Abby, Get Your Groom!. Victoria Pade

to insist that China wait for her tonight, to tell her friend she would make sure she was home in time for them to have dinner together.

      Because even though it would actually give her an excuse she could use with Dylan to hurry him through the tour, deep down she didn’t really want to shorten her time with him by even a minute.

      * * *

      “Okay, you’re right—I can’t see through those curtains even with the lights on in here,” Dylan said after stepping out the front door of Beauty By Design’s special occasions location and then rejoining Abby inside.

      “And we only open the curtains if the wedding or party or whatever is going to be held outside. If it is, we need to make sure the makeup works in sunlight. But if we need the makeup to work in interior lighting, we need sunlight not to be a factor. Since your sister’s wedding won’t be outside—”

      “You’ll keep the curtains closed and photographers won’t be able to take snapshots from the sidewalk if word happens to get out that this is where we are.”

      “Right.”

      “And there’s parking and a door we can use in back rather than coming in through the front. Once the whole group is here I can lock both the front and the back doors because there won’t be any other clients coming in and out,” he repeated what she’d told him as she’d given him the tour. “I think that’s everything, and this should be okay,” he said then, taking one more glance around the opulent-looking open space designed to accommodate private groups having their hair, nails and makeup done.

      Unlike either of the other two Beauty By Design shops that could accommodate fifty customers at a time, here there were only two pedicure chairs and manicure tables, and three stations where hair and makeup were done.

      Also unlike the regular salons, there was a raised platform surrounded on three sides by full-length mirrors in case anyone wanted to try on their dress or gown for the full effect.

      Plus there was a section in one corner with a huge, comfy white sofa and two matching chairs situated around a coffee table where patrons could relax between services and enjoy the finest chocolates along with cocktails, wine or champagne—or other beverages if the group was underage for a birthday, prom, sweet sixteen, bat mitzvah or quinceañera.

      The object was to pamper clients in a party-like atmosphere that would be as much fun as the event itself while still making them look and feel beautiful.

      “But I’m supposed to ask,” he said, “if you end up doing the wedding—can it be done by you and your team coming to us rather than the wedding party coming here?”

      “It costs extra.”

      He grinned, and she tried not to like the look of it as much as she did. But that attempt failed because a smile just added so many new elements to how good-looking he was and she couldn’t help noting that.

      “The cost doesn’t matter if you’ll just do it,” he assured.

      “We do that, yes,” Abby responded. “In fact, I like when we get to.”

      “Really?” he asked as he leisurely climbed the steps up to one of the pedicure chairs—and in the process gave her a glimpse of some pretty spectacular male buns in a pair of jeans that knew just how to show off his rear end. Abby caught herself looking where she shouldn’t have been just as he turned to sit and she shot her gaze upward.

      Since he seemed to be settling in and she was in no rush, she went to sit in the other pedicure chair, angling toward him as he did the same so they were facing each other.

      “Really,” she confirmed. “If we do everything here, that’s the end of it for me. The client goes off to have their special day, but I don’t get to see any of it. If we do the work at the event we get to see more and be more involved in occasions that I’d never get to be a part of otherwise.”

      “You don’t think you’ll ever get married?” he asked, sounding surprised.

      “Even if I do it can’t possibly be on the scale that your sister’s wedding will be. And the other stuff—proms and the coming-of-age celebrations, the Debutante Ball—those are things I never got to have, no.”

      “You never went to a prom?”

      She shook her head then motioned with it to their surroundings. “I also never knew anyone who could pay for something like this. But now I get to participate in these big, fancy things indirectly. If we go to the venue I usually have the chance to peek in to see the flowers or the decorations or the cake. If we’re hired to stick around for hair changes and makeup retouches, I get to hear the music, sometimes some of the food gets sent to us—we aren’t guests but we get to experience some of it on the sidelines, and...” she shrugged “...that’s fun for me. These are some of the happiest, most joyful and hopeful times in people’s lives and I get to be a part of it. I get to help make it special, to make them look and feel beautiful for it, sometimes I get to see it—how nice is that?”

      “I think it’s nice that that’s how you look at it,” he said, studying her as if he was getting insight into her. “Is that why you became a stylist?”

      Abby laughed. “You’re so funny to think there were a lot of choices in what I could become.”

      “You’re smart, talented—”

      “And you think that made a lot of difference?” she asked, even as she took his words as a compliment and reveled in the possibility that that might be what he thought of her. “When I was thirteen,” she went on, “I needed to pick whether I planned to get a job right out of high school or if I wanted to try to go to college or trade school.”

      “At thirteen?”

      “It isn’t easy for kids in the system to follow the same course as kids with families who can afford to just let things play out. The world is not our oyster. So school counselors and case workers and just about every adult I ever came into contact with, warned me that I needed to plan for myself—”

      “Starting at thirteen?”

      “That was how old I was when I went to middle school. Before that, everybody learns the same things. But when I had to start picking some of my own classes, I needed to start thinking realistically about whether I wanted to go to college or trade school or just get a job. For me, trade school seemed like the middle of the road—something I was reasonably sure I could get into and afford with subsidized tuition, and something that wouldn’t take as long as college before I could come out with some kind of skill to support myself.”

      “So you didn’t choose to be a stylist at thirteen, you just chose trade school.”

      “Right. Which meant I wasn’t put in the same classes as kids aiming for college.”

      “What if you had changed your mind?”

      “I could have. But when I sort of toyed with the idea of college a few years later it was discouraged. My grades were good enough to get in somewhere, but my counselor said if I did, how was I going to pay for it? And how was I going to make enough money to live, too? Scholarships, grants, living stipends—things like that aren’t a guarantee. I was warned not to plan on them. And no one ever let me forget that at the stroke of eighteen I was on my own.”

      “Without any help? Eighteen is still just a kid...”

      “Not when you’re in the system it isn’t. Mature, immature, ready or not, you’re an adult. There are some short-term transitional services and there’s a little funding to get started, but basically, yes, you’re on your own, without help. Unless you go on welfare and food stamps and go that route, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to if I could be close to supporting myself when I graduated high school.”