“Nuh-uh.” The hairdresser flicked his ear. “Not until I’m done. She can talk to you over here. We ain’t got no secrets, right, baby girl?”

Duke held his ear. “Ow. That hurt.”

I wish there were no secrets. Wouldn’t it be nice if Duke and I could just lay it all out, right here. “Don’t worry about her, Duke. She knows what’s up. She’s not saying anything.” Angel tentatively sat in the next chair, off balance. Unsure of what to do next. A constant state of mind these days.

“I’m sure you deserved it,” Gabriela said to Duke. She pumped some product onto her palms and ran it through his hair, pleasure puckering her lips. “So, tell Angel why you’re here.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” the student nurse said quietly. “Unless it’s to apologize.”

“I do apologize. Again.” Then Duke hissed, Gabriela twisting his ear sharply. “What? I wasn’t being sarcastic. The situation has been unfair to you, Angel.”

“Yep.” Angel tried to keep going, to follow it up with her own apology, the one she’d been trying to give him since yesterday, when she hadn’t given him any grace, but she wasn’t feeling it anymore.

“Will you go to dinner with me tonight?”

“Why?”

“Okay, fair question.” Guilt crept across his face. “The clubhouse is still watchin’. It would really help if you could continue pretending to be interested in me, just for tonight. Besides, the least I could do is buy you a nice dinner.”

“While letting paparazzi take pictures of me chewing my food, or trying to get a crotch shot as I climb out of a car? Maybe ask me for a review of the sex tape.”

“I’ll get Aaron to come along, to control the press.”

“Oh, good. If he’s going, count me in. He’s a ball of fun, that one.”

“He doesn’t have to sit with us. I wouldn’t want him to, anyway,” he said. Angel saw him dart his eyes at Gabriela’s image in the mirror. The hairdresser intently followed the conversation, lightly holding on to his ear. Angel grinned at her. Duke continued, carefully, “I’d like to work some things out. I don’t want to have dinner just for a photo op.”