“Oh my god, that’s him,” Kat says in a whispered squeal from beside me as I organize lipsticks on a shelf.
“Calm the fuck down, Kat,” I whisper under my breath at her, trying to play it cool. “He’s just a man. A man bringing in a client to get a makeover. That is all.”
“That is not a man, Abigail. That is a god,” she says, and her voice has gone dreamy in that boy-crazy way she has. I sigh and turn and see that he’s not even that close—eagle eyes just can always spot a hot man a mile away. He’s stalking toward the makeup section, a look in his eyes similar to determination, a middle-aged woman striding next to him. She’s blonde with dark roots growing out but dressed well.
I wonder if that’s Damien’s doing or from the wardrobe I’m sure she had with her ex.
But what’s more, is the yellowing bruise on her upper cheekbone.
It’s not swollen and not new, but I can see she tried to put something on top to cover it with little success.
Fuck.
My eyes move back to Damien, who seems to have spotted me—that determination in his eyes has morphed into strange happiness and ease.
That’s new.
It’s new to see a man—a man like Damien, specifically—look so at ease in this department. Most look around, confused and uneasy, hiding behind the security of whoever dragged them in here.
Not Damien.
“Hey,” I say when he’s within earshot. “Funny to see you here.” His lips turn up, and he rolls his eyes, but it’s not because he thinks I’m annoying. On the contrary, it’s like he’s in on the joke.
“Good to see you, rubia,” he says then takes another step forward and, to all my surprise and shock, drags me into him, hugging me in front of everyone.
It’s thoughts like that—the pure fact that this move is so shocking to me—that make me wonder how the fuck I put up with Richard for so long.
Richard would refuse to show me any form of physical affection that wasn’t absolutely necessary in public. It was uncouth, he’d tell me. Unnecessary. These days, I wonder if he just didn’t want me to further taint his image. He was already stooping so damn low.
God, how was I so stupid and blind to his shit?
“Abigail, this is Sharon, my client,” he says, stepping back and putting a hand on the small of her back.
“Abbie. You can call me Abbie. Damien is way too formal. I’m so happy you’re here!” I say, putting on my most bubbly customer service voice. She gives me a smile, but it’s forced, stretched, and uncomfortable.
We’ll have to fix that.
“Nice to meet you,” she says, and the words are quiet. I turn to Damien.
“This is my best friend, Kat,” I say, motioning to her. With her gorgeous Latina curves, siren-worthy eyes, and caramel highlighted dark hair in crazy curls down her back, I almost panic that Damien will look at her and question why he’s with me.
He’s not with you, Abbie. He’s been on one date with you, and it’s mostly just because you have a plan to follow through with.
It’s the mostly part that should scare me. That even in my subconscious, I can’t say the only motivation is my petty revenge.
“Nice to meet you, Kat,” he says and politely puts his hand out, which Kat shakes. But while she smiles at Damien, her head almost instantly turns to mine, smiling even bigger with wide eyes.
“Jesus, Kat. He’s not blind. He can see you,” I say, and Damien laughs. Even Sharon throws a giggle out there. I shake my head before turning back to the all-important lawyer and key to my revenge.
“Okay, you leave. How long do I have?” I ask, staring at him pointedly.
“We need to leave here by one; court is at two.” I look at my watch and smile. I should have known Damien would somehow give me the perfect amount of time. I have over an hour with this beautiful woman.
“Got it. Go wander the mall. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” He salutes me, and fuck, it’s cute. This man, who I’ve been told for years is straight-laced and a hard ass and always working, is saluting me.
“Hey, Kat, let me get your number too, in case I can’t reach Abigail,” he says, turning toward my best friend, and everything in me crashes.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Kat says, turning wide eyes to me before reciting her number.
There it is.
Any guilt I felt for using this man to get mine is gone as he blatantly hits on my best friend in front of me, getting her number.
“Okay, I’m out,” Damien says, waving at us. “Make sure you make that bag like I asked, yeah?” he asks, indicating the bag of makeup he’ll purchase for Sharon when I’m done. I nod and give him a tight smile, and Damien’s eyebrows furrow in the smallest, almost unnoticeable way before he nods slightly and turns away, pulling out his phone to make a call.
