The Look of Love (8 page)

Gunnar peered up and stared into Eboni’s soulful eyes.

“She’s a strong woman. You have to think positive.” She kept her stare on him as though trying to make sure he understood every word she’d said.

Gunnar took notice of her slender neck, her full lips, her smooth skin, all things that he shouldn’t have become aware of in that moment, but he couldn’t help himself. The longer she kept him hypnotized in her stare, the more he thought about their past, the kissing, the deep emotions, the intense connection.

Then he remembered last night. She’d been staring at him after he’d taken a much-needed cold shower. Gunnar couldn’t get Eboni out of his thoughts. She consumed his every waking moment, exactly like when they had first dated.

Seeing her in a robe with her hair pulled up into a messy bun, he wanted to run over to the house and pull her hair down from the bun and make love to her.

He swallowed hard. His hands itched to touch her.

As he started to open his mouth to say something, anything, orderlies wheeled in the bed that carried his mother. Gunnar stood along with Eboni, who moved back from him so that they could slide her bed between the two of them.

Elizabeth remained conscious but looked tired, evident from the bags under her eyes and her pale skin tone.

“I made it.” Elizabeth smiled. “That room was so cold. They were trying to freeze me.”

The same doctor who had spoken to them yesterday returned.

“Looks like the surgery went okay.” Gunnar smiled.

The petite woman’s expression remained serious and somber. “We didn’t install a stent.”

The smile melted from Gunnar’s face. “You were gone a while. Why didn’t you do the procedure?”

“We found another artery behind her heart that is also completely blocked. Installing stents will not help. At this point, we need to talk about doing bypass surgery. At least double, but it could be triple.”

Clutching his mother’s hand gave Gunnar the strength to remain standing. His world spun out of control. He gazed down at her. “Ma?”

Gunnar needed to hear her to know that she would be okay.

His mother frowned. “I’m going to have a scar. I won’t be able to wear my dress with the plunging neckline.”

Gunnar laughed through his impending tears. He kissed her forehead. “I think that might be the least of your worries.”

“I know.” She became solemn as she spoke to him.

“We’ll hold her for a couple of days to watch her. She’ll go through a healthy heart care class.”

“What?” Elizabeth’s bottom jaw unhinged.

“Mom, you wouldn’t go to a class like that voluntarily. Catching you while you’re in bed would be the only way.” Gunnar squeezed his mother’s hand.

Elizabeth sucked her teeth and turned away from her oldest son.

“If all goes well, she should be home by the weekend.” Dr. Patel typed something in the wall-mounted computer in the room.

“When is her surgery scheduled?” Eboni patted Elizabeth on her shoulder as she talked to the doctor.

“I’d like to do it in the next couple of weeks. I don’t want to wait too long with the amount of blockage that she has.” She patted Elizabeth’s legs and said her good-byes before walking out.

The room fell into a deathly silence. Elizabeth put her hand to her chest.

Gunnar knew his mother and knew her statement about her scar being visible hid her fear. He patted her hand. When she looked at him, he smiled.

“Did you two work out your problems?” Elizabeth looked at both of them.

“We’re taking it step by step.” Eboni rubbed her fingers over Elizabeth’s arm.

“That’s the only way to do it. Rome wasn’t built in a--” She fell asleep before finishing her statement.

Gunnar peered up. “Now I’m starving,” he said in a whisper. He nodded toward the doorway.

Eboni followed him and they both went to the hospital cafeteria for lunch. When they got to a table, he wasted no time in asking Eboni questions about the salon. He didn’t want to bring up his mother and have the thought of her surgery plaguing his mind.

“What are the other stylists like?” Gunnar opened one of his four bottles of water and chugged the entire bottle down within seconds.

“The stylists have changed since you were there. They aren’t like me or your mother.” Eboni flicked the lettuce and cucumbers around in her salad. “Other salons rent their spaces out so that stylists can be their own bosses. Not your mother. She employs these people. She feels like she can give them better benefits than if they went out on their own.”

“Any problems I need to know about?” He picked up one of his sandwiches and finished it in three large bites. Good thing he’d grabbed two more sandwiches to fill him.

