Page 53 of Jaked

Chapter 20

By the time we reached the hair salon – a twenty-minute drive away – I was absolutely famished. Stupidly, I'd completely forgotten to eat and was starting to feel light-headed. Then again, maybe it had nothing to do with food, and had everything to with Jake.

Sitting in the stylist's chair, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd learned.

The way it looked, Jake had tapped a gold mine. I never would've pegged him as the entrepreneurial type. He was too brash, too obnoxious, and way too reckless to build a stable anything. And yet, somehow he had.

At least one thing finally made sense. I now realized why he was famous to some people, and not to others. Except for the random viral video here and there, I almost never watched videos on-line. Neither did most of my friends.

I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd be watching a lot more of them from now on.

Carlie, my impromptu stylist, was just finishing up when Bianca appeared over my shoulder. She frowned at me in the mirrored reflection. "That's not what we talked about," she said.

For the last hour, Bianca had been on the far side of the salon, getting her own hair done. Unsurprisingly, it looked totally gorgeous – gathered in a thick mass high on her head, with long, styled tendrils framing her perfectly made-up face. 

I glanced in the mirror at my own hair. It wasn't nearly so elaborate, but it didn't look too bad. Under the stylist's care, my highlights practically shimmered, and my hair fell in soft waves around my face.

Bianca gave my stylist a sour look. "You were supposed to put it in a bun," she said.

Carlie, who'd been setting aside a spray bottle, paused in mid-reach. She said nothing.

So I did. "I know," I told Bianca, "but I wouldn’t let her."

Bianca's gaze narrowed. "You wouldn'tlether?"

It was true. The last thing I needed was a schoolmarm hairstyle to go with my schoolmarm dress. Enough was enough. "If I were going to wear my hair in a bun," I told Bianca, "I could have done that myself."

"Not as well as Carlie could." Bianca glanced toward the stylist. "Of course, that's assuming she can follow simple instructions, which I grant you, is debatable."

In the mirror, Carlie looked from me to Bianca. She opened her mouth, and then stopped short at a low rumbling sound that, embarrassingly, was coming from me.

"What wasthat?" Bianca said.

In unison, we all looked down toward my stomach. I slunk down in the chair and tried to become invisible.

"God, do youalwayssound like that?" Bianca said. "Do you have a medical condition or something?"

My face absolutely flaming, I lifted my chin. "No. I just didn't get the chance to eat. That's all."

"You can't be serious," she said. "What were you doing in the food court?"

"Nothing."

"Whatever," she said. "Forget it. At this point, I don't even want to know."

I was tired and starving, and yes, a little bit humiliated. "Good," I said, "because it's none of your business."

She drew back. "Excuse me?"

Facing off in the mirrored reflection, I studied Bianca's hair. "And why isn'tyourhair in a bun?" I asked.

"Because," she said, "I have my style. You have yours."

"Right," I said.

"What, were you expecting?" she said. "To go as twins?"

"You know what?" I said. "You've been giving me a hard time all day. And honestly, it's getting old."