“Maybe I should have pushed for a long-distance relationship,” I murmured, wondering whether it would be prudent for me to go out and update all my shots. “You know, something that kept me...out of range.”
“Out of range?” Stacy repeated with a grin. “Of Nick Hunter? Is there such a place?”
Good point.
“So why are you here so early?” I asked, ignoring her question as I focused again on the bag. “Six in the morning for an evening event? Even you can’t possibly take that long.”
Instead of fighting back like usual, her lips turned up in a dangerous smile.
“Aw sweetie, I probably can’t...”
As if on cue, the elevator dinged open, and the sound of a dozen or more voices floated inside from the hall. A second later, they were followed by a dozen or more footsteps. A second after that...there was a knock on my door.
My eyes widened in disbelief, but Stacy simply grinned.
“...but I’m not the only person who knows where you live.”
Chapter 6
You know the huddle that sports teams do at the start of every game? Right before they run out onto the field? Dozens upon dozens of people all packed together in a tight circle, all straining as far as they can to reach their hand toward the center?
Well that sports field was my tiny, tiny living room.
And that thing everyone was grabbing at in the center?
...that was me.
“I’m sorry,” I blinked in amazement as a three thousand dollar massage chair was wheeled into the room, “how did you even fit that in the elevator?”
No one answered me. Most of them didn’t speak the language, and the rest were far too focused on the task at hand. The most I got was a silencing pat on the head.
In the four minutes it had taken me to make a fresh pot of coffee, my living room had been transformed into a virtual spa. The original furniture had been either shoved aside or exiled unceremoniously to the bedroom, soon to be replaced with massage beds, hot wax machines, one of those old-fashioned hair domes, and a million other pieces of equipment I had never seen.
My clothes were yanked off and as I perched atop a wooden stool—draped in a terrycloth towel designed to relax—no less than thirty people buzzed in and out of my line of sight. Trimming. Buffing. Polishing. Preening to their heart’s content.
It was every girl’s dream. To be treated like a queen by a host of willing subjects. Fussed over and pampered by an Eastern European mob trained to do exactly that.
But at the same time...all the attention was a little much.
“Okay, seriously?” I pulled back my hand, as a woman I’d never seen before walked toward me with a little jar of something simply labeled youth. “Is that a joke? What do you even do with that?”
More importantly, where did she get it? They weren’t kidnapping forest maidens somewhere, right? Draining them dry to moisturize the skin of the Upper East Side?
“You cry into it, then we offer up your tears as a sacrifice to the gods,” Stacy answered matter-a-factly.
“It’s basic science.”
It was a testament to how crazy things had become, that she was my rock. Twice, she had vetoed things deemed too extreme. (My vetoes apparently didn’t count. Even when it came down to something ominously referred to as a ‘vampire face lift.’) Twice, she had been met with a shrieking hailstorm of Russian.
Fortunately, Stacy was more than up to the task.
“Science. Right.” I bit down upon my lip as a strip of waxing cloth was ripped from my leg. My other leg was hiding instinctively behind the chair. “You know, I always thought that spa days were supposed to be relaxing. Women always talk about them like they’re a treat.”
“Women also paint their faces, pierce their ears, and pretend they enjoy walking around on miniature stilts all day,” Stacy replied, disassociating completely. “Women are crazy.”
An ironic condemnation, considering I was talking to one of the foremost stylists in the country. Even more ironic considering that she dated women exclusively, ignoring the other sex.
She caught my sarcastic look with a wry grin.