“Same ol’ beauty-shop drama. One person accuses another of stealing their client. You know. Stuff like that. But nothing major.” She watched him work on his second sandwich. “Do you have a tapeworm or something? I’ve never seen anyone eat like you do.”

Gunnar opened his second bottle of water. “I work out a lot. I need the food for fuel.” He took a couple of gulps and then wiped his mouth. “So my plan for tomorrow will be to see my mom in the morning and be at the shop an hour before it opens.”

Eboni blinked. “Really?”

Gunnar shrugged. “I want to be a good boss.”

Eboni shook her head.

“Supervisor.”

She cleared her throat.

“Owner.”

“Oh, hell, no.”

“Fine. I want my presence there to be seamless. I don’t want the staff or the clients to even notice that my mother is not there.”

“That’ll be a neat trick. But tell me, Gunnar, when you didn’t talk to you mother for a long while, did you miss her?”

He laughed. “Of course.”

“That’s how other people are going to feel. Don’t go in thinking you’re her replacement. You can’t do what she does.”

Gunnar knew no one could replace his mother. He just wanted an opportunity. “I think I’ll surprise a lot of people. You just wait and see.”

Eboni arrived at Press ’N Curl thirty minutes before the shop opened, her usual time to get there. She couldn’t help but notice Gunnar’s vehicle in the parking lot. It took up two spaces.

At least he stuck to his word. He did get there before she did. Since she’d gone back to her place after spending one night in Elizabeth’s house, she couldn’t watch him…not that she watched him before. Not entirely.

After a deep breath, Eboni walked through the back door of the salon. She noticed right away that certain items had been moved around. The bin for the wet towel had been moved to a space in between the washer and dryer. Of course, that meant that the washer and dryer had been moved as well, pushed over about a foot from their original spot.

The linen closet that held the brooms and dustpans now had shelves that held clean towels. Out in the main salon area, she found another set of empty shelves. She heard a rustling sound from the office. Eboni stepped inside and found Gunnar straightening that area as well.

“What are you doing?” Eboni put her fist to her hip.

“Cleaning up.” Gunnar must have caught her shocked expression. He quickly amended his statement. “I mean straightening up. Putting items in logical order.”

“Like the washer and dryer?”

“They’re in the right spot. But the towel bin should have been put next to it. I moved some things around to make that happen.” He continued reorganizing his mother’s office.

In his white T-shirt and jeans, Eboni couldn’t help but notice his form. When he bent over, she admired the wide planes of his back. His firm ass begged to be grabbed. She managed to bring her gaze up to his when he stood up straight. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her staring at his body.

“Did you put the coffee on?” She took a couple of steps out of the office.

“Not yet.” He started to head toward her.

“I got it. If I were you, I would put your mother’s office back to the way it was.” Eboni went to the reception desk to stow her purse and coat. Then she went to the small counter area with the coffeemaker to start pots of regular and decaffeinated coffee.

“I’m not removing anything. Just organizing.”

Eboni heard him clanging items in her boss’s office. “So the message you want to relay to her is that you think her organizing skills are crap and you know better than her, right?”

The movement stopped.

“Maybe I should rethink this,” he called from the office.

She shook her head. As she put the filter full of ground coffee into the canister, she noticed the empty shelves. “You know we could use these shelves for something.”

Gunnar walked out of the office and stood between the shelves and the coffee area. “Like what?”

Eboni cocked her head. “Remember you used to make a bunch of hair stuff back in the day?”

“Do you really want to talk about the disastrous Kool-Aid hair-color incident?” Gunnar had sworn to Eboni that he could use the lemonade Kool-Aid mixture to put highlights in her hair. It had taken four months for the garish orange color to disappear.

“No, but you used to make great leave-in conditioners and hair moisturizers. You could do that again.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Gunnar furrowed his eyebrows.

Eboni smiled before revealing her proposal. “You could make those products again and sell them here. The proceeds could go toward the center.”

“If I did it, I would use the money to help this place out first.” He shook his head. “That place doesn’t mean a tenth as much to me as this salon. I hope you understand that.”

Before she could answer, the back door slammed shut.

