“In theory, that is correct.” Jake grinned and looked at Rachel. “Hey, I bet you know my wife. She comes in here to get her hair done.”
“Really?” Rachel’s scissors only stopped for a moment before she decided to continue to play dumb. “What’s her name?”
“Nina,” Emma piped up, holding her head straighter when Rachel gently tilted her chin.
“Same last name?” If she was going to play dumb, she might as well play really dumb, Rachel decided.
“Yes. Malden,” Emma offered again before her dad could speak.
But Jake was quick to point out, “We’re divorced.” He glanced at his watch and then back at his daughter. “How much longer, do you think?”
“A few more minutes, not long,” Rachel remarked. She was cutting Emma’s bangs.
“Dad, you’re not missing anything.” Emma rolled her eyes again. She was quite good at it, but most teenagers Rachel knew had perfected the gesture. “The game will be on DVR when we get home.”
“But it’s the finals, Em!” Jake looked at his watch again.
Rachel perked up. “Hockey?”
“Yeah.” Jake looked at her speculatively.
“Game one.” Rachel positioned herself in front of Emma, checking the sides of her hair, pulling them forward to see if they were even. “Blackhawks and the Wings.”
“You like hockey?” His voice had changed entirely, Rachel noticed. It had gone from that formal chit-chat tone she heard all day to something more rich and warm, like chocolate.
“Love it,” she agreed, picking up the blow dryer.
“Me too.” Jake looked a little blindsided, like he’d rarely come across a woman who loved hockey before.
Well, she supposed that might have been the case, but she’d grown up with it.
Her father had been a huge hockey fan and she’d gone to all the games with him. It was his one indulgence. He had been Rachel’s whole world, but he’d been gone two years now. Cancer. Ah, life’s little ironies.
Jake’s words brought her out over her reverie. “I’ve got season tickets.”
“Don’t tell me that.” Rachel sighed. “I tried to get tickets to game two. I even went to the scalpers on Craigslist, but no luck.”
“I’m not surprised.” Jake shook his head sadly. “They’ve been sold out for a month.”
“I know—the Blackhawks and the Wings—such a big rivalry.” Rachel turned on the blow dryer and talked over it, using a rounded brush to style Emma’s hair. “They’re two of the original six.”
Jake sat up, looking incredulous. “I know.”
“I think my dad has a death wish,” Emma remarked, a little non sequitur. Rachel gave her a puzzled smile. “He’s a Red Wings fan living in Chicago,” the girl explained.
“And, you know, then he takes me to get my hair cut…” She shrugged in that awkward way teenagers had, so caught somewhere between adult and child, knowing it but not quite sure what to do about it.
“Well, if that’s the case, then you are brave, Mr. Malden,” Rachel teased.
“Jake,” he insisted, shrugging. “And I’m not all that brave.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Rachel turned off the blow dryer, combing out the girl’s hair.
“I’ve met your wife.”
Jake laughed. “You have a point.”
Rachel grabbed the hand mirror off the counter and turned Emma around in a circle in the chair. “But I have to admit, I’m secretly rooting for the Red Wings myself.”
“Do you have a death wish too?” Emma asked, looking at the back of her hair in the reflection of the hand mirror.
“Hardly.” Rachel swallowed the irony of her response and changed the subject.
“How do you like it?”
“It’s so short!” Emma ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it and cocking her head to the side. Her bright eyes met Rachel’s. “I love it!”
“Truly lovely, Em.” Jake stood, pulling out his wallet. “What do we owe you, Rapunzel?”
Rachel raised an eyebrow at the platinum Visa in his hand. “Come on up front.
You can pay there.”
This was the dangerous part. Nina was still under the dryers in the back, facing the front of the salon, and she could probably see the lobby from where she was sitting.
If Rachel didn’t want a big scene, she was going to have to get them out of there-fast.
She wrote the ticket up quickly and gave him the total.
Jake gave a low whistle, handing over his Visa. “And that was just a haircut. No wonder Nina spent a mint here every month.”
“The price of beauty can be very high.” Rachel smiled and ran his card, glancing over her shoulder. Nina was still reading, that was good. But ten minutes was almost up and the timer she’d set would be going off. She didn’t want the woman to come hunt her down, that was for sure.
“Well it must be some sort of sign, both of us being Red Wings fans in Blackhawks country.” Jake leaned on the counter as Rachel waited for the authorization. Emma wandered through the lobby, picking up a bottle of styling product and reading the back.
“A sign of what?” She glanced over her shoulder again, trying not to be too obvious. This time Nina saw her. Damnit. She moved a little left, hoping to block her view of Jake. “The apocalypse?”
“Could be.” He laughed. “Hey, I have an extra ticket to game two…if you’re interested.”
Rachel handed his card back as the authorization came through on the machine.
“How much?”
“Free. You’d just have to put up with my company the whole time, if you could stand it.” He took his card back, slow, his fingers brushing hers and Rachel looked up in surprise. His eyes were smiling but he had a nervous sort of look, an expression she didn’t expect to see on his confident face.
She stared at him, forgetting everything, including the receipt in her hand and the fact that this man’s ex-wife had been sitting in the back of her salon while Rachel had just willy-nilly lopped off a foot-and-a-half of her daughter’s precious hair. “But that would be like… a date.”
“Yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking.” His whole body posture spoke anxiety. If he’d been a teenage boy, Rachel swore he would have been hopping from one foot to the other like a two year old who had to pee. His nervousness appeared more subtle-a shift of his weight, the way his card missed the slot when he was trying to slide it back into his wallet-but to her, it might as well have been a neon sign.
“Oh.” Rachel swallowed, considering the offer. She hadn’t been out on a date in…god, she couldn’t remember when. Two years? It wasn’t that she hadn’t had opportunities. And she couldn’t be considered on the rebound anymore, since she and Stephen had been broken up for five. He’d married a woman ten years younger than they were and had moved to Georgia to be near the girl’s family, last she heard. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like men, because god knows, she did.
It was mostly work at Rapunzel’s that had her so busy, keeping her from starting or, god forbid, maintaining a relationship. At least, that’s what it had been before she got sick. Now she had even more reasons for her self-imposed exile.
But what harm was there, really? And this was game two of the Stanley Cup Finals! The Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings! Could she really turn that down? All these thoughts ran through her head in an instant-but it was long enough for her to hear Nina Malden calling out her name from behind and Jake’s head to snap up in surprise.
“You’ve got a deal.” Rachel handed over his receipt with a business card stapled to it. She’d quickly scrawled her name and cell phone number on the back. “Call me.” Jake took the paper and folded it, putting it into his wallet. He opened his mouth to say something but Rachel cut him off, speaking in a harsh whisper. “Your ex-wife is here. I suggest you take Emma home. Now.”