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You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip classic thing that you like
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style
“I think it might be time for a change,” Jack remarked. Or, at least, I thought he did. I couldn’t register much over the intense concentration I was currently putting into my hair. I had five unfinished braids on my head, zero feeling in my arms, and a small army of bobby pins scattered across the dressing table.
(I’d felt inspired this morning. My elven braids were going to slay so hard, even Legolas would be quaking.)
“—Just feel like I need to move on, you know.”
My stomach dropped. I let go of my hair abruptly, all five braids unravelling in an irreversible cascade. Blood rushed down to my aching arms, draining from my face in the process.
A change? Moving on? Jack could’ve been talking about a thousand things, but my traitorous mind went straight to the worst.
“Move on... from what?” I said haltingly.
Jack’s reflection slid into the mirror in front of me, a gel-slicked finger pointing towards his own hair. He was midway through his elaborate morning pompadour ritual. A couple of less-secure strands flopped down in front of his left eye, landing in an effortlessly swooping curl that had no right to be so damn captivating.
“Your hair?” I said, bewildered.
“Don’t you think it could do with a re-vamp?”
The panic in my stomach receded. Jack wanted to break up with his hair, not me. “What kind of re-vamp are we talking?” I asked. “Like, a trim, or—?”
“Trims are for cowards. I’m thinking a proper transformation. Like, go big or go home.”
Dread filled me once more. “No,” I said. “Not the pompadour.”
“Why not? I’ve had this hair since I was in high school. I’m overdue for a change.”
“Is this because my dad calls you a hipster Ken doll? He’s a certified dick, Jack. You shouldn’t listen to a word he says.”
Dad might have gotten some brownie points for financing my college tuition, but he was still on thin ice. Especially when he went around insulting my boyfriend’s hair bi-weekly. So what, if Jack’s pompadour sometimes looked like plastic? At least it was structurally sound. Which was more than could be said for Dad’s fast-receding hairline.
Jack laughed. “I’m not doing this for your dad, Bex. I just figured, what better time for a sexy glow-up than now? Hot girl summer, am I right?” He slicked a comb dramatically through one side of his hair, winking at my reflection in the mirror. It was lucky I was sitting, because my knees would have spectacularly failed me otherwise.
I tore my eyes away, but my own reflection betrayed the colour flooding my cheeks. “Well, I think you’re already sufficiently glowed-up,” I said curtly, and busied myself with brushing out my unsalvageable elf braids. I didn’t have it in me to redo them. And I doubt I could have, even if I’d tried. My flustered fingers had suddenly lost all dexterity.
Jack was watching my reflection curiously, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “I thought you said this pompadour was ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous,” I retorted without meeting his eyes. Ridiculously hot.
“So you don’t care if I change it?”
“No?” I lied. A beat of silence. Jack cocked a dark, impeccably-groomed eyebrow. “Okay, fine. Yes. I do care. If you must know.”
Jack’s half-smile broadened into a smug grin. “I knew it. I knew you had a thing for the pomp.”
“Ugh.” I hid my face in my hands. “It’s not a thing.” It totally was a thing. “It’s just... It’s your brand, Jack. I can’t even imagine you existing without looking like you’re Elvis Presley and James Dean’s love child.”
“Well, I can assure you that I didn’t come out of the womb with a pompadour. Though that would’ve made for some fantastic baby pictures—”
“You know what I mean,” I protested. “This hair... It’s a part of you. I don’t know you without it.” I wasn’t even being dramatic. Jack had maintained the exact same hairstyle since the day we’d met on the Owl bus, over three years ago. That rockabilly look was what had drawn me to him in the first place (along with his large hands, but that was besides the point).
Jack rolled his eyes. “It’s just hair, Bex.”
“I know,” I said morosely.
His face softened, registering my dismay. He moved to sit beside me at the dressing table—an ambitious feat, considering the size of the stool. Somehow, he managed to balance with ninety percent of his butt suspended in midair. I could have shifted to make room for him, but was too busy revelling in his closeness, the press of his thigh against mine, to make sensible decisions.
Jack swivelled to face me—the movement inexplicably smooth given how much chair-space he had to work with—and brushed a wavy lock of hair behind my ear.
“Bex,” he began, his voice gentle.
He gripped my hands in his, searching for his next words. My heart fluttered in anticipation. Maybe he was having second thoughts about this. Maybe he’d keep the pompadour, just for me. The space between us felt charged, his dark eyes boring into mine. He took a deep, steadying breath. And when he spoke, his words were filled with passion.
“I want to pompa-do this.”
My jaw went slack. I snatched my hands away to face-palm into them. “For fuck’s sake, Jack,” I groaned.
Jack’s poker face finally cracked. His lips parted into an open-mouthed grin, ready to spew more cursed puns.
I threatened him with the tip of my hairbrush. “Don’t you dare.”
Jack pursed his lips together for a mere two seconds before blurting, “I think you mean pompa-don’t you dare.” He punctuated the sentence with two finger guns.
