Page 29 of Wild Infatuation (Rebel Rockstars #3)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Terrance

THE WHOLE WORLD FEELS desaturated. I return to my normal life, but it’s like I’m living in black and white.

The reporters stop bugging me at the salon.

My DMs calm down, though I spend far less time in my Discord group than I used to.

It’s too painful to try to join in with everyone talking excitedly about Baptism Emperor’s new single.

The mere mention of the band sends a needle through my heart.

I hear nothing from Shawn, not that I expect otherwise.

The band does reach out to me at some point, but Shawn is missing from the meeting at Rainier Talent Management with Seth and their scary manager, Emmett.

They hear out my side of the story, and they don’t seem to hate me.

They even send me away with a signed (except for Shawn) copy of the upcoming single, though I can’t bring myself to listen to it.

The worst part is having all my regulars at the salon become aware of what happened. I give Cindy her normal trim, but I can tell she’s burning to ask me about Shawn and the band. Thankfully, she’s one of my less talkative clients, so nothing but the snip of my scissors interrupts my concentration.

If she doesn’t ask, someone else will, though.

It’s already happened once, and Penelope swooped in to diffuse the situation, but I can’t count on her to shield me from this every time. The world knows, and they have questions about how an ordinary cosmetologist carried on a secret affair with a rockstar.

The bell at the front door jangles while I’m working.

A murmur ripples through the shop, but numb as I’ve been these past several days, I ignore it.

If it’s anything to do with me, the girl at the desk will tell me.

Cindy, however, picks up on the muttering and turns toward the door while I’m still cutting.

I ask her to face forward, but she doesn’t move, and her mouth is hanging open.

I’m half worried this is a medical emergency, but then Penelope calls my name.

“Terrance… Terrance, please stop what you’re doing.”

“Seriously?” Things were just getting back to normal. This better be g—

My scissors freeze in mid-air. My mouth falls open like Cindy’s. And we’re far from the only people gaping. The entire salon has pivoted to stare at the door.

Shawn is standing there.

The rest of the salon vanishes. For an instant, there’s only us, a glowing path connecting me to the tattooed, pierced rockstar frozen at the front of Saluxe.

“I need a trim,” he says.

It takes a beat before I can make sense of his words. My brain chugs like a rusty old engine. I shake myself out of a stupor, glance flicking between Shawn and Cindy.

“I have a client.”

“It’s okay. I’ll wait.”

And he does. He sits in the plastic chairs by the doors and picks up a magazine like every other customer. The others gawk at him, but Seth stands at Shawn’s side, a tower of muscle in all black, and no one dares say a word.

Somehow, I return to Cindy. I catch her wide eyes in the mirror, but my expression is no better. My fingers tremble around my scissors. My brain is going a million miles an hour. Yet somehow I continue cutting her hair, trying not to think of anything else until I finish her trim.

When I take off her cape, she turns to me and pats my shoulder.

“Good luck,” she says quietly.

The salon goes through the motions. The girl at the counter rings up Cindy’s trim.

I sweep up stray hairs. Penelope and the other cosmetologists continue working with their clients.

But the strangeness of this moment hums under all of it like static from a broken radio, and renders the whole scene strange and dream-like.

It’s like being an actor in a play, going through the motions while knowing none of this is real.

I finish sweeping, and Shawn heads toward me, Seth a respectful but pointed distance behind him. Shawn stops beside my chair, swallowing as he meets my eyes.

“Are you willing to do my hair?” he says. “It’s okay if you aren’t.”

I don’t think I can possibly talk, so I nod, gesturing for him to sit.

He does, and I fasten the cape around his neck, fingers brushing against his skin.

The incidental contact sends shivers of heat up my arms. For all that he’s hurt me with this recent misunderstanding, my body remembers those nights we spent together.

Strangely, that actually serves to ground me.

Even as I sink my fingers into his hair to gather it and clip it out of the way, the hurt of Shawn pushing me away knocks me out of my stupor and back into reality.

He hasn’t spoken to me since the day he accused me of ruining his band’s music video.

Not a damn word. Not a text. He didn’t even show up to the meeting the rest of the band attended.

I’ve gotten nothing but silence, yet here he is appearing out of the blue to ask me to do his hair.

Yet I said yes. Maybe I’m a fool. Maybe I’m a sucker. Maybe I’m too soft, too forgiving, too optimistic, but I want to believe this is more than a haircut. I want to give him a chance.

After all this, I still believe in him.

I pin his hair up high to expose his shaved sides, then get my clippers.

I have to brace a hand against his head in order to start cleaning up the shave.

