her hair! Her golden fleece!

She took up and started undoing her braid, running her fingers through her thick tresses as they slowly loosened and finally, freed from their bindings, surrounded her in a tumbling mass of thick, golden waves. She ran her fingers through her locks again and again, ruffling and rumpling it a bit as she thought, feeling its weight pull against her as it flowed and swayed with her movements. Could she really give that up? Could she really consign herself to having so little to play with, to feeling nothing on her shoulders and leaving her neck almost as naked as Denise’s?

No. No, she couldn’t. She was about to tell Denise so when her friend launched the nuclear device no friend with any decency would.

After another sip of iced tea, the sly brunette licked her lips and said, “You might actually find out what it’s like to not get carded every time you go to a bar.”

God.

Damn.

It.

Cara looked at the mirrored wall of the cafe, at the twenty-two year old woman with the golden-blonde hair of a Hollywood cheerleader, and the bright green eyes, shy smile, and petite build of … your average high school cheerleader.

“Just saying,” Denise added.

“You’re the worst.”

“That’s debatable.”

“The. Worst.”

Denise smiled and grabbed her bookbag. “Shell we head over?”

Cara considered her reflection again, and sighed as she doomed her hair to its possible fate. “Fine.”

Denise let out a gleeful giggle and grabbed Cara’s hand, leading her through the shopping plaza and around a corner. She almost had them running there, moving at a hybrid between a skipping and a brisk walk. After being forced to behave all morning, Cara’s hair bounced wildly around her, getting into her face and eyes and looking like a living being when she saw its reflection in the front windows of the stores they passed.

She started to hope the salon wouldn’t be able to fit her in.

Eventually Denise dragged her through the front door of a very sleek, modern looking boutique of a salon. It was dancing along the edge between being adorable and being cool, and… she kind of dug it. A long, black counter was near the entrance, with a woman dressed all in black sitting behind it. She was probably close to Denise and Cara in age, but somehow seemed much more professional and put together, even with her snowy-blonde curls gathered up into a long, floofy ponytail that fell between her shoulderblades. A quick glance beyond the front desk deadened Cara’s hopes a bit; the salon seemed fairly empty of people, though four stylist stations and a few shampoo sinks in the back awaited use. Maybe all of the stylists had a meeting that afternoon, or had decided to take long lunches. Maybe she would get out of this with her lush mane intact after all.

Denise had just finished saying hello and Cara heard the receptionist ask, “Do you have appointments?”

“Yes, I’m with Bradley at two o’clock.”

Cara stepped forward to awkwardly say no and ask if there was anyone free and then slink out of the place in awkward rejection when rebuffed, but instead Denise answered for her.

“And she’s with Rebecca at two, too.”

“What?” Cara didn’t even recognize her own voice, it came out so low and monotone.

Denise smiled. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I made an appointment for you when I set mine up last week.”

“You… what?”

Denise stepped forward to cup Cara’s cheeks in her hands; they were so cold against her hot skin. “We agreed you’d get your hair cut if someone was free to do it. And they are. It’s just… more by design than you might have expected.”

“That’s just diabolical.” Her beautiful hair, about to be lost to cold, calculated betrayal. “It was supposed to be left to the universe.”

“You’re going to look amazing,” she insisted as her right hand slipped down to play with a windblown lock of Cara’s hair. Maybe the last person to do so. “Forgive me? I figured the universe might need a little help making the decision.”

Despite the growing swarm of butterflies in her stomach, Cara decided to do Denise one better than forgiving her. “Technically there’s nothing to forgive.” She scrunched up her nose and furrowed her brow as deviously as she could, though she assumed it wasn’t very threatening. “But I will get you for this, Denise. Someday, when you least expect it. It is known.”

Denise patted Cara’s cheek. “That’s fair.”

“Denise!” A booming voice called, echoing off the minimalist design of the salon. Denise spun and Cara looked over her friend’s shoulder, her heart giving the sensation that it forgot how to beat when she saw the absolute adonis of a dude approaching. Talk, dark, with a superhero’s jaw and apparently the black tee shirt of someone much smaller than him.

“Hi, Bradley!”

He took her hand and kissed it. “I keep telling you, it’s Brad.”

“I know, Bradley. This is my friend, Cara. I set her up with Rebecca this afternoon.”

Cara was fairly certain she said hello when Bradley took her hand and said it was nice to meet her, but she also may have just let out a long mumbling grunt. She wasn’t really paying attention to herself at the moment.

Bradley’s steel blue eyes looked her up and down — was that even supposed to be a color? Steel blue? Well, if not, no one had told him. Anyway, he gave her a quick glance up and down, notably lingering on her windblown locks, and said, “Rebecca will be right out, I’m sure. You’ll be in great hands.” He then turned to Denise, taking her by the hand and leading her back to one of the stations.

