that he had to help her after school and on weekends.
Heather’s moans of bliss subsided as he rinsed her feet and applied a grainy scrub to exfoliate them and slough off dead skin cells.
“You really have magic hands,” she said.
“Gracias.”
“How did a big, handsome guy like you become a nail technician? I can’t figure it out.”
Alejandro laughed. “By accident. My family’s been in the salon business for years.” And now, even though Mama’s passed on, I can’t seem to get away from it, since Tia Carlotta has no retirement savings and needs me to turn a tidy profit for her….
Those were the things that he couldn’t say aloud. The issues that explained why he was stuck in the particular rut of life he found himself in. There were other things he couldn’t say, either. Such as:
I hate doing this and that’s why I’m getting an MBA on the side. But until I’m done with school and figure out how to franchise After Hours in every big city in the U.S., I have to meet client demands. If the clients are demanding my touch, and will pay as much as you’re paying for me to lay my magic hands on you, then so be it.
Heather drained her free glass of wine and hinted strongly that she’d like another. After Hours, to Tia Carlotta’s great suspicion, served alcohol and was open until midnight Tuesday through Saturday. He’d bought out most of her interest, relocated the old salon, renamed it and given it a new marketing twist.
Miami was a late-night, party town. They needed to cater to their clientele, and giving them a hot, pre-party spot to get beautiful and tipsy was the perfect solution. The tipsier the clients got, the happier they were and the more money they spent.
Alejandro rose from his stool and held out his hand for her glass. In Peru, his mother’s country, the women waited on the men. “Chardonnay or pinot grigio, mi amorcito?”
“Ooh, say that again.”
“Say what?” Alejandro asked. “Mi amorcito?”
“Well, I like that, too, of course. But the other.”
“Pinot grigio?”
“Yes. It sounds so sexy when you say it.” She sighed and stretched, flashing him abundant cleavage and a swatch of emerald-green crotch.
Crazy woman. “Pinot grigio,” Alejandro repeated, averting his gaze. “Is that what you would like, then? Not the chardonnay?”
“Grinot pigio,” she said. “Yes, please. Mi, uh, corazon.”
He bit his lip to keep from laughing. Maybe she was drunker than he’d thought. “Of course. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He opened the door and slipped out, leaving her alone with the ocean wave music, the candlelight and her wine-buzz. All clear in the hallway. He straightened his shoulders and headed for the little coffee-and-wine area up front, where the customers could help themselves.
For liability reasons, Alejandro and the staff were careful not to serve more than one or two glasses of wine. After that, if the client wanted more, it was available on a self-service basis.
“Are you drinking on the job again?” his partner Marly teased him, as he poured Heather’s wine. She was the salon’s master hairdresser, and had recently become engaged to Florida’s governor, Jack Hammersmith.
“Always, mi vida.” He winked. “Actually, my client just asked me for a glass of grigot pinio. No, grinot pigio.”
Marly laughed. “Pinot grigio?”
“Well, that’s what she meant to say.”
“I think Heather was lit when she came in here,” their tiny blond receptionist, Shirlie, reported from behind the checkout counter. “She sorta rolled through the door. And I also think she wants you, Alejandro.” Shirlie snapped her gum and grinned.
“There’s a newsflash.” Marly’s voice was dry. “Yet another spoiled Coral Gables housewife panting after our Alejo.”
He hunched his shoulders. It was actually getting embarrassing, the number of female clients who were trying to bed him.
Nicky, another hairstylist, skipped up and sang into a faux fist microphone, making up the lyrics as he went along. “Yo touch, baby, yo touch, it’s just tooooo much!” He followed that with an air-guitar riff. Then he folded his hands behind his head and gyrated his pelvis. Alejandro averted his gaze from the painful sight.
“Nicky, don’t quit your day job, okay?”
“You’ll be sorry when I’m the next American Idol, sweets.”
Alejandro retreated with the wine, calling over his shoulder, “If you ever even pass the first round of American Idol, I will eat an entire box of your highlighting foil.”
“Fine,” Nicky shouted after him, hands on his black, leather-encased hips. “You better work up an appetite for aluminum, then.”
Alejandro did a quick scan of the hallway and then ducked back into the treatment room. He refused to sit out in front with the other manicurists, because of the risk of being seen by someone he knew. He’d only sat out there a couple of times before deciding that he’d never live it down if one of the guys on his soccer team walked by on his way to Benito’s restaurant and got an eyeful of their star forward with a bottle of nail polish.
Forget Beauty Boy. They’d call him maricon—fag—or chivo, an even ruder Peruvian term that meant goat. They’d also run him right off the team, talent be damned.
Heather had slid even farther down into the chair, which had caused her skirt to hike up several inches. Not for the first time, Alejandro wondered if he shouldn’t just swallow his pride and move up to the front with the others. It would save him from would-be seduction scenes like this one. Beauty Boy! Beauty Boy! The old taunt echoed through his head. He just couldn’t do it.
“Your wine, señora.” He handed Heather the glass.
“No, no, please don’t call me that—it makes me feel a hundred years old.”
And it reminds you that you’re a married mother of three. Tsk, tsk. “Apologies, mi amorcito. If it’s any comfort, you look all of twenty-two.”
“Now you’re talking, honey.”
Alejo assumed the position again and began sawing away at the calluses on Heather’s feet, while she sat shamelessly flashing her emerald-green crotch and a come-hither smile.
He wasn’t coming any more hither than he already was. He rinsed off her feet, dried them, drained the basin and began her foot and calf massage with scented lotion. She began to make little noises of pleasure, soft moans and small mewls, while he ignored her and tried to be professional.
Once he was done, he wiped his hands on a towel, removed the lotion residue from her toenails and adjusted the light so that he could see better. Heather returned to her wine, blinking resentfully at the stronger light.
She’d chosen a dark red polish color called