The place where the long hair meets the shave is the messiest, but I clean it up with quick swipes of the clippers, leaving him with a straight, perfect line.

Then I move to the other side, repeating the whole procedure, focusing on the work so I don’t get lost in touching him.

The salon churns back to life around us, other clients chatting quietly, probably about us.

I try to keep my hands moving, but the whole world is warping around me, like I’m looking at it from the other side of a rain-streaked window.

Just days ago, he pushed me away because he thought I’d revealed him to the world.

I didn’t, not on purpose, but this stunt will certainly confirm what the entire internet has been chattering about.

I put away my clippers and let his hair down, combing my fingers through it.

I spray some water on it and brush it straight, as I would for any other client, but of course he isn’t any other client, and before I can do more than pick up my scissors with the intent of trimming his ends, I finally break.

“Shawn, what the hell are you doing here?”

I speak to his reflection, so I catch the flinch of his eyebrows drawing closer. A muscle in his jaw flexes as he apparently grinds his teeth, but I don’t back down. He’s the one who burst into my workplace with no warning; he’s the one who owes an explanation.

I spoke quietly, and he does the same, as though we’re alone. “This isn’t a phase,” he says.

I scrunch up my eyebrows in confusion. “I never thought it was a phase. You were pretty damn clear, actually. I never doubted you actually wanted to see me. Is that what you think?”

“Not you,” he says cryptically, and doesn’t elaborate. “I…” He gathers himself with a visible effort, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “I’m sorry.”

The catch in my throat reveals how much those words mean to me, how fervently I’ve been waiting to hear them.

“I’m sorry for pushing you away like that,” he says. “I was wrong. I freaked out. I thought I ruined things for the whole band. I thought wanting you messed things up for everyone. It wasn’t fair to you, and I should have handled it without making it sound like your fault.”

My instinct is to console him, but I don’t. Because actually, he does owe me this apology, and I’m going to let myself accept it.

“The band explained,” I say. “They told me everything, and we figured out that someone must have overheard something and ran with it. I could have been more careful, but I never set out to hurt or expose you. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know.”

He looks down, unable to face even my reflection.

After a moment, he jerks out of the chair, spilling stray hairs on the chair and floor.

Shawn whips off the cape and leaves it on the seat, not caring about the way his hair tumbles down his neck unrestrained.

He’s taller than me, but the trepidation in his eyes makes him feel small when he stands before me, close enough that he can soften his voice even more.

“I fucked this up in so many ways,” Shawn says.

“I could tell you it’s because every single boyfriend I’ve ever had cheated on me, or explain that my dad was an asshole who told me my sexuality was a phase, but it doesn’t really matter.

I’m the one who screwed this up, when all I had to do is trust you. ”

It hurts to hear about those boyfriends, about his father, but I don’t pry for details. This isn’t the time or place.

“I’m sorry those things happened to you,” I say, “and I definitely want a longer explanation some day. I knew you were scared of … of this, but I never understood why. I thought maybe rockstars are just … kind of private.”

He issues one sharp, harsh chuckle. “My bandmates think I’m an idiot.

Keannen and Jacob have certainly never bothered to hide who they are.

This was never about that. It was about…

When that first boyfriend cheated on me, my father said it was because I’m …

I’m going through a phase. It’s not real. That’s why he chose a girl over me.”

I cringe. “That’s awful.”

“Sure, but it’s no excuse. Look, I…” He shakes his head at himself, as though there’s too much to say and too few words to say it in.

“I didn’t come here for any of that stuff.

The music video is premiering tomorrow. There’s a big party or something that Emmett planned.

I want you to come with me. As my date.”

I blink. This whole thing has been a roller coaster, but this moment is even more turbulent than the rest.

“Your date?”

“My date.”

“There will be cameras everywhere.”

“Yeah,” he says, and there’s so much infused into that single syllable.

I gaze into his eyes, searching for deception, searching for the Shawn who keeps running from me. His dark eyes are steady as stone. He might be scared, but he isn’t confused, he isn’t unsure. He wants me there with him, and the cameras aren’t going to stop him this time.

My scissors clatter to the floor. We have a hell of a lot more to discuss. He owes me a deeper explanation, but that’s the sort of thing that can happen in time. Right now, all I want is to kiss him.

And so, right there in front of the entire salon and all our confused, gaping customers, I leap into Shawn’s arms and kiss him until we’re gasping for air. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him against me, and his hands go to my waist, steadying me, holding me.

He owes me more, but maybe I’m just an optimist, because right now, I have complete faith that he’ll come through in his own time.