Cara’s eyes lingered on the two, trying to determine how impossibly beautiful their children would be if they had them. She blamed it on being a biology major, but still…

“Cara?”

Cara blinked, turning to the young woman who was approaching her with a hand out. She had the same black getup with a silver belt as Bradley, but it fell against her curves in a much, much different way. Soft, doe-like brown eyes looked at her from under heavy bangs the color of… sand? Wheat? Well, something along of the lines of golden brown or dirty blonde. The rest of her hair was piled back in a loose, casual bun, with just a few locks spilling free to tease a long, slender neck.

Cara forced herself to take a deep breath — her little bisexual heart could not take this place.

“Hi! Me Cara.” She shook her head. “Cara is me. Cara be me.” She sighed, finally just pointing to herself. “Cara.”

Rebecca smiled brightly. “I figured. Nervous?”

Absolutely. Though for so many different reasons. “Maybe a little.”

The smile turned warm, and Rebecca took Cara’s hand in her own. “Come with me. Are you old enough to drink?” She asked as she led Cara back to her station. She patted the seat, and  Cara set her book bag down and let herself slide into the chair, her heart beating a little faster — maybe to make up for the skipped beats earlier. “I can get you a glass of wine if you’d like?”

Cara shook her head, her golden locks dancing against her chest as she looked at her reflection. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

“Okay.”

The stylist started running her fingers through Cara’s hands, smooth, gentle motions that started with soft caresses of Cara’s scalp and then sifted down through her tresses’ voluminous length. The tension Cara had been feeling slowly slipped away, and she wondered if it was an option to just have this done for a few hours before moving on with her day.

“So, what were you thinking of having done today?”

So much for that.

Cara took a deep breath and pulled out her phone, scrolling through the images on it. “You know how you just asked me if I was old enough to drink? I don’t want that to happen anymore.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I want you to give me this,” she declared, thrusting her phone toward Rebecca, showing off Taylor Swift in all of her bobbed glory.

Rebecca considered it for about half a second, her beautiful eyes flitting between the screen and the mirror before she took on the appearance of a store clerk who had to tell a kid their nickel wasn’t enough to buy the piece of candy they wanted.

“Oh, sweetie, if looking older is your goal…”

“Not this style?”

Rebecca shook her head. “It’s the bangs. A cute bob and heavy bangs will not make a woman with features as adorable as yours look older.”

Cara couldn’t count the number of times she wanted to kick people for saying she looked adorable, but the way it rolled off Rebecca’s tongue… Cara could live with adorable. But no, wait — she wanted to be able to drink at a bar. That was the goal, wasn’t it? She needed to focus.

Rebecca gathered Cara’s hair back, and motioned its her hands right at Cara’s jawline. “I’m thinking here, with sideswept bangs, if you’re willing. That should take you out of the cute cheerleader category and get you into the … Well, I’m not sure what the word is. But we’ll make sure you fit in whether you’re looking to pick someone up or get  a new job. Sound good?”

Cara considered her reflection of more time, watching the women behind her play with her long, thick, nearly waist length crowning glory. Had Denise been this nervous when she lopped off all of her hair?

“It sounds good!” Denise play shouted as Bradley was guiding her from the shampoo sinks to his work station. “Go for it!”

“Isn’t it a pain when they can’t make a decision?” Bradley teased with a wink, though Cara wasn’t sure whether he was teasing her or Rebecca.

“Okay,” Cara finally said. “Let’s do it.”

Rebecca squeezed Cara’s shoulders. “You’re going to look great. Trust me.” The stylist moved around her, picking up a pair of shears from her station and turning back to Cara. “I’m going to wash that glorious mane of yours, but there’s a lot of it we don’t need, so, before we get to that, would you mind if I lightened the load a little?”

Cara shook her head, and sat quietly as a cape was set loosely around her shoulders. Rebecca ran a large comb through the golden fleece for a long moment, and then gathered them back into a loose ponytail. “Okay, ready?”

Cara closed her eyes and nodded, feeling the pressure of Rebecca’s hold on her ponytail as she did. A loud crunching began to sound through the salon, paced with gentle tugs on Cara’s ponytail. She sat with her eyes scrunched shut, her heart racing and her palms becoming sweaty as the crunching just kept going and going. She could imagine the scissors chewing through her treasured hair, almost choking on her ponytail’s girth as they worked, and wondered where Rebecca was cutting it — how short would her hair be when her ponytail was chopped off? Would it be long enough for her to back out and try to grow it out? Or would there be no going back even if she hoped to?

