Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Gracen snuggled in under the top sheet and matching white duvet. “Let’s do that.”
Malachi’s chuckles warmed her through the phone. “Miss you, babe.”
No lies there.
“Yeah,” she whispered, “me too.”
“Mmhmm,” he hummed in the same way he did when he kissed the nape of her neck. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel him, lips soft and pressed there. “Starting to miss not seeing your face in the morning—that’s new for me.”
Gracen tried hard not to laugh, and failed miserably. “I must be deep in that brain, huh?”
She didn’t hate it.
Malachi replied, “Like a fucking lobotomy.”
“Hey.”
His shush quieted anything else she might say, and then he asked, “Which one of us said it was a problem, babe?”
Well played.
*
Gracen sailed through the first week back to work. The second followed the same path, but by Friday she was always itching to get out of the salon. The respite was just beyond reach. Close enough that she could taste it. She looked forward to the weekends more because rearranging her schedule after the extended vacation was as much about self-care as it was letting go of the control she constantly had to have regarding the salon’s business.
Not because she distrusted her business partner—Delaney had as much time and investment and love put into the Haus as Gracen—but because it was still hers, at the end of the day even if she shared it. A lot of her effort and life had been put into the salon and letting it do the work for her was easier said than done, but she wanted to. That’s what made her pull the trigger on a four-day work week. Tuesdays would still be spent volunteering at the manor because Gracen believed it did benefit Mimi, but the weekend was hers.
Start to finish.
Forty-eight hours of a phone on silent, but for the handful of exceptions on a curated call list that Gracen created with an app she had downloaded for two bucks. The salon wouldn’t also fall apart the second Gracen decided to make some changes.
Life looked better when she could breathe.
But it also meant spending an extra hour or so at the Haus at the end of the week to work out all the schedules of the rotating beauty students who needed their hours. Gracen’s lack of a workday in her week meant there was one less licensed stylist in the salon. The girls who had been earning their practical hours on the weekend under Gracen had to be shifted to a different day, and it took a couple of weeks to work the kinks out of the new schedule.
“Okay, take a look,” Delaney said, pulling the freshly printed excel sheet from the printer to lay it down on the desk in front of Gracen. “I think I fit everybody in—and switched the two who exchanged with my girls,” she added.
Gracen tried to have a critical eye on the schedule, so she didn’t miss an obvious hole somewhere like the last time. Nothing seemed amiss between the ten students rotating their hours.
“Looks all right to me.”
“Great, I’ll post it for them in the group chat,” Delaney said as she stood from her chair with her phone positioned in her hands. She had to angle her phone just right and turn on the flash to get a picture she liked, but once she did and had shot it off to the waiting ladies online, she asked Gracen, “Did I hear your phone call right this morning that you might be getting a visitor this weekend?”
“Maybe.”
Delaney shot her a look. “Really? That’s all you’re gonna give me.”
“It’s not for sure yet—he planned to let me know by tonight.”
Gracen didn’t add that she’d been counting down the minutes to that call from Malachi. The job he’d been working with Chip and the crew should finish up today other than a few weekend tasks that he wasn’t responsible for. Malachi hinted that it would be a good week before they started on the next job, and he’d been considering taking a trip to the valley.
“You don’t mind if he comes and stays for a few nights, right?” Gracen asked.
Probably something she should have asked Delaney about the second Malachi’s trip had become a real possibility. Although, her best friend took to the new guy in her life without a lot of fuss.
Delaney didn’t glance away from her laptop screen after retaking her chair when she replied, “Listen, you’ve got your own bathroom. He can leave your toilet seat up.”
If that was all Delaney cared about ...
Fair enough, Gracen thought.
“I’ll pass the message along,” Gracen said.
Delaney grinned with a double thumbs up.
“Smartass.”
“You know it,” her friend returned smoothly.
Leaving Delaney behind in the backroom office, Gracen gathered her bag in the attached breakroom when she heard the familiar bell jingle over the salon’s front door.