I threw my hairbrush at him. “You are pompa-dead, Jackson.”
Jack dodged the hairbrush reflexively, but the movement had his ass slipping off the stool.
“Careful!” I yelped. My survival instinct abandoning me, I grabbed his forearms. Which achieved nothing except letting Jack drag me down with him. We collided with the carpet, the impact knocking the breath out of us, and lay there in a tangled mess of limbs.
Jack was the first to laugh. And, once my breath returned, I couldn’t help but join in. Soon, bubbling laughter descended into full-on hysterics, and Jack pulled me to his chest, bracing his body against mine as he wheezed.
“We are pompa-disasters,” he choked out, and that set us both off again.
Finally, all of our laughter spent, we picked ourselves off the floor. Jack’s pompadour had suffered the most collateral damage. I reached up and lovingly moulded the dislodged hair back into place.
It’s just hair, I tried to remind myself, as my fingertips lingered on the gel-hardened strands. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Jack got a new look. And, besides, I’d already immortalised his pompadour in an embarrassing number of photos. His hair was the main reason my phone was running out of storage, not to mention the astronomical hair gel expenses. So maybe this was for the best...
“Bex,” Jack said, looking guilty. “If you don’t want me to change it—”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “No. It’s your hair. Whatever you want to do with it, I’ll support you.” It was the right thing to say. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t grieve the loss of his pompadour over a bottle of cheap red wine and Taylor Swift songs, though.
Jack smiled. It was a soft, genuine thing. “Thank you,” he said, and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“But I don’t think anything can top your current hair,” I added. “Just so we’re clear on that.”
His smile broadened, and I didn’t miss the criminal glint in his eye. “Then prepare to be proven wrong, darling.”
My laptop sat in front of me, lecture slides empty of annotations, while the anatomy professor droned on about something to do with... the frontal lobe? I wasn’t sure. My own frontal lobe was too busy speculating about potential pompadour successors.
Jack had left for the barbershop this morning. He’d invited me to accompany him, but I’d told him I couldn’t skip my classes. Really, I’d just wanted to be spared from watching his pompadour get brutally murdered—I mean—restyled. Jack had been delighted about this, saying he could surprise me instead.
The suspense was agonising. Jack hadn’t given me any hints about what to expect. I doubted he would want to repeat any old hairstyles. From looking at childhood photos, his hair seemed to have a fair amount of backstory. He’d had the classic bowl haircut as a kid—terrible, but adorable. And then, in a misguided middle-school experimental phase, he’d sported a spiky head of frosted tips. That had been... unfortunate.
The frosted tips had persisted for a couple of years, before being mowed down to a buzzcut around the time Jillian had got sectioned. That hadn’t been out of vanity—rather, Jack trying to find some control in his life. And apparently, while in hospital, Jillian had also screamed at him to “get rid of that dumbass hair, you look like a dehydrated wheat field.” Clearly, even when plagued with hallucinations, Jillie had been able to see the frosted tips for the abomination they were.
Jack had respected Jillian’s wishes and, within a year, the buzzcut had grown into the beautiful pompadour we knew today. It had stayed the same ever since. Until now. The next chapter in the journey of Jack’s hair. I felt like I was witnessing history.
What was Jack going to choose for his hair makeover? I shuddered to think of the possibilities. He could shave it all off, and live up to his Panhandler-Will-christened nickname of Monk. He could go for a basic-ass crew cut. He could dye it ginger. Hell, he could even get a mohawk.
My mind continued to conjure up increasingly harrowing hair-transformations throughout the day. By the time I got back to our apartment, I was ready to be put out of my misery.
“Jack?” I called out, stepping through the doorway. “Jack? Are you home?”
No reply. The apartment was suspiciously quiet. I closed the door behind me and crept around the rooms, my eyes peeled. If his “surprise” involved jump-scaring me, I wasn’t about to be caught off guard. But there was no sign of him.
In the end, it was the buzz of my phone that startled me. I switched it on to find two new messages.
Vegetarian Graffiti Boy
sorry, almost done now
just getting it blow dried and styled
Cadaver Girl
Why’s it taking so long??
You’ve been there for like 5 hours
Vegetarian Graffiti Boy
i went for the full package ;)
Cadaver Girl
Dear Lord...
Vegetarian Graffiti Boy
only for you, babe <3
Shaking my head, I did some meditative breathing. Then I dug out my sketchbook, and proceeded to engage in my go-to coping mechanism of drawing dead bodies.
An hour later, I heard the front door open, and the light, sneaky footsteps that could only belong to a certain ex-criminal. My hand froze, pencil hovering over the sketchbook paper. I rose from my desk, torn between running towards him, and staying in blissful ignorance for a little while longer.
“Bex?” Jack called. “You ready for this?”
“No,” I said, voice pitching upwards. If I didn’t look, I could pretend his pompadour was still there, unharmed and fully intact.
