Salon
"I shouldn't be doing this."
"Enjoy it," Blake said as the woman sitting across from him gently picked up his hand and began smoothing down the tops of his nails with the buffer.
In the last seven months, he'd made a habit of getting his hair cut while stylists dyed and trimmed hers in the next chair over. It was easier to kill two birds with one stone. The coincident nail appointments were new though. After spending the weekend volunteering with Matt at Victory Gardens, he had decided that a maintenance manicure wouldn't hurt.
"I have so much to do, Blake."
Keeping up with her beauty regime had proved to be a hassle. Her hair salon was in Adams Morgan, and although they offered manicures and pedicures too, she preferred to have her nails done by Lucy in NoMa. The real killer, though, was the Bethesda spa she'd become a regular at since the move… The drive alone was thirty minutes.
He watched as his nail technician used a metal tool to push back his cuticles.
Maintaining the honey blonde of her hair was his first priority. Her roots came in dark, and they came in fast, so those appointments were scheduled like clockwork. He tried to get her to the nail salon as often as he could. Lately, he hadn't been so lucky in finding the time, but they had an event tonight and yesterday he'd noticed that her nail beds were looking a bit dull.
"And an hour will be spent doing this," he said.
Elizabeth's lips pulled to the side as her head turned back to her table.
"The last thing I should be doing is pampering myself."
He stayed silent as Kelly grabbed a small bottle of nourishing oil from a drawer.
"You know Henry would never do this with me."
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Henry isn't even the slightest bit gay." He arched a brow. "Is he?"
When she chuckled, he turned his head fully.
"I'm afraid not."
He would have commented, but he'd moved on from his disappointment to the bottle of nail polish that sat near Lucy's desk lamp.
"Don't act like I don't see that blue there."
"It's for my toes."
He frowned. "You're not getting a pedicure. I'm the one who scheduled the appointment, remember?" His eyes returned to his own hands. "No blue," he said firmly.
"You're no fun."
He was willing to put up with the less than kind words if it prevented her from being picked on in the papers. The last thing they needed was a reporter making a comment about her appearance. He seemed to be scarred after reading the article (and the many tweets) about Victoria Manson's "unkempt hair." She'd eventually withdrawn from the race in Iowa's fourth congressional district after a handful of news outlets zeroed in on her choice of clothing style.
"Politicians, especially candidates, have a certain look to maintain, Jim," said a guest speaker on MSNBC.
Although Elizabeth didn't like the label, she was in fact a politician, or, at the very least, ran in the same circles.
Victoria had taken to princeton orange maxi skirts, often paired with fuchsia espadrilles and lavender nail polish.
He wouldn't let that be Elizabeth.
"What about OPI's Tiramisu for Two?" He'd spotted it while mindlessly browsing the shelves. "It has a hint of pink." It would pop just enough on her skin tone.
Elizabeth sighed. "It would complement my dress for tonight, wouldn't it?" She asked after Lucy had shown her the polish.
The corners of his lips turned up.
As Kelly painted a clear topcoat over his nails, he stayed quiet, taking a few minutes to relax. Somedays his to-do list was longer than Elizabeth's, and with tonight's dinner, this would probably be one of the few chances he would have to sit back and take a breath.
"You're booked with Madison up in Bethesda in two weeks."
He thought he'd tell her now, so she didn't fuss about it when they headed up to Maryland on an inevitable busy Wednesday afternoon.
"Will you join me then too?"
His eyebrows jumped towards his hairline before he glanced over to her table.
"I don't need a bikini wax."
Her face broke out into a smile, and she must have caught that bit of fear in his eyes because she began to laugh.
She liked to tease.
"How about your upper lip? It'll save you about two weeks of shaving."
He shook his head as his lips parted.
He preferred razors to hot wax, though, he was speaking from no experience with the latter.
"I think I'll pass, Ma'am."
He'd heard getting facial hair waxed off wasn't painful, but he didn't trust a woman's opinion when it came to something that was contingent on a person's pain tolerance… They were in fact the ones who pushed another human being out of their bodies.
"Too bad," Elizabeth mumbled.
"You like to see me in pain, don't you?" He asked as Kelly screwed the top on the bottle of nail polish.
Elizabeth laughed.