The Twin Dilemma

Chapter 4

AVERY

With the salon being closed on Sunday’s and Monday’s, come Tuesday morning I’m dragging my feet. I am always the first one to arrive around seven in the morning to open up. We do not open until nine but I like the calm before the storm, it is my most productive period. I use the quiet two hours to send out text messages for our clients to confirm their appointments, pay bills and complete the general admin of running the salon. I have always been the more organised twin whereas Amber has always been more hands on.

My mind keeps wandering this morning to a certain someone who has been constantly invading my dreams. I shake my head, spinning in my chair to look away from the computer screen. I can’t concentrate regardless, the letters and numbers are starting to blur. I remove my glasses and rub my temples, an ache starting to form in my forehead.

I study the appearance of the salon we built from the ground up two years ago. Two sidewalls are painted a deep eggplant colour with the back wall a stark contrasting white. Three stations are set up at each of the purple walls with a black leather chair and an oval mirror illuminated with bright white lights behind it, really making it pop. There are two black leather lounges in the waiting area at the front of the salon and a black marble counter sits in the middle of the floor where I’m currently sitting. Two basins sit side by side along the back wall and hidden at the back is the beauty room, kitchen and bathroom.

Our father was a heavy smoker and when he passed four years ago due to lung cancer, his dying wish was for us to own our own salon. He left us a large sum of money in his will with the remainder going to our mother. We migrated to Australia when Amber and I were three years old and after losing my father, my mother couldn’t stand being away from her homeland of Spain any longer. A year after his tragic death, she moved back home while we made the tough decision to remain here in Sydney with no immediate family. Even though we are alone, we have each other and that was all we ever needed until we met Isabelle and Scarlett.

Amber strolls into the salon with her black and teal Tiffany and Co sunglasses shielding half of her face. In her hands are two iced coffees from the Gloria Jeans down the road. She places one down on the counter next to me then retreats into the kitchen without a word.

“Thank you!” I call out to her.

I take a sip of the iced coffee, its freezing liquid coating my dry throat. On Sunday, I came home in the late afternoon after spin class with Scarlett and all I could hear were s*x noises coming from her bedroom. I quickly slammed the door shut in a panic and disappeared. I went to Scarlett and Isabelle’s apartment for a few hours. Returning home later that night, a good-looking man was walking down the stairs as I was mounting them.

“Holy f**k there’s two of you.” He stated when he saw me and did a double take to make sure Amber was still behind him as she stood at the door watching our exchange.

“I’m the prettier one.” I flicked my hair over my shoulder and scooted around them both to go inside.

Amber closed the door and turned on me. “You can’t tell anyone about this.” She practically begged me.

“What you do with your v****a is your own business. Just give me some warning next time.”

The next day I was reading a book in my room when I heard him come over again. It was too late for me to leave and I don’t think Amber realised I was home. I had to wear noise-cancelling headphones to drown out their moaning!

Amber reappears from the kitchen slurping her coffee. She sits on my lap to look at her list of appointments for the day on the computer.

“Did you want to talk about the new man in your life?” I speak to the back of her head.

“No, not really.” She mumbles, not really paying attention to me.

“Well considering I’ve been forced into silence and he is coming into my home, I believe I deserve some sort of explanation, don’t you?”

Amber is quiet for a while and just when I think she is going to ignore my comments, she speaks up. “Ugh fine.” She obnoxiously slurps the rest of her coffee, throws is in the garbage bin and rises off my lap. She walks around to the other side of the counter and leans on it with her elbows. “His name is Jensen and I met him at a bar on Sunday and he agreed to be my f**k buddy. No strings attached, no feelings, just sex.”

“So you are going to be his personal pincushion? He can stick his d**k wherever he wants and then leave? I don’t think this is a good idea Amber.” I furrow my eyebrows in disappointment. Why is she doing this to herself?

“I think it is the best idea I’ve ever come up with. I get to release my s****l frustration with the same hot guy whenever the hell I want, for however long I like and once this is over, no one gets hurt and we walk away. I expect you to keep this information to yourself. No one needs to know what I do in my private time.” She starts to walk over to set up her station for the day when she turns back to look at me. “And plus, I like to think of him as my own personal living dildo, except I don’t have to do all the work myself.”

She winks at me and I am left sitting there with my mouth hanging open in shock. I am forced into silence when our apprentices waltz through the front door.

“Morning boss ladies!” Leah greets us, her royal blue pigtails bouncing as she comes over to kiss me on the cheek. Her sister Luna follows her in, her pastel pink hair pulled into a braid that trails down her back to her waist.

The four of us bustle about the salon, preparing for the busy day ahead. Luna starts up the coffee machine in the kitchen to prepare coffees for our regular clients coming in first thing this morning. Amber organises the basin area, ensuring the area is well stocked with all the shampoos, conditioners and treatments we will need for the day. Leah is sanitizing all the surfaces while I grab the load of black towels sitting in the washer dryer that I turned on last night before I left. I am busy folding the towels when Amber’s first client arrives.

