How to Get Ainsley Bishop to Fall in Love With You (13 page)

The woman snorted. “Yeah, like the explorer, but I don’t speak Spanish, I wouldn’t be caught dead in that haircut, and I can’t find my way around town without a GPS, so that’s where the resemblance ends.” She leaned against the wall next to the mirror and looked me up and down. “So you’re the genius my niece is always going on about.”

“I am not!” Ainsley shrieked, before meeting my eyes in the mirror and lowering her voice. “I am
not
. I just told her what you said about college, and she agreed. That’s why she thinks you’re a genius. She thinks
anyone
who agrees with her is a genius.”

Dora grinned. “And rightly so.”

“Anyway, as I was
saying
”—Ainsley glared at her aunt, who ignored her to examine her bright pink fingernails—“I’m
rethinking
the college issue, and I figure I should at least take the SATs. It doesn’t mean I’m going, but I guess I’m not ruling it out?”

“That’s . . . that’s really great. What changed your mind?”

She shrugged. “I’m not saying I’m going for sure. At least not anyplace too far away.”

Dora huffed in frustration. “You need to go live your life and quit letting you father and that boyfriend of yours guilt you into everything.”

Ainsley groaned. “Aunt Dora isn’t my dad’s biggest fan. Or Ian’s.”

“That boy will hold you back,” Dora said, reaching out to flip Ainsley’s hair over her shoulder. “And you’ve got more potential than to stay in this town and marry some car salesman and have a houseful of babies.”

“There’s nothing wrong with car salesmen. Or babies.”

“But that’s not what you really want!” Dora threw her hands in the air and turned to me. “You talk to her. You seem to be the only one she listens to!” She flounced off to the back room, pointy heels clicking against the linoleum. I noticed she’d taken Ainsley’s coffee with her.

“Sorry about that,” Ainsley said, getting back to my haircut.

“It’s fine.” I swallowed, searching for the right words in the glut of them clogging my throat. “She really doesn’t like your dad?”

Ainsley snorted out a laugh. “That’s putting it mildly.” She snipped a little more. “My parents didn’t have the best marriage. My dad wasn’t exactly faithful, and Aunt Dora is my mom’s sister, so . . .”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. And then she died in a car accident. Aunt Dora blames him, I think,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t really his fault, but she wouldn’t have been there if my parents were still together.”

“I’m . . . sorry.”

Ainsley shrugged and started cutting again. “I was only a little girl. I don’t really remember it.” She took a shaky breath. “Anyway, my dad has always relied on me a lot, especially since my grandma moved in with us. Aunt Dora thinks that he’s taking advantage—”

“That’s because he
is
taking advantage!” Dora shouted from the back room.

Ainsley ignored her. “And she thinks Ian’s just like him.”

“Look,” Dora said, poking her head out the door at the back of the shop, another cigarette between her fingers. “Have to get it out of my system before I open,” she said by way of explanation, waving the smoke away from her head. “I have nothing against the boy. This is not about him. Or about your father. It’s about
you
. You deserve to be happy, and deep down you know staying in this godforsaken town and marrying that boy is
not
what’s going to make you happy.” When Ainsley opened her mouth to respond, she added quickly, “And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject,” before disappearing back through the curtained doorway.

“Right, like that’s ever going to happen,” Ainsley muttered.

“I heard that!”

“I meant for you to!”

Ainsley traded her scissors for a set of clippers and set off cleaning up my neck. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to draw you into my drama. I just wondered if you’d mind helping me study for the SATs. I mean, I know you’re probably busy—”

“I’m not busy!” I kind of squawked. Sheesh, so much for playing it cool. I forced my shoulders to relax a little, even though I couldn’t look up while Ainsley shaved my neck. “I mean. I, uh, I’d be glad to help you out.”

“Really?”

I shrugged, the cape rustling. “Yeah, sure. Anytime.”

“Thanks, Oliver.” Ainsley fell silent. The only sound was the buzzing of the clippers. “Do you think she’s right?” she asked after a moment, turning the clippers off.

“What? You mean your aunt?” The hair was tickling my neck, but that wasn’t the only thing making me uncomfortable. “I, uh, I don’t know. I couldn’t really—”

“But what do you
think
?” Ainsley said, chewing on her lip. “Crap, I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?” She set the clippers down and reached for a fluffy brush, sweeping it over my neck. “I always do this. I never know when to stop—”

“It’s fine—”

“. . . always pushing people. I keep on
pushing
them—”

“Ainsley, it’s fine!” Before I could think better of it, I grabbed her wrist and stilled her frantic motions. “You’re not making me uncomfortable. I promise.”

Color dotted her cheeks, and she let out a heavy sigh. “You sure?”

I smiled. “Yeah. I’m sure. And I don’t know your dad, or Ian really, so I can’t say if your aunt is right about them. But . . .” I wasn’t sure if I was overstepping my boundaries.

“But . . .?”

Well, she asked. “But I do think you have the right to be happy, to choose the path that’s right for you.” I looked at her in the mirror and realized I was still holding her wrist. I released her, but she still held my gaze, eyes big and slightly damp.

“We’re young, you know?” I said. “And I think this time is about us, I don’t know, finding our way and making mistakes and becoming who we want to be, kind of? I don’t think it’s selfish to want that.” I cleared my throat, nervous about the rest. “And I think your dad should support that.”

“Damn straight!” shouted Aunt Dora.

