Page 61 of When Love Takes Root

My eyes started to move before my sense caught them.

Siah, focus.

I brought my gaze back to her face, and she caught me doing it. Her lashes lowered for half a second before she looked back up at me. A faint warmth touched her cheeks, and she shifted her weight like the doorway had suddenly gotten too narrow.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning. We’re a few minutes early.”

“That’s okay. I got here early too.”

“I figured.”

Her brows lifted. “You figured?”

“You seem like you beat worry to the building.”

She looked at me for a second, then laughed. It wasn’t much, but it reached her eyes before she could stop it. Juice looked away like he was giving us privacy and collecting evidence at the same time.

He stepped up beside me with a tool bag. “Morning, Ms. Celeste. I come in peace and employability.”

She smiled at him. “Good morning, Juice.”

“I like how you say that. Makes me sound like I got benefits.”

“You do have benefits,” I said.

“Because my gifts have made room.”

Celeste shook her head and opened the door wider. “Y’all can come in.”

I stepped past her, keeping enough space between us to remain respectful, but her scent still caught me. Vanilla, warm sugar, clean hair oil, something light beneath it. She smelled close, like a memory from a kitchen I’d never stood in.

I kept moving.

The first thing I noticed was the back row. She’d cleared it before we arrived. Products moved. Capes removed. Cords wrapped. Chairs pulled forward so we had space at the wall. The front stations were ready for clients, towels stacked, tools arranged, the whole place prepared for a day no one had asked to be easy.

“You moved everything,” I said.

“I wanted y’all to be able to work.”

“That helps.”

She nodded, then glanced toward the back. “Starr comes in at nine. We moved what we could and rescheduled the clients who needed dryers.”

I opened the panel enough for her to see from a safe distance. “This is where the shop’s power splits off to different areas. I need to see what’s feeding the back row and what’s tied together that shouldn’t be.”

Celeste stepped beside me with her purple notebook pressed against her chest. “So, the dryers are pulling too much?”

“They’re pulling too much for the way this was set up,” I explained. “The dryers need their own circuit instead of sharing one with the back stations.”

“And the outlet by the shampoo bowls?”

“I’m removing it today. Once it’s out, I’ll know whether the heat stayed at the outlet or traveled into the wall.”

Her mouth tightened. “So we won’t really know how bad it is until you open it.”

“Exactly.”