“So classy,” I hear Mellissa say from the chair she’s in across the salon, and without thinking, I turn and look at her, mouthing, Jealous, before pulling out my concealer from my bag and covering the damn thing up.
Chapter 7
Jax
“Hey, you,” Ashlyn greets quietly with her eyes on Hope in my arms as she opens the door to our parents’ house. “Mom and Dad are out back.”
“I’ll be out in a minute. I’m going to lay her down; she passed out in the truck on the way over here,” I tell her, and she follows me down the hall toward my old room, which mom turned into a guest room as soon as I moved out.
Settling Hope on the bed and covering her with a blanket, I press a kiss to her forehead then follow Ashlyn out of the room, asking, “What are you doing here?”
Ashlyn is a receptionist for our family dentist. She got the job a few years ago when she started going to dental school. “Got off work early and just wanted to stop by.” She shrugs, but I can tell it’s something else from the look in her eyes.
“What happened?” I repeat.
“You know you’re annoying right?” she asks, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and taking a sip.
“So I’ve been told. So what happened?” I ask, grabbing a bottle for myself.
“Gregory is selling his practice,” she says, and I’m not surprised. Every time I have to see him, I worry he’s going fill the wrong tooth, or worse. His glasses have progressively gotten thicker each year, and his hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.
“We all knew it was coming. He’s what, seventy now?”
“Seventy-two.” She nods.
“So you can come work for me. You know I need a receptionist, since things have picked up.”
Snorting, she shakes her head. “No, thanks. He sold it to a guy named Dillon. He seems like a dick, but I’d rather work for a dick than my brother until school is done,” she mutters.
“So you’ve met the guy?” I ask her, and she nods again, leaning back against the counter behind her.
“Yeah, he just moved here from New York. I guess in the dental world he’s some big shot.” She rolls her eyes.
“Did he say you could keep your job?”
“He said he would need to ‘re-interview’ me,” she says, using finger quotes. “His words were, ‘I don’t need pretty objects around to look at. I need someone who knows what they’re doing working with me.’”
Frowning at that, I wonder if I should go have a talk with Dillon myself.
“Don’t even think about it,” she says, reading my face. “He’s a dick, but if he thinks anyone can do a better job than me, I’d like to see that person. I’ve worked with Gregory for the last three years. I only have a year of night classes left before I graduate, and then I can move to another practice.”
“Well, if you want me to kick his ass, I will,” I tell her, and a smile twitches her lips.
“I can handle him,” she says after a moment of thinking about it.
“I do think it’s kinda funny there is finally a guy who isn’t susceptible to your charm,” I tell her honestly. Men normally flock to my baby sister, which is annoying, but also true.
“Well, maybe he will be susceptible to cyanide,” she mutters under her breath, which makes me even more curious about Dillon.
“You know I got your back,” I tell her, moving out the backdoor to the sunroom.
Mom had the room built onto the house a year ago, when she decided to stop teaching and stay home. Walking through the sliding door, I’m not surprised to find my parents sitting close together on one of the couches, Mom with her feet tucked under her and my dad leaning back against the couch, with his arm wrapped around her.
“Where’s my girl?” Mom asks, looking around me for Hope.
“She’s in the guestroom. She fell asleep in the truck on the way over here.”
“Are you okay?” she asks, tilting her face and studying me.
“I’m good.” I nod, sitting down across from them on one of the chairs.
“What happened?” She frowns.
“How do you know something happened?” I ask.
“You have the same look on your face that your sister had when she came in,” Mom explains.
“I didn’t have a look,” Ashlyn complains, plopping down in the chair next to me, and my mom looks at her and shakes her head.
“You did, and then you went off about Dillon the Dick for a good twenty minutes,” my dad says, grinning.
“Whatever,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.
“So what happened?” Dad asks this time, looking away from Ashlyn to me.
“I took Ellie and Hope to lunch, and Ellie was acting strange. Then she said something that caught me off guard.”
“What was it?” Mom asks, pulling her feet from under her and sitting up.
“She was upset that I was cutting up Hope’s sandwich, and she said, ‘I can do it; I’m her mom,’” I say, pulling my hat off and setting it on my bent knee.
“Honey, that’s her baby. She’s not used to sharing her. She’s had a lot of changes over the last couple months. Just give her some time,” Mom explains.
“I’m going slow,” I say, slipping my hat back on my head. “I gotta head back to the office, but if Hope needs anything, just call me.”