“Whew! It is too cold and I am too cute to have on all these clothes.” Shay did her trademark sway into the salon. As soon as she saw Gunnar, a smile sprang to her face.

The dark-skinned young woman stood almost as tall as Gunnar and had to be as big around as one of his legs. Her bright, white teeth gleamed against her dark complexion when she smiled. She rocked her standard short Afro puff trumpeting from the back of her head.

“Well, hello.” She sauntered to Gunnar, who didn’t move but did watch her. “Are you her parole officer, or did you hire security for us?”

“Shay, while Queen Elizabeth is in the hospital, her son has--”

“Son?” Shay split her attention between Gunnar and Eboni. “Since when does Miss Queen have a white son?”

“Three actually,” Gunnar offered.

“How can you not know that? She talks about her boys all the time. She has pictures of them in her office.”

“I just thought the pictures came with the frames.”

Eboni balled her hands into fists. “This is her oldest, Gunnar Wells.”

Gunnar held out his hand.

“Oh, no, honey. Any family of Queenie’s is family to me.” She embraced him in her slender, muscular arms. For good measure, or maybe she thought he would respond to it, she wiggled her backside.

Gunnar gave her a pat on the back and pulled away from her. Eboni hid her smile when he broke from Shay’s embrace. Most single men--and even the married ones--that came to the shop fell for Shay’s look and charms. Good to see one man holding strong…at least in front of Eboni.

“Gunnar, this is Shay Brownley. She does it all but really specializes in braids, twists, and natural styles.” Eboni poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip of the needed pick-me-up.

“Good to see we’re doing more for our customers than just relaxers and weaves.” Gunnar put his hand on one of the empty shelves.

“
Our
customers? What is he talking about?” Shay looked at both him and Eboni.

“As I was saying, while Queen Elizabeth is in the hospital, Gunnar has agreed to step into her spot.” Eboni would leave off the fact that Gunnar would be leaving like he’d done in the past.

Shay blinked as though she stood in the middle of a windstorm. “What? What? What? He’s going to be here?”

Eboni nodded.

“Just like old times.” Gunnar smiled.

“That’s going to go over like a lead balloon.” Shay grabbed her purse and strutted to her station.

“Why do you say that?” Gunnar followed her.

“Women like coming to a beauty salon to talk about you.” Shay pointed to him.

“Me?”

“Not you specifically. Men in general. How are they going to feel free talking about what guy stood them up or who is a bad tipper or which guy is a bad la--”

“Uh, he gets it.” Eboni had to cut her off before she got too risqué. “Tillman is here.”

“Oh, he doesn’t count.” Shay waved her hand. “Tillman has been here for a while. Anyway, how are women going to feel like themselves here? I hate to say it, but you might have to go.”

Gunnar crossed his arms over his massive chest. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Then you had better hide out in the office for the day.”

He shook his head. “I grew up here in this shop.” He walked over to the doorway that went to the play area for the kids. “See these notches? That’s where my mother marked my growth each year.”

“So that’s what those are. I thought some kid didn’t want to leave the play area and they were holding the doorframe.” Shay cackled as she started up her curling irons and flat irons. “Listen, folks are funny about their hair. You’re going to have to do a lot to gain their trust. Being Queen’s
adopted
son ain’t going to cut it.”

Eboni knew the
adopted
tag would get to Gunnar. Seeing his jaw flex clued her in that her assumption had been dead-on.

“Nice to meet you, Shay.” Gunnar turned and headed back to the office.

“I mean for real, Eb.” Shay pulled on Eboni’s arm and lowered her voice. “Does he seriously think he’s going to come up in here and be like Queen?”

“I did warn him that the salon now is not like the salon was back in the day.” Eboni had to give the man credit. He’d put himself out there more than she had expected.

Eboni thought she heard a squeak from the back area. Sunlight streamed through the doorway that separated the back of the salon from the front working area. Within a few seconds, Tisha crept into the salon.

The slight woman walked with her head down as though unsure of her own steps. She constantly pushed up her black horned-rimmed glasses, which probably slipped down her slender nose because of the position of her head. The flowered dress she wore and the pale blue cardigan sweater swallowed her tiny frame. When she got to her station, she took off the ice cleats from her black orthopedic shoes.