Finally, the cutting stopped, and Cara felt her soft, silky locks nuzzling against her ears. She opened her eyes, her brow furrowing when she saw the same reflection as before looking back at her. But then Rebecca held her severed ponytail in front of her, letting it dance as she swished it from side to side with one hand as her other hand flipped Cara’s hair in front fo her shoulders, or at least what was left of it. Just a few moments ago, her hair would have tumbled almost into her lap, covering her chest and most of her stomach and hiding her neck and ears and collarbones in a flood of blonde silk…

But now, not so much. It was all gone, with only the longest bits of her shorn locks resting against her collarbones.

“Oh. My. God.” She reached up and ran her fingers through what little length remained, her jaw hanging slack as the strokes ended so much more abruptly than they used to. Did she still have a ponytail on her head? She gathered her hair back, trying to see.

Rebecca giggled — a really cute giggle at that — and took hold of the new ponytail as she set the shorn one down in front of her mirror. “See? Look how good you’ll look without all of this hanging in your face.”

Cara felt her cheeks warm and looked down to the floor as the cape was pulled away. Rebecca took her hand again, inflicting more flutters on Cara’s overworked heart, and led her to the sinks to be shampooed. Rebecca’s fingers worked their magic again, and Cara, for the most part, kept her eyes closed and just enjoyed it. But occasionally — every once in a while — she’d open her eyes too see Rebecca looking down at her.

Maybe Cara was wrong, but there seemed to be a thing between Bradley and her — was he trying to relieve the stylist of her own hair? Despite being worn up, it seemed like it was pretty gorgeous, but, at the same time, the woman would probably look amazing with something short. But judging by its volume and the way the locks that had fallen loose twisted and curled, Rebecca probably had some amazing Just-got-fucked hair after… you know… getting fucked.

Somewhere in the distance, a low hum began to rumble, a sign that Denise was getting the not-a-mohawk she’d been considering. And, as Rebecca led Cara back to er station, that most definitely was the case. Bradley’s brow furrowed as he concentrated, running a set up clippers up the Denise’s nape and peeling away her soft brown pelt, leaving behind almost nothing in their path. It reminded Cara of the summertime crewcuts her brothers used to get, save for the relatively longish mop atop her friend’s head.

Cara retook her place at Rebecca’s station, and Rebecca pinned her remaining hair up out of the way as she put the cape back in place, this time tightening it around her neck as she fastened it in place. She let Cara’s hair down, letting it fall around her shoulders as she combed it out. Cara couldn’t believe how short it was already, shorter than she’d had it since middle school or maybe even longer. But she still looked like a teenager trying to play dress up; it was the same style senior girls got in high school to proclaim that they were now young women.

No one believed them then, and no one would believe Cara now. At least not yet.

“How are we feeling?” Rebecca asked. She began pinning sections of Cara’s hair up, baring her ears and shoulders once again.

“Nervous,” Cara replied as her head was tilted down. Rebecca’s comb teased her neck, and then the stylist’s warm, gentle touch replaced the teeth of the comb, pinching and lifting the loose locks away from Cara’s nape and replacing them with nervous goosebumps.

Cara knew if she wanted to save the remains of her ponytail, she had to speak up n—

Rebecca’s blades crunched softly through Cara’s hair — not loudly as when they stole away her ponytail, but softly and gently. The comb teased Cara’s neck again, and then Rebecca’s fingers, and then more soft crunching that trimmed away Cara’s “little girl” hair. As Rebecca let more hair free from the clips atop Cara’s head, her fingers were no longer touching her nape when they cut and chopped. Cara was of two minds for that — she certainly wouldn’t have minded Rebecca’s continued touch, but she wasn’t sure she could handle the cropped style that would have resulted. This was already big for her. Heck, it was huge. She couldn’t imagine what people would think, what they would say. Cara, who’d always had the long, tumbling mane of golden blonde suddenly having a short, short…

Cara’s eyes widened when Rebecca took hold of the locks on the left side of her head and sheared them away level with the corner of her jawline…

…suddenly having really, REALLY short hair!

“Oh my,” she gasped.

Rebecca looked at her in the mirror, raising one eyebrow. “Is everything okay?”

“I..I didn’t realize you meant that short when you said jaw length. I thought more… maybe mid-jaw?”

Rebecca gave another of her comforting shoulder squeezes. Were they patented? She should probably patent them. “Trust me. It’s going to look fabulous.”

Cara nodded, biting at her lip before she closed her eyes and felt Rebecca continue to work, so, so very close to her ears. Hairstylists weren’t supposed to work so close to people’s ears, at least not to Cara’s, and yet there she was, with every sharp, crunching snips of the shears sounding so very loud.

