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“Okay, we finished watching Die Hard. Now it’s time for your end of the deal.”
Emma rose from the couch and approached the cabinet that stored all of her beauty equipment. Well, stored as in had everything haphazardly crammed into it . She sifted through the boxes and tubes while Piers shuffled in his seat back on the couch. Even the sounds of his clothes scraping against the leather seemed to emit protests against her plans. But fair was fair. She had sat there and watched some guy fight some other guys for what felt like days, and now it was Piers’ turn to repay the favour.
“But-but you haven’t even told me what you thought of it yet.” he tried to delay the inevitable by changing the subject. Not a hope of that.
“Oh, yeah it was totally awesome. Best movie ever.” she didn’t even bother trying to sound genuine. Not like it mattered.
“Quentin Tarantino really outdid himself this time.”
“But he didn’t even-”
“Here it is!” she pulled out the little blue case that held all of her eyebrow fixing bits and bobs. Some other boxes toppled out to freedom too, but were hastily shoved back in and trapped behind the cabinet door.
“Off to the bathroom we go!” she declared, passing by the man looking like he was off to see his pet get put to rest.
Still, some halfways to the bathroom the TV’s advertisements came to an abrupt ending and very unwilling set of footsteps began to follow in her wake. At last he stepped in and the door was promptly closed to prevent any attempts at escaping.
“Emma, do we really have to?” he asked her back while she folded up a face cloth and placed it in the small pool of collected hot water.
“Shush and sit on the edge of the bath.”
One dramatic sigh. The sound of a defeated young man planting his behind on the edge of her bath. She opened up her kit and placed it to the side. Honestly, the guy was acting like she was about to try cut his hair blindfolded with a butter knife. Still, masculinity and all that. Some apprehension was probably to be expected.
“It won’t be that bad, Piers.”
No answer.
“I’m only giving them a little touch up. No shaping, I swear.”
He loosed a type of grunty sigh and straightened up a little. A show of resignation, perhaps.
Emma lifted the cloth from the water and wrung it out most of the way. Still hot enough to burn a little, but without being dripping with water it was bearable.
“Now this might sting just a little bit.” she approached her subject and couldn’t resist a smile at the professional, rigid nod he gave while he closed his eyes.
“But you just be a little trooper and bear with it, okay?”
His right eyebrow arched and pulled the eyelid open with it to give her a glare before she tilted his whole head back and promptly lay the cloth across the lower half of his forehead.
“It’s hot.” Captain Obvious made a sudden appearance.
“Yeah. It opens up the pores. Makes it easier to pluck. Less pain for you.” she went back to her kit and lifted out her weapon of choice. Still sharp. Wouldn’t need another pair for a good while.
“So, uh-” Piers hesitated. Drew another deep breath and lifted an index finger to scratch the side of his nose.
“You’re sure that nobody else will be able tell?”
Poor thing. Blowing the whole affair out of proportion. To be fair, though, Emma had been doing her own brows since she was seventeen and worrying she had overdone it was still an ever present factor. First timer Piers probably thought he’d be coming out with all of four strands of hair left. The image of an eyebrowless Piers popped into her head and she stifled a laugh.
“I promise, none of your BSAA buddies will be able to tell the difference. They will notice how much hotter you look though.”
A tiny little grin. She lifted the cloth away and his eyes were immediately on her. Tried to watch the tweezers approach him but ultimately just ended up lifting his eyebrows away once they passed his vision.
“Stop moving your eyebrows.”
One attempt to get close failed. So did another. And another. Only after the fourth try did she realize it was no mistake and shook her head while biting back a smile.
“Stop.”
One more try. No luck.
“Piers.”
They slipped her grasp again. A chuckle broke out from beneath her forearm.
“Okay, I guess I’ll just shave off the whole thing and pencil it back on.”
The chuckling stopped.
The tweezers zoned in on a stray hair with no resistance.
“Good boy.”
A sharp jerk of her hand and the body beneath her may as well have been stabbed with the way it jumped.
“Ow!”
She pulled back to allow his hand to come up and tentatively touch the aggravated skin. Then brought it down and checked the thing for blood.
“Goddamn.” he muttered.
Emma rolled her eyes.
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad.”
He threw a pouty look her way before settling back to his former position.
“Easy for you to say, your nerves are probably dead from doing this for so long.”
Another pluck and he hissed. Normally one would calm down after a few plucks, and if Emma expected that from anyone it was the man in front of her who didn’t like to let any weakness show for long, if at all . No luck there. Too late to stop though, but she didn’t want to keep torturing the poor man.
“Piers, is it really hurting you that much?”
“You’re ripping hairs out of my skin one by one with a tiny pair of pliers.”
She sighed. Looked back to her kit with the little rectangular box inside.
“Alright fine, just wait a second.”
The tube inside took some serious squeezing to dispense enough to spread across his brows, but eventually the deed was done and rather than try to look at his own eyebrows he looked beneath hers.
“What is that stuff?”
“Baby’s teething gel.” she chucked the emptied container in the bin and tried to remember where exactly she had bought it.
The clueless stare reminded her that the world of eyebrow trimming was foreign to this young man.
“It numbs your skin.”
“What?” Piers straightened up and threw her an accusing frown.
“Why didn’t you just use that right away?”
A firm hand tilted his head backward again while she smirked.
“Well it’s supposed to be for babies….So I guess it really does fit here.”
His hand grabbed her thigh. Jaw clenched to try fight back a smile at her teasing.
“If you hurt me I’m going to tell Chris you asked me to pluck your eyebrows.”
The hand disappeared again. He settled down as she went on, then eventually lifted his hand again to wipe at his watering eyes and sniffed. Normal. It always interested Emma how the pain of eyebrow plucking made you feel like you were crying without the sadness. Still, he probably felt a little embarrassed.
“You know, you actually have really good natural eyebrows.” his eyebrow jumped again. Her fault for speaking, really.
“Oh yeah?”
“Totally. I know a lot of girls that would kill for brows like these.”
One last stray hair was cast aside and she stood back to admire her handiwork.
“Alright, you can check the damage while I get one last-” she didn’t even get to finish before he was in front of the mirror and smoothing his fingers over his skin.
“I look like I was crying. Is it supposed to sting this much?”
He continued to watch and wait for the rest of his hair to fall out while Emma picked up the little tub of aloe vera she kept in her kit. He watched her approach in the mirror and only turned once she was right up on his heels, glob of gel in hand. The breath he drew to ask didn’t make it back out before the stuff was smeared across his skin.
“Aloe vera. Soothes your skin.” she answered it anyway.
“And no, I couldn’t have used it before.”
She finished spreading the stuff out while he smirked down at her. She turned back to her kit and stuffed the contents back one by one until arms came around to interlock at her stomach and a head jutted across her shoulder.
“So, does that gel have any other uses, or?”
Her bottom lip sucked in between her teeth. She rubbed her thumbs across the case’s netty fabric.
“Nope.”
His shattered expression was met with a smile of innocence before the poor man was left alone in the bathroom.
Now, what would Piers consider compensation enough to let her try threading next time?