The footsteps drew closer, until Jack was outside the door. “Close your eyes,” he said.
Despite my reservations, I did as he asked. “Okay.”
“Are they closed?”
“Yes, Jack.”
Those criminal footsteps entered the room. Large hands gripped my waist, turning me around. I felt the warm of Jack’s breath as he murmured, “Now, open them.”
There was no going back now. I forced my eyelids apart. And shrieked. And fell to the carpet, losing all of my collective shits.
“So? Do you like it?” Jack asked, doing a cheeky spin.
I could only emit a strangled, incoherent noise.
“How?” I choked out, once I’d managed to semi-compose myself. “It’s gotten taller?”
“Hair extensions,” Jack explained.
“And the gold streak?”
“Bleach. Toner. And a metric shit-tonne of glitter hairspray.”
The result was magnificent. Not only was Jack’s pompadour still here, but it had doubled in height, now with a dazzling golden streak across the centre—as though the stylist had taken the metallic pigments of Jack’s signature graffiti paint and embedded them into his hair strands.
“Has anyone else seen?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
I whipped out my phone, dwindling storage be damned, and instructed Jack to pose for an artistic headshot. He was a natural model, leaning back against the wall and tilting his head at the perfect angle to catch the light. The evening sunbeams from the window painted his face in gold and shadows. And his hair. Good lord. It was radiant, voluptuous, towering unapologetically, and sparkling like a disco ball. I was in pompadour heaven.
Once I’d taken an obscene amount of photos, I painstakingly selected four of the best ones and exhibited them on our family group chat. (The one without the parents, because having a Facebook group chat with the mayor of San Francisco was just awkward.)
Meanwhile, Jack contributed a selfie featuring his double chin.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Noah
Fruity, I like it.
Heath
lmao dude can u still fit thru the door?
Jillian
JACKSON WHYYY
YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING BADGER
More like a badger I’d fuck, my mind thought unforgivably. Aloud, I said, “She’s not wrong.”
Jack grinned. “Well, I guess it’s an improvement from ‘dehydrated wheat field’.”
Our conversation was interrupted when both of our phones went berserk with notifications. Heath and Jillie had started spamming the chat with badger lookalikes. Noah was too mature to partake, but I didn’t miss the bastard dropping likes, left, right and centre.
“These guys are the worst,” I said, though I couldn’t help laughing when a particularly edgy-looking badger popped up on my screen.
“Eh.” Jack switched off his phone and tossed onto the nearest surface. “I don’t really care what they think. Only one opinion matters to me.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly, with a smile that would have been bashful if I didn’t know better.
“Hm. Well...” I crossed my arms and made a show of judging his hair. Its shimmering incandescence was almost too much for my eyes to handle. If Jack’s last pompadour was dark and stylish, this one was like the sun: hot as hell and making me want to combust on the spot. I cleared my throat, heat rising to my cheeks. “I think your hair is... adequate.”
“Really,” he said, drawing out the word.
“Yeah. The sparkle is a bit much. It would look better with sunglasses on... Or the curtains drawn.”
His singular dimple appeared as he caught on. In one dramatic flourish, he crossed the room and swept the curtains closed. “Is this better for you, Miss Adams?”
“God, yeah,” I muttered breathlessly. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I reached him in two strides, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and crushed my lips against his. The force of it sent Jack stumbling backwards into the window. Regaining his balance, he kissed me back hard.
I tried to dig my fingers into Jack’s hair, and was met with more resistance than I’d expected. I pulled away. “This shit is crunchy.”
“It needed a lot of gel to defy gravity,” Jack murmured into my neck.
“Not for much longer,” I said, and steered him onto the bed. Jack obliged eagerly, grabbing the relevant essentials from our bedside drawer. (We had a bountiful supply, courtesy of Nurse Katherine.)
I kept to my promise. In record time, we were sprawled across the mattress, bright-eyed and breathless and giddy, hair glitter all over the pillows, and the only thing defying gravity was... Not Jack’s hair, let me put it that way.
His pompadour was well-and-truly flattened, and it was only now that I registered the length of his extensions. They flopped limply over his face in semi-solidified clumps. Jack puffed out his cheeks tried to blow a strand out of his eye, without much success.
“Maybe this wasn’t the most practical hair decision,” he admitted.
“Maybe,” I said. “But it was worth it.”
A grin crept into his face. “So you do like it?”
“I did not say that.” I tried not to smile.
“Come on. Admit it,” he wheedled.
“Okay,” I relented. “I was wrong before, when I said nothing could top your pompadour. But only because I thought you were chopping off the pomp. Not adding more pomp.”
“I’ll have to add another inch next time,” Jack said. “Test my theory.”
“What theory?”
“That there’s a positive correlation between pompadour height and how turned on you are.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. Then kissed him silent, which all but confirmed his hypothesis.
“Oh, and Bex?” Jack murmured between kisses.
“Yeah?”
He brushed his hair back sheepishly. “I think we’re gonna need more hair gel.”