Ainsley huffed out a half-laugh, half-snort. “I think you’ve won her over.”

I grinned. “I can be quite charming when I put my mind to it.”

Ainsley went back to brushing off my neck. “You make it seem so easy. You know who you are and what you want to be. And it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks or says because you just . . . do it.” She tossed the brush onto the shelf and turned to me, arms crossed over her chest. “I guess, I want to be more like you, in that way.”

Well, that was unexpected. I opened my mouth and closed it again, still trying to process this new information. Ainsley actually
admired
me. She wanted to be
like
me. Or at least the me she thought I was. I needed to be honest with her—set aside my goal to impress her and tell her the truth.

“It’s
not
easy,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, I try to act like it doesn’t bother me what people think of me. And most of the time, it doesn’t. I do know what I want for the future, and a lot of them”—I waved my hand toward the door, toward the outside world—“the Nathan McCallisters and guys like that who find pleasure in tormenting people like me? I know they’re not worth my time, in the grand scheme of things. They bring others down simply to make themselves seem strong. And the only reason they’d need to do that would be if they felt weak in the first place.

“But it’s no secret I don’t have many friends.” I looked away, not willing to risk seeing pity in her eyes. “It’s pretty much me and Viney. And my family. But they’re always there for me, and I guess that’s what makes
me
strong.”

I turned back to find her watching me carefully, eyes focused in concentration. Then she took a deep breath. “It’s not only Viney,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“Viney’s not your only friend,” she said. “You have me, too, Oliver.”

I blinked, my breath catching in my throat. “Thanks. I . . . uh. You have me, too, you know? If you want.”

A bright smile lit Ainsley’s face. “Of course I do.” She glanced toward the back of the shop. “Maybe you and Aunt Dora. Maybe you can be the ones who give me strength.”

My heart thudded in my chest. I couldn’t believe the turn the conversation had taken. Ainsley crossed behind me again and whipped the cape off my shoulders. “You’re all done,” she said. “And I did a great job, if I do say so myself.”

I ran a slightly trembling hand through my newly shorn hair, but I wasn’t quite ready for it all to be over yet. “Ainsley, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“If you could do whatever you wanted—I mean, if your dad and Ian weren’t an issue or whatever—what would you really want to do?”

She considered that, walking slowly to stand beside the mirror again and lean back against the wall. “Whatever I wanted?” When I nodded, she took a deep breath.

“I’m not sure. I’ve always liked to draw, I guess?” she said slowly, as if she was measuring my response, or maybe she hadn’t ever said it out loud before. “So I think maybe I’d like to do something with that. Not a painter or anything, but maybe graphic design?” She smiled, warming to the topic. “And I’d like to travel, see the world.”

I smiled, her enthusiasm catching. “Like where?”

“Everywhere,” she said with a laugh. “Like all the tourist places and jungles and beaches and ancient ruins, and the Seven Wonders of the World—”

“Which ones?”

“What?”

“There are several Seven Wonders,” I explained. “There are the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the Ancient ones, the Industrial ones. Oh, and the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. I think there are more . . .” It escaped me at that moment.

She blinked at me. “Of course you know that.” When I opened my mouth to respond, she said quickly, “All of them. I want to see all of them.”

“That’s a lot of Wonders.”

She smiled. “Well, you said whatever I wanted.”

I stood up and looked her in the eye, trying not to let my nerves show. “Then keep focused on the goal, Ainsley. If all that is what you really want, then go for it.”

“But how?”

“Start small,” I said. “Think of one place you want to visit and focus on that. If you think graphic design is what you want to do, see what schools have good programs and what you’d need to do to get in. Make a list, maybe.” I licked my lips, my heart pounding. “And don’t let
anyone
tell you that you can’t do it.”

Ainsley met my gaze, her cheeks pink and lips slightly parted. She seemed short of breath, frozen in place. She jumped a little at the approaching click of high-heeled shoes.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Aunt Dora said, stubbing out another cigarette on the way, “but it’s time to open, so clean up after yourselves, please?” She stopped and threw an arm around my shoulders, a blend of smoke and perfume wafting over me.

“I like this one,” she said to Ainsley. “Good head on his shoulders. Nice teeth, too.”

“Oh my God,” Ainsley muttered, her blush deepening as a hand flew up to cover her eyes. I knew how she felt.

“I’m just saying!” Aunt Dora squeezed my shoulders once before releasing me to click her way over to the front door.

“Sorry about that,” Ainsley said, grabbing a broom to sweep up my hair.

“It’s fine,” I said, folding up the cape. “I told you I’m charming.”

Ainsley looked up briefly before returning to her sweeping. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” she said.

I was wrapping up the cord on the clippers and somehow managed to keep from dropping them on the floor in surprise.

It wasn’t bad.

It was different, but it wasn’t bad.

I tweaked the top, where the gel had stiffened a bit, as I examined Ainsley’s work a little closer in my bathroom mirror. I looked kind of like I belonged in a boy band, but even I could see it was a definite improvement from my trademark style of shaggy . . . no-style.

I shrugged out of my hoodie and did my daily search for muscle tone. My arms were looking better, a little definition along the edges if you squinted just right, and—I lifted my shirt and tensed—well, maybe not a six-pack, but there was a . . . line down the middle? Kind of faint, and it disappeared when I relaxed, but I figured it was a start.

“You should lock the door,” a voice said, and I whirled around to find Sherlock lurking, one eye huge and peering at me through his magnifying glass.