Operation Makeover Read online

  She tsked. “You just be patient. You’re going to find a good man. A beauty like you, how could you not?”

  Cole smiled, even though he suspected that a “beauty” like his was exactly why he’d be fending off the wrong kind of guys until they were no longer drawn to him and disgusted by him in equal measure.

  That evening, Cole reluctantly abandoned the comfy corner of his sofa to open the door when a knock interrupted his vegging in front of the television. He didn’t really want to face what — or rather, who — was waiting on the other side. His last mistake had texted earlier, asking to talk. Cole had no interest in a reunion, but Travis was insistent he had things to say.

  Cole’s evening plans had consisted of nothing more than doing laundry, eating popcorn instead of a real meal, and streaming Sherlock— and the yummy Benedict Cumberbatch — to his heart’s content. Now, Travis had ruined even that. Cole couldn’t properly drool over Sherlock with the interruption from his ex-whatever.

  “Travis,” he said flatly when he opened the door. “I boxed up your things.”

  He turned, picking up a small flat box and shoving it toward the cheating asshole he’d wasted six months on. There wasn’t much inside it, but Cole liked the symbolism: Here’s your shit; now get out of my life.

  Travis didn’t take the box. “Babe, can’t we talk? Let me come in.”

  The asshole smiled, but it had no effect on Cole. He used to think Travis had a charming smile. He used to melt for that smile. Now? It looked smarmy. Travis had lost the power he used to have over Cole. And that was such a relief that Cole almost laughed in his face. Thank God his principles were stronger than his desires. He’d been worried that if Travis showed up, begging for forgiveness, he might be weak enough to cave.

  “There’s nothing to say. You’re married.”

  “Come on. You don’t know how hard it is to be in the closet,” Travis said. “People see you, and they just know. It’s not like that for me. I have a whole family.”

  As Travis spoke, his gaze ran up and down Cole’s body, lingering on his crotch, and Cole suddenly regretted squirming into his maroon tights before Travis arrived out of some misguided desire to show Travis what he was missing. What was he thinking, dressing to entice? He didn’t want anything to do with Travis. He didn’t want Travis to ogle him, especially when it was accompanied by commentary about how obviously gay Cole was.

  “You have a family you deceived,” he said bluntly. “And if you think it’s easy living your life out as a gay man because you have no choice, because people take one look and think they know everything about you, well, fuck you. It wasn’t easy to be a gay kid in junior high or high school. It hasn’t been easy to be a target of homophobes my entire life.”

  Cole could hear his voice getting shriller, but he was powerless to control it. He bit down on his lip as Travis squeezed his shoulders.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Poor choice of words.”

  “No, shit,” Cole said, his voice still shaking with anger.

  “I just meant, you never had to make the choice to come out and change your life. I have to think about my children.”

  Those poor kids.

  The funny thing is, Cole never would have pegged Travis for a family man. He’d told Cole he was a truck driver, which conveniently provided him the opportunity to be out of pocket a lot. He’d presented himself as living a free-wheeling life with no ties to anyone. Just him and the open road. What a crock of shit that had been.

  Cole felt like an idiot for being taken in, especially because Travis had always had rough edges that didn’t quite line up. That was what Cole had liked. That he wasn’t polished. That he’d seemed so genuine and authentic.

  Bullshit. All of it.

  A married man in Dockers and a polo stood at his door. He looked down, snorting when he saw the loafers on Travis’s feet. He’d never known this man at all. The Travis he’d known wore dark jeans, studded belts, and ripped T-shirts, not business casual or fucking golfing attire, whichever this was supposed to be.

  Cole would have continued to be a naïve little idiot for who knew how long if he hadn’t bumped into Travis and his family at a restaurant. He still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing in playing along when Travis pretended he’d mistaken him for someone else, but Cole didn’t believe in outing men.

  But God, his wife. It wasn’t right.

  “You do have to think of your family,” Cole said. “You should tell your wife the truth, don’t you think?”

  “No,” Travis said with a sharp laugh. “No, I don’t think so, Cole. I care about you, but I don’t love you more than my family.”