Kat, Sharon, and I all stand for a few moments, staring at one another before I clap and put on a happy customer service smile. “Okay! Let’s have some fun,” I say then lead Sharon into my chair before running to get some supplies.
A few minutes later, I have a stack of products ready to start and a mirror situated across from Sharon. I’ve explained to her how the primer works to grip makeup and that if she has questions, to have me stop and explain. I want her to leave here feeling completely confident, not just for today, but for any other future court dates.
“So is it okay to . . . put something on this?” I ask, pointing in the mirror at the yellowed bruise. It’s the elephant in the room, but not the first one I’ve seen. It just might be the first where I know the true source of the blemish rather than a made-up story. Sharon smiles at me, a tight, uneasy thing, before nodding.
“Got it. I’ll be gentle.” Then I show her different concealers. We go over the different ways to cover dark circles (she laughs and says her two kids gave her those), blemishes (stress, she told me), and other . . . discoloration.
I stay away from the topic of the bruise, of the trial, of anything but fun, girlish makeup information. Over time working with people, I’ve learned when to push, when to ask questions, and when to let my client sit in their own thoughts. As I’m swatching out different foundations, though, she speaks.
“Damien has been a lifesaver,” she says, and I pause briefly, not even long enough for her to register it, before continuing to move and check colors.
“Oh?” I say. A makeup artist doesn’t have the same reputation for being a therapist as a bartender or hair stylist. Still, when you’re in someone’s face for a full hour, learning their biggest insecurities about the things they can’t easily change, it’s easy for people to feel comfortable talking with you.
“I didn’t have high hopes. I actually started this . . . process a year ago. Slowly saving up money, moving things to friends’ houses. I knew before things got . . . bad that I needed to get out. For my girls.” I nod but don’t look up.
If she wants to talk to me, I want her to feel as comfortable as possible doing so.
“I sent out inquiries for help to so many lawyers. But my husband—ex-husband—he’s got pull. He’s got money. So in a way, it looks like I have that too. It disqualified me from a lot of the pro bono stuff, and I just don’t have the money for a good lawyer. And with how much pull my ex has . . . I needed a talented lawyer.”
“I’m sorry,” is all I can say, dotting the foundation to her skin.
“It started with words,” she says, a whisper. It takes everything in me not to show her words impacting me, not to pause in the stippling of makeup on her skin. I don’t want her to stop, so I don’t stop working. “Nothing too crazy. Comments on my weight and how I dressed. Nothing . . . Nothing was good enough.”
My mind moves to Richard, to him asking me to change an outfit or implying I’d look better as a brunette. Commenting on my weight, comparing me to other women.
Nothing was good enough.
“Then it was financial. I had an allowance, but barely. He’d ask for itemized receipts, wanted to know where every cent was going.” My stomach churns. “I never thought . . . I never thought it would come to this.” Her hand lifts, and she points at her face loosely. “I just knew I didn’t want my girls to live like that, to think it was normal.”
“That’s admirable,” I say and decide to tell her I can relate to her story. “I have an older sister. She basically raised me. Our mom was . . . not as strong as you.” I don’t need to tell her that my mom was a drunk who was never home and my dad was a cheater. She doesn’t need to know that he left her for another woman and she blamed it on us. It doesn’t matter at the end of the day. To empathize with someone, you don’t need to have lived the same story. “I wish she were. Things could have been different.”
A small smile graces Sharon’s lips, and it’s pretty when it’s comfortable. She’s pretty. “That’s good to know. Thank you for telling me that. Sometimes . . . you wonder if you made the wrong choice. Should I have just dealt with it and then they wouldn’t be dragged through custody and divorce proceedings? Seeing their mom with a bruise? Hearing that I’m pressing charges against their father? They never saw the bad, so it must have been a shock for them . . .” Her voice trembles with her words, breaking my heart.
