Chapter 7: The Fake Girlfriend Gambit
The little red light on the camera was a Cyclops, unblinking. It saw everything. It saw the way Matt’s shoulders were a fraction too high, the practiced ease in his smile just a hair too tight. It saw Dee’s knuckles, white where she gripped her shears before forcing them to relax.
“So,” Matt said, his voice a smooth, broadcast-ready baritone that nonetheless held a private thread of warmth meant only for her. He leaned back into the plush silver velvet, the familiar dip of the chair a small comfort. “I hear there’s been some… speculation.”
The live comment feed on the monitor was a frenetic waterfall of emojis and capital letters. Dee took a breath, the scents of lavender and him—clean soap and that sharp cologne—filling her lungs. “Speculation is a nice word for it,” she said, falling into the rhythm of their banter like a diver hitting water. “I’d call it a full-blown, unhinged conspiracy theory.”
She lifted the comb, her fingers automatically finding their place at his temple. The moment her skin made contact with his, a current, familiar and devastating, shot up her arm. She ignored it. She had ten years of practice ignoring it. “The people have spoken, Matthew. They think you’re here for more than a trim.”
He met her eyes in the mirror. His blues were devastating up close, especially now, crinkled at the corners with genuine amusement. “And what do they think I’m here for?”
“Don’t make me say it.” She began combing, the ritual steadying her. “My therapist says I need to avoid setting unrealistic romantic expectations for my clients.”
He laughed, a real sound that briefly drowned out the silent scream of the comments. “Well. Since we’re clearing the air.” He shifted, turning his head slightly toward the camera lens, his expression shifting into something more earnest, more actorly. The shift was subtle, but she felt it in the muscles beneath her hands. “I should probably address the elephant in the room. Or, in the chair.”
Here it was. The lie. The strategy. Dee’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird.
“The truth is,” Matt said, his gaze flicking to her in the mirror for a half-second, a silent apology, “I am actually seeing someone.”
The feed exploded. Dee’s hand stilled for a heartbeat. She knew it was coming. She’d written the line with him. Hearing it aloud, in his voice, in this chair, was a different kind of puncture.
She summoned every ounce of performance she possessed. Her eyes went wide. Her free hand flew to her chest. She took a stumbling half-step back, the picture of melodramatic shock. “What?”
He played along, turning to face her, that infuriatingly charming smile on his face. “Yeah. It’s new. But it’s… it’s good.”
“I… I can’t…” Dee wheezed, clutching her shirt. She let her legs go soft, collapsing not toward the floor, but directly against him. Her side pressed into his shoulder, her head lolling against his arm. The heat of him seared through her thin shirt. “The betrayal. The audacity. After all we’ve been through.”
She felt the rumble of his suppressed laugh in his chest. His arm came up, instinctively steadying her, his hand a brand on her waist. “Breathe, Dee. It’s not that big a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” She pushed herself upright, one hand still splayed over her heart, giving the camera a look of profound sorrow. “You hear that, everyone? I’m over here having a full-system cardiovascular event, and he says it’s not a big deal.” She turned back to him, dropping the frail act for a stern glare. “You’re buying me lunch for a month. And I get final approval on her. If she uses the wrong conditioner, it’s an immediate red flag.”
The comments were a mix of ‘AWWW’ and ‘I KNEW IT!’ and ‘Dee’s reaction is EVERYTHING.’
Matt held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. Fine. You get veto power on hair products.” He settled back into the chair, the moment of faux-crisis passing. But his hand had been on her waist. Her side still felt warm.
Dee picked up her shears, the metal cool and rational in her hand. “Anyway,” she said, her voice deliberately bright, “since my own dreams are clearly shattered, I’m going to need some compensation. I’m calling dibs right now. Best woman at the wedding.”
“What wedding?” he snorted.
“The inevitable one. I’m going to give the most brutally embarrassing speech you’ve ever heard. I have footage. I have stories from 2014 that would make your publicist weep.” She started cutting, the crisp snip-snip cutting through the charged air. The performance was back on. They were safely in the realm of bit.
“2014 was a dark year,” Matt mused, closing his eyes as she worked. A familiar relaxation began to smooth the tension from his brow. The camera, the audience, it all faded a little with the sound of her tools. This part was real.
“It was the year of the misguided highlights,” Dee confirmed, her voice dropping into its professional, focused zone. “We don’t speak of it.” Her fingers threaded through his hair, separating a section. This was her language. This was where she couldn’t hide. Every stroke of her comb, every careful snip, was a word she couldn’t say.
He was quiet for a minute, the only sounds the scissor-snips and the low hum of the studio lights. The comment feed continued to scroll, a distant, irrelevant river.
But nothing was okay. The lie, which was supposed to feel like a relief, felt like a wall. He had an unnamed, fictional woman. She had her public heart attack. The territory between them was now officially and fraudulently mapped.
She finished the cut in silence, then reached for the clippers to clean up his nape. The buzzy vibration filled the space. As she worked around the delicate curve of his ear, her pinky finger brushed the skin of his neck. He shivered. A tiny, almost imperceptible thing.
She turned off the clippers. The sudden quiet was loud.
Dee brushed the loose hairs from his shoulders, her hands lingering for a beat too long on the broad plains of them. A final, selfish touch. She met his gaze in the mirror. The performance smile was gone from both of them now. What was left was just tired, and deep, and a little sad.
She forced a brightness she didn’t feel. “All done. Go stun your mysterious lady friend.”
He stood, rolling his shoulders. He looked perfect. He always did. He turned to the camera, slipping the charming mask back on with effortless grace. “Thanks for watching, everyone. And remember: sometimes a haircut is just a haircut.”
He waved, and Dee gave a little finger-gun salute, her grin plastered in place.
She reached over and tapped the screen on her phone, ending the live stream. The red light died.
The silence it left behind was absolute and heavy.
Matt didn’t move to leave. He just stood there, in the center of her studio, looking at the now-dark camera as if it had accused him of something.
Dee busied herself with cleaning her shears, wiping them down with intense concentration.
“Dee.”
She didn’t look up. “Hmm?”
“The speech.”
Now she glanced at him. “What about it?”
“If there ever was one,” he said, his voice low and stripped bare of any actorly pretense, “you really would be the best woman.”
The words hung between them, simple and devastating. It wasn’t a confession. It was a fragment of a truth, a peek at the blueprint of a life he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, build.
Dee felt the careful architecture of her composure crack. She swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. “Damn right I would,” she whispered.
He nodded, once. Then he walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. He didn’t look back. “See you next time my split ends offend you.”
And then he was gone, leaving her alone with the scent of him, the ghost of his heat against her side, and the crushing weight of a performance that had ended, but had changed nothing at all.