The morning flies by and it is three in the afternoon by the time I take a seat at the counter. My feet are aching; I really need to find some more comfortable work shoes. I unlock the computer to organise the line of students that have just arrived for our ten-dollar student haircuts. Some of the students have their preferred hairdresser. We started to run this scheme every Tuesday afternoon from three to six o’clock and the four of us take no appointments during this time. Usually the kids only need a trim so the cuts are speedy and we can usually pump out around fifteen kids’ cuts in an hour between the four of us.

I finally get through the line of students and most of them have disappeared to the arcade next door while they wait for their turn. I am about to schedule in the last two children when the bell above the door chimes and I look up to see a man standing in front of me. I wrack my brain for his name when I realise I have met him before. He leans against the counter and smirks at me.

“Avery, right?” He asks.

I roll my eyes at him. “How can I help you Alec?” I reply dryly.

“I need a haircut. Preferably by Amber.” He explains. I eye his perfectly styled hair, which quite clearly doesn’t need cutting. I raise a brow at him, questioningly.

“You are out of luck sorry. We don’t take appointments on Tuesday afternoons, it’s three hours of student cuts only. Best I can do is book you in at another time or you could wait until all the kids are done.” I explain to him.

Amber comes over to the counter to take payment from her first student. She doesn’t say a word to Alec.

“Thanks again Amber!” The boy says to her.

“No worries mate, see you next time.” She smiles at him then turns her attention to Alec. Her face turns hard and her eyes narrow. The volume of her voice drops. “What do you want?”

“Hi Amber, it’s nice to see you again. I would like you to cut my hair.” He explains politely.

“I don’t have time and besides, I’m not touching you.”

My wide eyes ping pong between the two of them, watching their tense exchange of words. Something clearly happened between them, I am just confused about why Amber hasn’t approached me to talk about it. Why is she purposely keeping secrets from me?

“Come on Amber, please? I am busy the rest of the week otherwise I would come back another time.”

“I don’t care. Not my problem.” She hisses at him, venom dripping from her words.

“She should be free around five thirty if you want to wait?” The words escape from my mouth before I can take them back. Amber shoots me a furious look.

“Excellent! I can wait. I think I saw a coffee shop down the road. I’ll be back shortly.” Alec beams at me.

“Amber will take an iced coffee.” I tell him. I’m not about to tell him that I could make a coffee for him in the kitchen. Amber will probably murder me, plus I have clients to get to.

“Perfect.” He turns to walk away.

“You’re paying double!” She calls to his retreating form. He looks at her through the window and blows her a kiss before disappearing. Amber’s body shakes with rage. “You’re a f*****g traitor.” She mutters to me before returning to her station for her next cut.

Alec returns soon after and places Amber’s coffee at her station without a word. He sits on the lounge in the waiting area for nearly two hours scrolling through his phone until we all eventually finish our student cuts. I look at my watch and its ten minutes to six when I realise Alec is still sitting there patiently waiting. Leah and Luna begin to clean up the salon while I begin to wash a load of towels.

“Let’s go Romeo.” Amber calls out to him, standing behind the basin.

“You don’t need to wash my hair Amber.” I hear Alec say to her.

“You have about a ton of product in your hair. I can’t accurately cut dirty hair.” She explains.

I eavesdrop on their conversation unintentionally as I pretend to clean the beauty room, which hasn’t been touched all day. Our beauty therapist Natalia didn’t come in today as she had no appointments booked in.

“Look Amber, I wanted to apologise for the other night.” Alec says over the sound of Amber washing his hair.

“I don’t really need to hear the lame excuse that you’ve had two days to come up with.” Amber replies bitterly.

“My mother was arriving from an international flight at five thirty and I had promised to pick her up. I didn’t mean to fall asleep and I panicked when I woke up. I hightailed it out of there before I could even think about it.” He explains while Amber remains silent.

I emerge from the beauty room and begin cleaning all the scissors at the front counter. Amber and Alec move over to her station.

“How am I cutting your hair?” Amber asks him.

“Just a trim. Whatever you think I need.”

“I could always shave it all off.” She smirks at him holding up the clippers and turning them on. His eyes widen in shock. “I’m kidding!” She picks up her scissors and starts cutting.

Once Amber is finished cutting Alec’s hair, he comes over to the counter and I ask him for his details to enter into our system. Not wanting to get on Amber’s bad side, I call out to her. “How much am I charging Romeo?”

“One hundred.” She calls back to me without looking over at us.

“Wow, pricey!” Alec jokes.

“I told you that you are paying double, plus I threw in a tip for myself too. Someone has to pay my overtime rate.” She explains.

“Sounds fair.” I agree with her with a nod.

Alec pulls out his wallet and slides a hundred dollar note onto the counter towards me. “Thanks for your help Avery.” He says in a low voice.

“Somehow I don’t think it is me that you need to be thanking.” I give him a pointed look.

“You know what? You are one hundred percent correct. Amber, can I take you out for dinner to thank you?” He calls out to her.

“Keep dreaming asshole.” She storms into the kitchen without another word.

Alec leaves the salon while laughing his head off. One thing I know for certain, those two have a thing for each other but Amber will be too stubborn to let Alec off the hook anytime soon. Their banter is so easy and I only wish I could be as carefree as my twin.