“Why?”

“Why? Because I don’t have the money right now.” I’d barely been able to pay the mortgage and the water; I’d put the light bill on my credit card along with the cable bill.

“Why?”

“Why don’t I have money? Because I haven’t worked in weeks, J. I know you guys think I’m pouring money out of my ears, but I’m not. Sorry.”

He grumbled so much I shot him a dirty look through the rearview mirror that had him stopping the moment he saw it. “Okay,” he muttered.

“That’s what I thought,” I whispered to myself, trying to hold on to my optimism and excitement about getting back to work with two hands. I’d gone in to the salon the day before to try and start arranging my schedule again, and managed to get most of the day booked up.

“Tia, do you think Santa will give me a bike for Christmas?” Louie asked.

“As long as he doesn’t hear about all your criminal activity over the year, I think he might,” I told him, laughing when he let out a disgruntled noise as I pulled the car up to the school. “All right, have a good day at school, you menaces to society. I love you.”

Louie slipped out of his car seat just as Josh pecked me on the side of the forehead with a kiss that was more of a brush of lips—the end was coming one day for that, but it hadn’t yet. Lou did the same on my cheek, hollering, “Bye!” right before slamming the door shut.

For one moment, I glanced at my hand again, the skin pink and tight and a lot more tender than I wished it would be, but it was going to have to be good enough. I needed to work.

* * *

“D, we got a walk-in asking for you,” Ginny informed me with a sly smile as I closed the door to the break room.

A walk-in asking for me? I didn’t have enough time between clients to do a color job, but I could squeeze another cut in. My palm was only hurting about a five on a scale from one to ten from holding shears. I couldn’t afford to say no. The day had been busy, busy. I had to go slower than I was used to because closing the shears quickly bothered the freshly healed new flesh too much, but I’d been doing all right. The salon was only open for two more hours. I’d make it.

I walked toward the front desk and stopped when I caught sight of a familiar brown head tipped down at the floor. Sitting there with his elbows on his widespread knees, hands centered between them with a cell phone in his hand, wearing his usual outfit of vintage jeans and a T-shirt that he had worn to work based on the shade of gray it was covered with, was Dallas. I’d seen him at practices over the last week and a half, but besides that, we hadn’t seen each other around the neighborhood. I knew Miss Pearl was staying with him, and I couldn’t say I didn’t think it was sweet he wasn’t leaving her home alone… even if I did miss having him come around the house.

The sound of my wedges on the smooth concrete floor had him glancing up from whatever he’d been looking at, and he smiled, wide, so beautiful I felt like an idiot for ever thinking the most attractive part of him was his body. “Hey.”

“Hey, Professor,” I said, even though in my head I was really asking: what are you doing here?

“Busy?” he asked, smiling a little and coming to a stand.

“Not for you.” Why did I say that and why was my heart beating so fast in my chest?

“Someone told me you don’t take new clients, but I was wondering if you’d make an exception for a friend,” he said, running a hand through what had obviously grown out to be about an inch-long hair where he usually kept it at half an inch.

Cut his hair? Get close enough to cut his hair? The tiniest bit of unease settled right in my chest, but just meeting his gaze reminded me of who he was. My friend. My neighbor. The man who had been almost nothing but kind to me, time after time. There was nothing to worry about.

Well, at least not physically. My heart was a different story.

The smile that came on my face was as easy and natural as it should have been. “Of course I can. Come on.”

He smiled and I turned into a puddle of goo, but by some miracle, I managed not to get all moony-eyed over him. That was the plan at least. “How’s your day been?” he asked as I waited for him to walk up to me.

“Pretty good. I get off in two hours.” I met those murky brown-green eyes. “You?”

“I finished a big tiling job. It was a good day,” he answered, brushing the back of his hand against mine.

This couldn’t be happening to me. Not with my neighbor. Not with this man who was technically still married and was Josh’s coach. It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t let it.

“One day when I have the money, I’ll ask you to give me a quote on redoing the floors in my house, but that isn’t going to be any time soon,” I told him.

“All you have to do is ask, Diana.” He looked down at me from over his shoulder. “We can do it together when you have the time off.”

“Together?”

“Together,” he repeated.

I hummed and eyed him. “All right. For free?”

That had him smirking. “Yeah. You get a special discount.”

“What? The single parent who feeds you discount?”

Dallas shook his head and smiled, but didn’t say anything.

All right.

“We’re going for a Mohawk then or what?” I made myself ask.

The expression on his face was that playful one that squeezed the shit out of my ovaries every single time he brought it out. “Maybe next time.”