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“What about this color?” she asks, blinking at me with big blue eyes and overly tanned skin.
Looking up from my phone, I blink at the Pinterest picture she is showing me. It’s clearly a filter, but it isn’t just impossible to tell a client that I can’t achieve that color, it’s inconceivable. They always think I’m lying. Not even Mother Nature can whip up that color.
I smile politely at the woman who I’m sure is actually the same age as me—twenty-eight. “Ice blonde,” I say, barely concealing the slight squeak in my voice. She walked in here with clearly box-dyed black hair, which she lied about. “We can probably achieve that color after a few visits, but it will take a while.”
She stares at me as though the words coming out of my mouth are absolute gibberish. I’m pretty sure I just spoke the same language, but just in case, I sign the words to her.
Nothing.
“Right,” she drawls before releasing a full-blown belly laugh. She throws her head back, dislodging a few well-placed foils. Fuck it. She laughed, so that’s on her. When she settles, she swipes a bright red fingernail under her eye. “And I’m an omega.”
I resist the urge to pretend not to hear my timer go off and let her hair fry. It would be such sweet revenge. Alas, my moral compass says to get off my ass and rinse her out.
I giggle a little with her, because what does she even mean by that? Is she implying that being an omega is a bad thing? Rare, sure, but her tone suggests otherwise. We are just a stinky bunch, and I just happen to smell like an orange Creamsicle on a hot day. Luckily for me, I have the unique ability to control my emotions, so I don’t fling my scent to any unsuspecting passerby.
Also, I work in a salon. I lather myself in chemicals all day long so no one can really catch my scent. To keep from swooning in public, I keep my trusty scent plugs in my nose. They are little magnetic clips that settle right inside my nostrils, and they filter out all scents.
Thank the sun baked beaches of the coast, because I don’t want to smell an alpha. I’m so done with men and alphas that I won’t even look at a beta for a booty call.
“Let’s see what that bleach looks like.” I pop an orange candy, push away from the comfy chair, and lock the front door as I walk by. Like I said, I’m not scared of the dark, just aware of my surroundings, and I’m not about to play roulette with my life.
The click of the lock echoes through the almost empty salon, and I take a moment to inhale deeply. The air carries the faint scent of hair dye and the lingering aroma of the coffee I gulped down earlier. The dimming light from outside casts long shadows on the walls, adding to the eerie silence that fills the space. My pulse quickens a notch.
I approach my client, deftly undoing a foil in her hair. The chemical laden strands cling to my fingers, surprisingly soft despite the harsh treatment. The bleach has done its job well—better than I expected, given the box dye debacle. The strands gleam a pale yellow under the harsh salon lights, a decent base for the ice blonde she desires.
“Oh.” She slaps her magazine closed. I barely resist glancing at it, but I do. I’m nosy, but the news lately has been, well, depressing. “Can you believe that Chris what’s-his-name just revealed as an alpha?” She shakes her head, losing yet another precious foil.
It makes my blood boil—the foils, not the alpha. It took me forever to get them in there because she wanted her hair as light as possible, thinking I’m a miracle worker.
I’m not.
I’m just a stylist in Puritan City. Well, among other things.
“Did he?” I ask, feigning surprise. “I mean, it isn’t like it was a huge shock.” I tap the bowl for her to sit. He’s a big guy with big muscles and a deep voice. It really isn’t that hard to guess.
She settles into the chair, chattering away. Clients use us stylists as sounding boards and therapists.
I wish we could still perform surgeries like lobotomies. I’d be damn good at that.
“If you ask me, he had to have known he was an alpha. I mean, all those delicious muscles, and they shine like he oils them every night.” She pauses before turning to me. “Do you think he oils his muscles?”
“I do, actually.” Honestly, I think he’s that self-absorbed.
“Alphas like him never look at betas like us.” She sighs wistfully, settling back in the bowl as I continue to pull foils out of her hair. “Isn’t that right?”
If she only knew…
I bite back a sardonic laugh, focusing instead on the task at hand. “For sure,” I agree mindlessly, my fingers working methodically to remove the foils. The metallic sound of each one being pulled free fills the air. Why does it take so long to get them all in and a millisecond to pull them out?
“I think it’s bullshit,” she states with more vehemence than I anticipated from her. “The recent reports are saying that only an omega can take an alpha’s knot and that if a beta wants to reproduce, they have to do so with another beta.”
I pause, my fingers buried in her hair. The heat from the bleach has warmed her scalp, the smell sharp and pungent. “Yeah, well, the world loves its labels, doesn’t it?” I murmur, my mind wandering to my own complicated existence.
She tilts her head, looking at me with a curiosity that borders on suspicion. “What about you? Do you have any alpha or beta prospects?”
My heart skips a beat. The question feels invasive, hitting too close to the secrets I’ve buried. “Not really,” I reply smoothly, forcing a smile. “I’m too busy with the salon to think about dating.”
Or rather, I’m too busy masking my natural scent.