There was a barely-stifled squee, and Cara opened her eyes to see Denise’s reflection just behind her own, her hands clasped in front of her mouth and she bounced up and down. Her hair looked immaculate, as always, without any evidence of it having been cut at all save for when she turned her head to say something to the receptionist up front. That was when it became obvious what the clippers had done, shearing away almost all of the hair on her sides and at her nape, leaving just a few stylized lines angled this way and that peaking out from under her thick, luxurious swoop of dark brown locks.

Cara looked back to herself, hoping she could pull her new look off with so much confidence. The black cape ensconcing her held a massacre of shorn blonde locks, with more and more falling to join their fallen brethren. Inch after inch was sacrificed in the name of style and appearances, with Rebecca free longer sections from Cara crown and then shearing chunks away. She picked and snipped at the ends of each lock, rendering the edges just haphazard enough to look as though Cara had received the cut a couple of weeks ago, layering and thinning her massive mane almost as much as outright cutting it.

“What I love about your hair,” Rebecca said as she worked, combing forward Cara’s still-long bangs and slicing them away at about lip-length, “is that you have so much volume, you’ll barely have to use any product when you style it every morning. You have, like, no curl whatsoever, but you have more bounce than a pack of baby goats.”

“That is a really weird metaphor.”

Rebecca shrugged. “Doesn’t make it less true. She spun her scissors around in her hands, tucking their blades against her forearm, and ran her fingers back through Cara’s hair. Again, there were head rubs and Cara’s eyes closed all on their own as she leaned into the gentle touch.

When the touching stopped, Cara opened her eyes. Rebecca moved behind her, leaving Cara to see what had become of her hair — gone was the thick, heavy braid, and gone were the wild, windblown tresses she had walked in with.

Most importantly, gone was a teenage-like appearance she’d never been able to shake. In its place, was a refined, confident, young adult, a sharp looking woman with a beautifully rounded bob, shaped to hug her jawline and rise up from her nape without being shorn too close. It was a gorgeous symphony of layers, with sweeping bangs that threatened to hide her left eye and a mass of soft locks that rode the style’s volume to tease her right cheek.

The bangs begged you to notice her eyes, while the jaw-length locks demanded you pay attention to the perpetual pout of her lips.

“See?” Denise asked. “Was I right, or what?”

Cara grinned, and forced her genuine reaction down inside. “It’s not bad.”

Denise blinked. “Not bad?”

Cara couldn’t hold back her laughter, and, although she wished it hadn’t, it did in fact turn into a bit of a squeal. Once Rebecca pulled away the hair-strewn cape and flowered the floor with Cara’s former mane, Cara slid to the edge of the chair and shook her hair, squealing again when it fluttered back into place perfectly. She ran her hands up the nape of her neck, and although it didn’t have the same feel as Denise’s buzz, it just felt so amazingly different — a short, soft covering that erupted into a mass of silken lengths.

“I love it!” She finally blurted out. “Holy cow… I was really scared I’d look terrible.”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem,” Denise told her.

“Definitely not the case,” Rebecca insisted.

“Not even remotely,” Bradley assured her.

Even standing felt different, without the weight fo her long hair or the sensation of her locks swinging behind her when she turned around. It all really was gone — no more braids, no more ponytails or fun buns. Just… grown-up Cara, with a really bitching bob.

“I could really get used to this,” she told herself as she strutted toward the front to catch up with Denise. She reached for her wallet, but was quickly waved away by her friend.

“I’ve got this. You shouldn’t have to pay since you were set up,” she teased.

“Hardly necessary, but I’m not going to argue.”

Bradley caught her eye, his brown slightly furrowed. One eyebrow lifted in curiosity. “Set up?”

Should she explain? Eh, why not. “She made the appointment for me without telling me, and then suggested we leave whether I get my haircut to chance by seeing whether you guys could take a walk-in.”

He laughed. “So, you weren’t planning on looking this good when you woke up this morning?”

Cara’s blush hit her so hard she wasn’t even sure how to answer the question. After a long moment she did manage to shake her head, though. “No, I guess I wasn’t.”

Bradley looked to Denise, but it was hard to tell whether his expression was one of disbelief or admiration. “That’s absolutely diabolical.” He tapped the receptionist’s shoulder. The way her curls bounced as she turned to face him might have caused a bit of jealousy a few hours ago, when Cara was the girl with long, straight hair that couldn’t hold a curl like that, but… not so much anymore.

“Make sure to book Denise again soon,” Bradley told her as he glanced back toward Rebecca. “I think I might need to get her to teach me her ways.”

________

Hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you liked about it (if anything) — it could help with future stories.