  “That’s not—”

  “If you even think about turning up on my doorstep or blackmailing me, I’ll make sure you regret it.”

  Travis towered over Cole at six-foot-two, and he was a broad-shouldered man who hit the gym regularly. As he stepped forward, a dark look on his face, Cole flinched back and hated himself for it. He’d spent his life being intimidated by men — homophobic men, both gay and straight — and he was fed up with it.

  “Fuck off,” he snapped, injecting his voice with as much anger as he could to disguise his unease.

  He shoved the box containing a T-shirt, some ugly boxers, a spare razor, and a toothbrush, along with a couple of “trucker” hats at Travis again. “Take your shit and go.”

  Travis took the box this time, hovering on Cole’s doorstep. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

  “How should it be?” Cole asked. “You stay married and keep fucking me?”

  “Why not?” Travis said. “You make it sound so awful, but it wouldn’t mean I didn’t care about you, Cole. I take you seriously. I see your passion and your talent. You think anyone else is going to see past your exterior to the real you?”

  Cole sucked in a sharp breath, but Travis was on a roll, giving him no chance to respond.

  “Men take one look at you and see a campy twink. Look at you: You’ve got fucking dyed hair, and you wear eyeliner more often than my wife—”

  “It makes my eyes pop,” Cole cut in. “You said you liked it!”

  “But that’s my point,” Travis said. “I did like it. I liked you. I have a wife, but I see past all those trappings to the guy underneath. What do other guys see? They see someone good for a fuck, but not much else. They’re embarrassed to be seen with you—”

  “And you’re not?” Cole challenged, more hurt than he’d admit by Travis’s words, all the more because there was a kernel of truth in them. “Pretty embarrassing the day you were with your wife, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Just go,” Cole said, his throat going tight. “We’re over, and it’s staying that way.”

  He’d love to refute the things Travis said, but he couldn’t. Most men didn’t want Cole as he was. They liked to hook up; they didn’t want to partner up long-term. Not with a guy who was obviously gay to everyone who glanced at him. They couldn’t handle his fabulousness. That’s what Cole told himself. They couldn’t handle the slurs that would come his way out in public. They couldn’t handle being seen with a man they considered just not manly enough.

  Well, fuck them.

  Cole wasn’t going to agree to some secret affair with a married man just because the alternative meant being alone. Doing that would kill his soul, and in the end, he’d feel lonelier than if he stayed single and hooked up to meet his needs.

  At least he had his job to fulfill him. His clients loved him. And, he had friends. Anita was always there when he needed her, and Theo and the kids at the LGBT Center were never far. Aunt Ella was great. Seriously great. He’d have lost his mind years ago if not for her.

  Plus, he had a lot of shoes.

  He’d survive without Travis, and he’d hold his head up high. Fuck the haters. Cole had been dealing with them his whole life. He could deal with a few more. Bring them on.

  Travis lingered on his doorstep until Cole pushed h
is shoulder, nudging him back a step. Then he shut the door in Travis’s face.

  3

  Ridley spent the weekend turning over the idea that Jace wasn’t as out of reach as he’d assumed. But the idea for how he might capture Jace’s attention and change the way he saw Ridley didn’t come to him until he met up with Callum and Noah at the hospital cafeteria on Wednesday.

  The friends had been routinely meeting up for lunch every Wednesday for two years. Occasionally, they ran into each other on other days, but their work duties and schedules varied enough that it wasn’t always possible. While Ridley worked as an X-ray tech, Callum and Noah both worked in the lab.

  Callum greeted Ridley with a smile. He was often smiling these days now that he was head over heels in love with his boyfriend, Ian, but Callum had always been cheerful at work. He was the sun to Noah’s clouds. That man was a complainer. It had been a rough few weeks when Callum had used his lunch breaks to sneak in secret hookups with Ian, leaving Ridley to endure Noah’s list of complaints — one of which was always “Callum should be here” — on his own.

  “Hey, how’s your day going?” Callum asked as Ridley sat down with his tray of hot lunch.

  “Not bad. Mostly routine stuff today,” Ridley said. “Couple of upper GI exams. Follow-up on a broken radius. Ooh, and one mother of a kidney stone. I don’t envy that guy.”

