Chapter 8

I have a hard time at the salon. I don't know where to look, what to talk about. Where to look when they talk to me.

Fortunately, Rose makes it a bit better because I've known her forever.

Today is new, though. I have something to look at. Someone.

I stare right ahead, facing the mirror, but my eyes follow Masen as he stands outside, the afternoon sun highlighting the copper in his short hair. It looks a different color depending on how the light hits him.

Something about the way he is just makes him so much more beautiful than his looks already do.

Masen has that je-ne-sais-quoi mixed in with darkness and allure.

He's staring at the screen of his phone, savoring the one cigarette Rosalie gave him, probably. Although Masen has a pretty impressive smartphone, I can't exactly imagine him being the social media type guy. Then again, I thought Alistair was the love of my life. I guess my people skills aren't all that great.

"You know I could use another extra set of hands, Bell." Rosalie's voice breaks through my obsessive staring. I know she wants me to work with her since we went to cosmetology school together. It used to be a dream of ours. Rose's violet, impressive eyes following my gaze to the man outside, and her smile drops.

"I guess Alistair finally went full-on nuts, hasn't he? A fucking bodyguard? To do what, exactly?" she rattles. "Fucking babysit you?"

Rose has never liked Al.

"What's next?" She goes on. "A damn curfew when we go out on Friday?"

My eyes widen, panic stirring awake from its little cat nap as my heart thunders until I feel dizzy.

I sip my espresso to avoid thinking about my anxiety too much right now and hope Rosalie hasn't noticed my behavior.

How could I forget?

I'm a little too late, my coffee cover-up entirely see-through. Rose has a flair for spotting bullshit. And lately, I've been full of that.

"Oh, my god…" Rose sighs. "You have got to be kidding me, Bell." She cocks her head to the side, a curtain of glossy blonde and pink sliding from behind her shoulders.

"I didn't forget," I try and save myself. I focus on the gold thread that makes up the embroidery on the cape Rose draped over me earlier. It spells the name of the brand she works with, and the letter 'L' is starting to fray from washing. "I just didn't realize that it was this Friday already. Time flies," I mutter.

"That it does…" Rose agrees. "Well, I'm glad you're not gonna flake on me, Bell. It would suck to not have the maid-of-honor at my bachelorette."

"I'd never abandon you like that."

Because I wouldn't.

"Hey, sweetheart?" Her voice drops, a hushed tone I'm not used to hearing from my outgoing, live-of-the-party best friend. Rose is anything but quiet and reserved.

I used to be like her.

Now I stare at the woman, wishing I had the balls to dump a guy and move on the way she has.

To move on is to grow. That's Rosalie's motto and God knows she's had to live by it often enough.

"Bell," she says again. Her voice is more urgent, and she's leaning over me, hands on my shoulders, hot and demanding. "What the fuck is this?"

My body grows as cold as a corpse, immobile like when rigor mortis sets in. I might as well be dead, seeing as my spitfire friend is currently shooting daggers at me right now.

If I was that mirror I'm sure I'd have shattered into a million little fragments by the way she's looking at me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I screwed up.

"Bell."

I blink a couple of times, time frozen and all sounds vanished from existence. All I hear now is the rapid and threatening pounding of my own heart, my breathing that's turned ragged and shallow.

"I—," I start. My voice is shaky, and I twist my hands underneath the cape, the pain of my nails digging into the skin of my palms taking my mind off other things that hurt.

"Why are you looking at me like you're gonna fucking vomit all over the place?" Rose crouches down, and I'm glad there's only one other woman here, sitting under a dryer. She can't hear, but she also doesn't seem interested, her eyes glued to a magazine that features a picture of one of the many Kardashians. I don't know which one it is, either. The lady is sitting too far away for me to see the details.

"Hey, Bell, honey."

Soft palms caress my arm through the polyester cape, the rustling of Rose's skin against the fabric soothing.

"Did he do that to you?" she nods to the man outside. Masen leans against the brick next to the big shop window, his large body seemingly more relaxed than when we left the manor earlier.

"What? No!" I bite angrily. I anxiously try and wrap the collar of the cape tighter to my neck, but Rose narrows her eyes and dumps her wide-toothed comb on her fuchsia wheeling cart.

"No, it's nothing," I try and play it off, trying to think of another lie. One she'll buy. "You know how it is when you kinda lose track of it all in the bedroom."

The lie tastes like acid, burning my tongue and demolishing my insides, making me want to curl up underneath the glossy, white tiles of Rose's salon.

The lie makes me want to dunk myself into boiling water as I stare up at my complexion, the faint bruising in the shape of Al's long fingers curling around my throat. His grip must've been tighter than it usually is because I've never had this kind of mark this soon.

Part of me hopes Rose will see through my lie, that she'll call me out on my bullshit and tell me she's gonna rip him a new one while she helps me pack up my stuff so I can stay with her.

There's another part of me, itching to tell my best friend the truth. But I can't burden her with it. Not right now, not when things finally started going her way for once, when she's found a guy and when she's going to get married next month. Not ever. Not when she doesn't find out herself.

I can't do that to her. It's not fair. Rose has had enough of bad shit happen in her life.

"Fuck, Bell…" Rose arches a pale brow, her full lips curved up into a wicked smile. "I thought Al was more a lights out, missionary type of guy," she muses, a frown on her face.

She angles my head up. It's like she's still not satisfied with my answer. Like she's digging for more than what I just conjured up.

"Mrs. Anderson, I have your stylist on the phone. He said he couldn't reach you?"

Saved by the giant.