“The way I see it, you’re showing them to be strong,” I say, leaning to grab a brush to blend the dots. “My mom never showed us what a healthy relationship looked like. My sister—she got lucky. Found a good man who fought for her and treated her like literal gold.”
“And you? Damien seems amazing.” I laugh.
“Believe it or not, we’ve only been on one date,” I say with a smile, leaning back as she tips her head back and laughs, full.
“No way! I thought it was a serious thing when he talked about you on the way here.” I look over at Kat, who listens with a curious ear and whose eyes have gone wide.
“Nope. Brand new. We met on a dating app a few weeks ago.” I add different shades of products, using them to create highlights and contours. “But before him, I had a boyfriend for a long time.” I go quiet as I decide how much to share with this stranger, and so does Sharon. She gives me the same courtesy that I gave her, and I think at this moment, I realize that, in a way, I am like her.
I’m recovering from four years of living in a dreamland that was really a nightmare, and I’m learning how to live with that knowledge. Learning how to be me again. Who “me” even is.
“He didn’t hit me,” I say and pause, feeling weird. Sharon must notice, must understand, because she reassures me.
“Just because it wasn’t flesh on flesh doesn’t mean it’s not painful,” she says. I look at her, and her eyes are locked to me and watering. It’s like she knows without words. She smiles that tight smile you give people when you want to hold back emotions but also want them to know you understand.
“He . . . wasn’t kind. I thought he was. And it took me until recently to realize I lost a big part of myself when I was with him. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.” I look up to see Kat’s eyes on me, watering as well, and goddammit, this is not how it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a fun afternoon for a sweet woman before a shitty moment in court. “I got lucky. He ended things. But I think if he hadn’t, I could have been lost to the world forever. I’m coming back to myself now, slowly. But I think if I’d had someone like you? A mom who showed me how a strong woman acts? It would have been sooner.”
I turn my back to Sharon and Kat, pretending to grab something and use a cotton ball to dab at her watering eyes.
“God, okay, my shit is not even close to what you’re living with,” I say with a watery laugh as I turn. “You came here for makeup, and it’s turning into a trauma dump! You must think I’m insane. I was just trying to say . . . I guess . . . your girls are lucky.” I start to sweep blush on her cheeks, but a soft hand on my wrist stops me.
“Don’t downplay it. I can see a kindred soul. Your own experience is not less because mine was more.” I smile at her, and for a moment, I see it. I see how if things hadn’t ended, and I’d married Richard and had children with him, there is a chance I’d be like Sharon. Maybe not the physical aspect—Richard has never been violent—but the financial abuse . . . Definitely the verbal abuse.
He did me a favor, in some ways, by letting me go when I wasn’t strong enough to do it myself.
After that, we talk about fun stuff—she tells me about her girls and what they’re into, and I tell her all about the small, petty acts that Kat, Cam, and I have been doing to make Richard’s life hell. Sharon laughs and then adds a few ideas of her own, like ordering a bunch of pizzas to his office under his name and making him pay for the office that he doesn’t like much to eat.
About ten minutes later, I text Damien when I’m done with Sharon, setting up a bag full of samples and the essentials Damien insisted he buy her. While I worked on her, Kat ran off with sizes to use our store discount and grab some clothes for her and a few outfits for her girls.
Me: She’s all ready for you,” the text read.
“On my way,” he replied, and then five minutes later, he was in front of me with a tray of coffee.
“Here, Sharon,” he says, handing a cup to his client. “And Kat—pumpkin spice.” Another white cup with a green logo is handed to my best friend, but he’s smiling at me, and my mouth is slightly ajar with confusion. “And for you, rubia. White chocolate mocha.” He hands me the third cup in the tray, the biggest one, and smiles at me.
“What’s this?” I ask, confused.
“Coffee.”
“Why are you bringing coffee?”
“You like coffee. This is your order, right?” he asks, looking at me confused.
It is.
It’s what I ordered the morning after our date.
“Yes.”
“I texted Kat asking hers.” Confusion and understanding and a really unsettling hint of relief flow through me.
He got her number to get her goddamn coffee order.