  Callum wrinkled his nose. “Ouch.”

  Noah nodded sagely. “That’s why I drink water.” He looked pointedly at the soda can in front of Callum. “You should switch.”

  “I like to live dangerously,” Callum said with a shrug.

  “You say that until you go through the agony of kidney stones,” Noah said.

  Ridley wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or offended that Noah didn’t comment on his carbonated beverage. Noah had never made a secret of the fact that Callum was his friend, and Ridley was just that guy they ate lunch with. So, he decided not to take it personally. Noah had poor social skills; he didn’t really mean to be as rude as he sounded.

  Ridley forked up a bite of meatloaf that Noah eyed with disgust. Hopefully he wasn’t spared a lecture on soda-drinking only to be hit with one about eating the hot food in the cafeteria. Noah had gotten ill after eating there once, and he was convinced the hot meals were food poisoning waiting to happen.

  Callum checked his phone, snickering as he brushed back styled golden-blond hair. “Ian sent me the cutest picture of his cat,” he said, turning the phone to share the image of a calico cat curled up on Ian’s shirtless chest. The man did have fine form.

  Ridley tore his eyes away before he ogled Callum’s boyfriend. A memory niggled at the edge of his mind.

  “Didn’t you mention once that Ian’s sister owned a salon or something?”

  Callum showed his phone to a fully uninterested Noah before returning it to his pocket. “Yeah, she owns Fringe. Why?”

  Ridley shrugged, hoping to keep his voice casual. The idea alone made him nervous, and he didn’t want to fully explain his motivations. “Just thinking about updating my look. I’m overdo for a haircut anyway.”

  “Oh. Well, if you’re looking for a stylist, Fringe is awesome,” Callum said, then grinned mischievously. “There’s even a cute gay stylist there. Eileen has mentioned him a few times. I could get his name from Ian.”

  “Really?” Ridley asked, intrigued. A gay stylist probably wasn’t better than a straight one, but it’d make Ridley feel more comfortable. “But he’s a good stylist, right? I need more than a budget cut.”

  “Yeah, it’s a trendy place. All the stylists are good,” Callum said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll text Ian right now.”

  “Thanks, man. That sounds good. I was just going to do a web search and lose years of my life reading reviews,” he joked.

  “No problem,” Callum said.

  “I think you look fine,” Noah said, surprising Ridley into glancing his way. Noah had finished his cold sub sandwich while they talked and neatly balled up the wrapper. “You’re a handsome man.”

  Noah’s eyes assessed Ridley in a detached way, and yet he was thorough enough it brought a blush to Ridley’s face. He did not see Noah like that, and vice versa, so it was a weird feeling.

  “Uh, thanks,” he stuttered as Callum muffled a laugh behind his napkin.

  Looking fine — or even “handsome” — was well and good, but Ridley needed to step up his game if he wanted Jace to see him in a new light. He would need to reinvent himself, and not just his hair. He wasn’t sure yet how to go about doing that, but going to a trendy stylist seemed like as good a start as any.

  After that, he’d have to take a long look at his closet. Surely, it wouldn’t be too hard to improve on his selection of jeans and geeky gamer and science humor T-shirts. Then, maybe if he was lucky, he could show Jace a new Ridley. An updated model.

  Ridley 2.0.

  Cole swept up hair in anticipation of his next client — a new guy — while Theo sat in a salon chair making himself at home. He wasn’t a paying customer today. With his supershort hair, he didn’t need the styling help of Cole beyond a quick buzz every few weeks. Theo liked to keep his hair short because it was easier to deal with wigs, he said, for his burgeoning drag queen persona. He’d only begun to put together his look: clothes, makeup, wigs, shoes. Not to mention the act he wanted to perfect.

  Theo was a natural diva, so Cole had no doubts he’d own the stage once he got there. For now, he was a baby drag queen, and just a little bit needy. He’d been pestering Cole for help with costuming ever since he found out about Cole’s store on Etsy, where he sold elaborate headdresses. It was a weird hobby for a hairdresser, maybe, but he’d made one for a friend headed to Mardi Gras, and it was so much fun he made another one just for the heck of it. Then another and another until he had so many that it was either sell them or become a weird headdress hoarder. He opted for selling.

