Page 28 of Poison Touch

He hasn’t seen my hair either. I didn’t even tell him what I did. Taking the cowardly path, I deny his chat and call him back instead.

He picks up on the first ring. “What, are you naked or something? I’ve seen it all, Kins.”

“Or—or something,” I stammer.

Thankfully, he doesn’t push. “How was your day, babe? I want to hear all about it.”

I take a deep breath and then let it out in a long sigh.

“That bad, huh?”

“Listen, before we get to my hellish day, I need to tell you something first. You can freak out on me, and then we can try to have a normal conversation, okay?”

His voice suddenly tightens with worry. “What did you do? Are you a mother to a herd of baby ducks? Or plow down a granny crossing the street on your death mobile? Or worse, plow down a herd of baby ducks?”

I can’t help but laugh. “First off, I think it’s a flock of ducklings, not a herd, and second, my Ninja is not a death mobile.”

He ignores my argument. “You’re not denying any of those things.”

“No, I didn’t do any of those things.” In his eyes, what I did is way worse.

“Whew. Thank God, ‘cause you know?—”

“I did another thing!” I blurt out. “You won’t like it!” A breath. A sigh.

“Kins…”

Then, without wasting another second, I spew, “I dyed my hair black. Please don’t ask why. But I promise to tell you soon, okay? Just not today.” The other end of the line is unusually silent. “Luca, are you there?”

“Yeah.” Now, it’s his turn to let out a long breath. “So let me get this straight. You dyed your gorgeous, natural blonde hair to black, like the color of tar and bat wings, for some secret purpose you can’t tell your best friend about?”

I sound like the worst friend ever when he puts it that way. “Um, yeah… kinda,” I squeak out.

“There’s no kinda about it!” He abruptly hangs up on me.

Shocked, I glance at my phone. Luca has never hung up on me before. A few seconds later, his face flashes on the screen again. There’s no getting out of it this time. If I deny him this, he’ll make the forty-five-minute drive to see me and give me hell in person. I press the accept button.

The moment the connection is made, he demands, “Take it off!”

Reluctantly, I slide the towel from my damp hair. His eyes bulge out of his head. His mouth opens and closes like a fish, opens once more, and then he covers it with his hand. An ear-splitting shriek threatens to blow out the tiny speaker of my phone.

I run my fingers through the long strands, remaining silent until he calms down from having his freak-out. The background of his room becomes a blur as he paces the length of it back and forth.

I tighten the towel around my breasts, tucking the corner into the top. “Luca?—”

“Don’t. Just don’t speak for a moment…or two …or three.”

I clamp my mouth shut as he takes in the change and tries to process why the hell I would ruin my natural blonde hair.

He wipes his brow, then finally speaks. “Kins, I love you. You know this. No matter what your reason is for decimating your hair, I will continue to love you. But why? Just tell me that. Why?”

I can’t—not yet. And as much as he’s going to hate me, I admit as much. “Okay, since I can’t tell you the truth...yet, I’m going to lie… I wanted a change.”

Luca squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them, his gaze softens. “Kins, girl, I know you’ve been through hell these pastfew months, and I understand some of your decisions in those months haven’t been exactly, well, you know… smart. Like when you raced your bike in that chicken fight against that oncoming semi, where you could have died, or when you used your fake I.D. to buy enough booze to die of alcohol poisoning ten times over, just so you could forget, or when?—”

“I had to,” I interrupt. “This is for a bigger cause?—”

“This has to do with your dad, doesn’t it? What, to settle a score or something? Retribution?”