“I’m trying to!”

“Get to the fucking point then!” he boomed back like an explosion, whatever control he had disappearing.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t think it was okay for a man to yell at a woman like that, but they were standing far apart and the woman was yelling like a damn crazy person, too. Her pitch was all shrieks and squeaks.

“I’ve been calling you over and over again—”

“Why the fuck would you expect me to answer?” he barked back. “I haven’t heard from you or seen you in three years. We agreed to go through our lawyers, remember that?”

To be fair, I had no idea what was going on and who was really at fault, but he had a point. If I hadn’t spoken to someone in so long, I more than likely wouldn’t answer the phone either.

But lawyers?

Lawyers, yelling at each other, his wedding ring… was this his wife? I’d been in enough relationships to know you didn’t yell at another person with so much hatred unless you’d slept with them at some point.

“Why would you see me? I told you before you left I was done,” the woman yelled back with so much emotion in her voice, I actually started to feel guilty for eavesdropping.

“Trust me, I knew you were done—not like you ever really started anything to begin with,” the man replied.

Yeah. Definitely his wife. Why else would they have lawyers and go so long without talking to each other?

And why would he still be wearing his ring after so long?

“What are you doing?”

I jumped and turned to glance at Louie who was standing on the other side of the screen door, looking at me. “Nothing,” I told him, taking the two steps over to open the trash can and put the bag inside like he hadn’t just caught me eavesdropping.

He waited until I was on the first step to ask, “You were listening to them, huh?”

“Me?” I made my eyes go wide as I opened the door and stepped inside as he backed up to give me room. “No. I’m not nosey.”

Louie scoffed. This five-year-old literally scoffed at me.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You think I’m nosey?”

Louie had already gone through his lying phase as a toddler, and even if he hadn’t, he knew I didn’t like it, and he didn’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings. Especially mine. But what he said next left me trying to figure out whether I should high-five him or be scared at how manipulative and sneaky he could be. He walked over to me and leaned against my leg with that beaming smile of his. “Wanna hug?”

Chapter Four

It was a sign of how much my life had changed over the course of the last few years that “going out” now consisted of me changing into skinny jeans and a cute top. Years ago—a damn lifetime ago—back when I was younger and dumber and had very few worries in the world, “going out” consisted of taking an hour or two to put makeup on, do my hair, and get dressed in something that would have had my mom asking herself where she’d gone wrong raising me. I’d even seen her doing the sign of the cross once or twice. “Going out” meant heading to some loud bar or club with overpriced drinks to get hit on by guys who manscaped religiously. It hadn’t been every night or weekend, but it had been enough.

Now…

Now, half my adult social experiences revolved around birthday parties and baseball practices. The only time my hair was done was when I had to work and that was only because that was my work. I’d mastered doing my makeup in five minutes. Time really was more valuable than money.

Well, now, looking at my boss, Ginny, who was dressed almost identical to me in jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, priorities had obviously changed.

We had agreed days ago that we should go out to celebrate the reopening of the salon. Saturday, we had promised each other because the salon was closed every Sunday. We’ll go out on Saturday. Her kids were with their dad, and Josh and Louie were with my parents this weekend. It had seemed like the perfect time to spend some quality time together.

What we hadn’t taken into consideration was how tired we were going to be after working a full day following a week of painting and moving furniture from one location to the next.

I had taken a chair at Shear Dialogue a little more than two years ago. Ginny and I had met through a mutual hair stylist friend, who knew she needed help and knew I was looking for somewhere else to work. We’d hit it off immediately. She had three kids, was a single parent in her early forties with a boyfriend, and had this no-bullshit attitude that sang to my own take-no-shit attitude, and the next thing I knew, I was moving the boys and myself from San Antonio to Austin. The rest was history.

But now that the day was here, we’d faced each other that afternoon and said the same thing, “I’m tired.” Which meant we both would rather go home and relax but weren’t going to because we were so busy we didn’t spend enough time together. Kids and relationships—hers, at least, she was getting married in a few months on top of everything—consumed a lot of energy. It was our unspoken agreement that we’d get a couple of drinks and head home before the nightly news came on.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked her as I reapplied deodorant in the middle of the salon. We’d locked up half an hour ago, cleaned the place, and took turns changing in the bathroom. It didn’t escape me that neither one of us bothered trying to fix up our hair after a long day of work. Some days I thought that if I had to touch more hair, I would vomit. I’d settled on more lipstick, and Gin had slapped on a little more blush and ran a brush through her shoulder-length, blood-red hair that I colored for her monthly.

She had her back to me as she… yep, adjusted her boobs, and said, “Are you fine with staying close to here?”

The look I sent her through the reflection of the mirror conveyed how stupid I thought her question was.

“Let’s go to the bar down the street then. It isn’t the fanciest place, but their drinks are cheap and my uncle owns it.”

“Deal,” I told Ginny. I was no snob. Close and cheap sounded like a plan.

Her uncle also supposedly owned the new building we had moved into. Located in a high-foot traffic side of town, across the street from a real estate company, popular tattoo parlor, and a deli, she couldn’t have gotten a better space for the salon. The dog grooming business two doors down from us had got me seeing money signs; I had tons of clients with dogs. Plus, it worked out even more in my favor because my new house was a short drive away.

And that was how we found ourselves, ten minutes later, standing in front of a bar walking distance from the salon. We’d been able to leave our cars in the same lot we left them for work, next to a big mechanic shop that her uncle also supposedly owned.

To be fair, Ginny had told me the truth. It wasn’t a fancy place. What she hadn’t warned me of was the fact it was a biker bar, if the row after row of motorcycles parked along the front of the street meant anything.

All right.

If she noticed my apprehension about going inside, Gin didn’t make a comment as she waved me toward the door. Fuck it. I only partially ignored the three men standing outside smoking and watching us a little too closely, but when I opened the heavy door to go inside, the simultaneous smell of cigarettes, cigars, and weed brutally assaulted my nose. My sinuses immediately started going crazy, and I had to blink a lot as the smoke made them burn.