  Today, though, Theo was the supportive one while Cole complained about his latest visit from Travis.

  “I always knew that wouldn’t end well,” Theo said. “No one who travels that much can be trusted.”

  Cole rolled his eyes. “Thanks for warning me.”

  “Like you’d really listen!” Theo protested.

  “He’s right,” Anita singsonged from her station a few feet away. Like Cole, Anita was between clients, and she sprawled in her own salon chair, one leg thrown up over the arm, eating Fritos from the bag. A Dr Pepper sat on a tray beside her array of scissors.

  “I should have guessed how it’d end,” Cole admitted. They’d hashed this all out before, when Cole had broken up with Travis. But his shitty visit earlier in the week had brought it all back to the surface. “You don’t want to know how many times he stood me up.”

  Theo made a sympathetic noise. “Shithead.”

  Cole nodded glumly. “Anyone with a brain would have realized ...”

  “Don’t you dare blame yourself!” Anita scolded. “You deserve better. When will you realize that?”

  “I know that,” he said a little testily.

  Anita kept pushing this theory that Cole didn’t see his own worth, and it was annoying as fuck. He knew, logically, he was worthy of love and respect. Was it really so terrible to be forgiving? To give someone a second chance? He just didn’t have it in him to write someone off for one or two mistakes.

  “Then act like it and stop dating losers,” she said.

  Cole made a face as he swept up the rest of the hair and went to rinse his hands. He’d avoided telling Anita about Travis’s latest drop-by before now because he knew she’d get all fired up, and it wasn’t like there was anything to be done about Travis’s behavior. It was over.

  Besides, as much as he admired Anita’s blunt honesty, he preferred when it wasn’t directed at him. People often mistook Anita for a cute little thing because of her five-foot-three, petite frame and her blue-green pixie cut. But the woman had teeth, and she wasn’t afraid to use them.

  “I’m
gonna grab a water. You want anything?” he asked Theo.

  “Nah, I should get going. Let you work.” Theo stood up, tugging at his T-shirt where it’d ridden up. When he wasn’t in drag, he looked like a typical guy on the street: a little overweight, with a round face and short hair, dressed in track pants or jeans. When Theo became Miss Cherry, though, that extra weight was pushed up and taped, transforming him into a curvy redhead once the wig went on. Miss Cherry always wore dresses and heels. Theo hadn’t been in an official drag show yet; he was still mastering his costuming and makeup skills. But he did regularly volunteer at the LGBT Center with Cole, and he wore drag to do it because he wanted to show the kids it was okay to be themselves no matter what.

  Cole drifted to the back room, pulling out a bottle of water as the door jingled a farewell with Theo’s exit. Before heading back to his station, he took a minute to compose himself and put Travis out of his mind. The man wasn’t it. Cole just wished he hadn’t been so stupid and naïve about him. He was angrier with himself than anything else. Because Anita was right: He kept doing the same thing over and over — choosing all the wrong guys — and expecting different results.

  But now wasn’t the time for depressing self-analysis. He needed to put on his happy face and shed his low mood.

  People came to Cole for his flair, not despair.

  4

  Ridley stepped into Fringe, the scents of hairspray and fruity lotions heavy in the air. It wasn’t unpleasant, except for the fact it made him a little self-conscious. The people here took pride in their appearance. They gelled and hair-sprayed and perfumed. Ridley was more of a shower and air-dry kind of guy.

  Each of the hairstylists had their own style, but they all had a style of some kind. Unlike me, unless geeky white boy counts. One stylist wore long hair piled on her head, perfect makeup, and acrylic nails; another sported short but cute spiky hair in shades of green and blue. Even the stylist who’d put in the least effort had a messy bun that made her look like she was beautiful but much too busy to care. Judging by her bronze locks, Ridley pegged her as Ian’s sister, not because she looked like Ian, who had darker coloring, but because she looked Irish. Ridley had noticed while at Ian’s birthday party the year before that most of his family— with the exception of one brother — favored the Irish side of their heritage, with red hair.