Not because he’s an ass who hits on my hot friend in front of me.
Lord, I really am a complete disaster healing from major relationship trauma.
Kat just smiles, leaving a lipstick mark on the mouth of her cup before tipping it up at me with a wink.
I glare back at her. She could have at least let me know.
“Hate to do this, but we really gotta get going. Sharon, you look gorgeous. Not that you didn’t before,” Damien says. “But now I can see you feel gorgeous, too.” He turns to me. “See? It’s not just makeup, rubia.”
God, he gets it, doesn’t he?
It’s not just makeup. It’s never just makeup. It’s confidence, a badge of honor, a shield from the world.
Richard never got it, not in four years. And he sure as fuck never tried.
“Thank you,” Sharon says, grabbing the bag and stepping toward the exit. “And thank you, Abbie. For everything. I hope . . . I hope I get to speak with you again soon.”
“Bring the girls! I’ll do a makeover on them. Something simple, of course. Lip gloss and clear mascara, blush. But we can have a mall day! My treat!” I say.
“They would love that,” Sharon says with a nod and a smile before writing her number on a business card I keep on my chair.
“Shoot, wait, before you go—I asked Kat to get this together for me,” I say, reaching behind the counter and handing a big, overloaded bag to Sharon.
“What is this?”
“Clothes. For you and for the girls. Just a few outfits to make you guys feel like the rock stars you are,” I say and smile. She looks confused.
“That’s so nice, really, but I can’t—” she starts, about to argue the price, I’m sure.
“Employee discount. A perk of working here. I get stuff for all my nieces and nephews, and I just got two more nieces today,” I say with a smile, deciding then and there that Sharon is now part of my giant, confusing, crazy family. Her eyes start to water.
“I can’t—”
“I’ll pay,” Damien says, interrupting.
“Nope, I already did,” I say with a smile. This one is less friendly and more devious, and fully pointed at Damien.
“Then I’ll pay you back,” he says, and the look he gives back to me runs a bolt of heat through my body.
This fucking man.
“Nope.” I smile, and his eyes narrow, and I can almost read his thoughts in his eyes. Thoughts about how he’d like to turn me over his knee or squeeze that hand he loves to wrap around my throat.
“Abigail.”
“Damien,” I say in a chiding tone.
“I’m paying,” he insists, and it’s clear that he is rarely questioned.
Unfortunately for him, the old Abbie is slowly returning, and she rarely listens to what others tell her to do.
“I already did. Nothing you can do about it. I used my discount, so it wasn’t even that much.” Sharon looks between us, head moving like she’s watching a tennis match, but Kat just stands there shaking her head, smiling.
“You’re trouble, aren’t you?” he asks with a hint of frustration, but there’s a smile on his lips as he shakes his head at me.
“The good kind,” I say with a smile, and I can’t help but wonder, not for the first time, if I’m making a wrong choice.
I wonder if this could be something good if he wasn’t a pawn in my game.
He’s not looking for something serious, I remind myself. If he was looking for something serious, for love or a relationship, that would be one thing. But he’s not. So what does it even matter?
He pulls me into his arms, and when I breathe in his scent, that guilt hits me again, quickly tamed by the quiet peace that flows through me when he kisses me.
Because quickly, he does just that. A peck on the lips, something small and sweet, but a kiss nonetheless.
In front of a client.
In front of my friend.
In the middle of the makeup department in Rollard’s.
I freeze.
“I can’t show you affection in front of my friends, Abbie,” Richard once told me when we were fighting in the car after a night out. “It’s weak. And I’m not a weak man.”
And here is a near stranger kissing me in broad daylight in front of his client without a hint of shame or embarrassment.
When the kiss breaks, I see Sharon and Kat smiling hugely at me, with Sharon giving me a thumbs up alongside the genuine smile.
See? Makeup does wonders.
“Thank you,” Damien whispers against my lips. “For everything. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah. Keep me updated on the case?”
And in the same way I was shocked by his kiss, I think my words shock him because his head moves back just a tiny bit before he smiles.
“Got it. Will do.”
