Any Way You Want It

  Any Way You Want It

  by

  Farrah Rochon

  Nicobar Press

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2016 by Farrah Roybiskie

  Cover by Mae Phillips of CoverFreshDesigns.com

  ISBN: 978-1-938125-20-1

  Kindle Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please do so through your retailer’s “lend” function. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the Kindle Store and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  More from Farrah

  About the Author

  Any Way You Want It

  A Moments in Maplesville Novella

  Chapter One

  Rain pelted the yellow rain slicker Nyree Grant draped over her head as she jogged to the passenger side of her Mazda CX-5. She lifted a cardboard box full of generic brown plastic bottles and cradled it against her ribcage.

  Cursing the thunderstorm that sprouted out of nowhere on her drive over, Nyree had even more choice words for the nasty weather that had delayed the shipment of custom containers she planned to use for her homemade hair products. It totally screwed up her surprise. She’d intended to wow her friends with her new, professional packaging.

  “It’s what’s inside that counts,” Nyree murmured as she climbed the wooden steps leading up to her friend Reesa Patterson’s hair salon. She balanced the carton of shampoo, leave-in conditioner and hair-curling pudding on her hip as she fiddled with the rain-slicked door handle.

  Ugh. She forgot about this rickety thing; it was always getting stuck.

  “Open up,” Nyree called, hefting the box higher on her hip.

  Seconds later, the door opened and something resembling Cousin Itt from The Addam’s Family appeared.

  Nyree yelped.

  Cheyenne Bradley flipped the hair from her face. “The post office went up on stamps again, nobody’s sending you an engraved invitation to come inside.”

  “Smart ass,” Nyree said as she shouldered past Cheyenne and made her way into the small twenty-by-twenty converted garage Reesa rented in their tiny hometown of St. Pierre, Louisiana. Reesa had taken over where Nyree’s aunt, Hazel, had left off. For years her aunt had been the only hairdresser in St. Pierre. She’d trained Reesa and left her with a loyal clientele.

  But, in Nyree’s opinion, her friend had outgrown this place a long time ago. And now that Reesa had competition from a bigger salon that had moved into the town’s only strip mall, she needed to step up her game.

  “Please, tell me you brought the jojoba hot oil treatment?” Reesa asked from behind the chair where she’d gone back to sewing long locks of frosted blonde synthetic hair onto Cheyenne’s head.

  “I have that one, but I also brought another that I’ve been working on.” Nyree tossed a sealed jar into Cheyenne’s lap. “It’s a combination of whipped coconut oil and vegetable glycerin.”

  She began stacking the jars and bottles on the tiny shelf at the rear of Reesa’s shop. So far, this was the only place where people could buy her skin and hair care creations, but soon enough she’d have an entire room to showcase the myriad products she’d spent the past two years developing. Just the thought of it sent a tremor of anxious excitement skittering along Nyree’s skin.

  She was so close.

  It had taken some heavy campaigning, but if there was one thing Nyree could do, it was talk a good game. She’d finally convinced her three friends that banding together to open an all-inclusive salon and spa was the most spectacular idea in the history of spectacular ideas.

  Now, she just needed to make it happen within the next two months.

  And she would. She had to. Reesa, Cheyenne, and Amara were counting on her to make this happen, and disappointing her girls was out of the question.

  This concept was the first of its kind in this area. Right now, a person had to travel for more than an hour—all the way to New Orleans—to find a one-stop shop for all beauty and pampering needs on the scale of what Nyree envisioned for Any Way You Want It, their soon-to-be salon and spa. Between the four of them, they had everything they needed.

  Reesa had been styling hair well before she was licensed by the state to do it. The same was true for Cheyenne and her massages, though it was unlikely the guys on the basketball team back in high school cared whether or not Cheyenne’s rubdowns were sanctioned by the state.

  Amara Doucet, the makeup artist in their quartet, could identify the exact color and brand of lipstick a woman wore within seconds of meeting her. She was so eerily good at it that people told her she could take her makeup-guessing-game act on the road.

  Nyree was the only member of their foursome who didn’t do anything hands-on. She used her talents behind the scenes, taking advantage of her chemistry degree to develop a line of organic hair and skincare products. She’d worked tirelessly over the past two years, perfecting her recipes in her spare time, making sure her products could stand up next to anything on the market today.

  Pride welled within Nyree’s chest.

  She’d never held a shred of doubt that she would make this dream a reality, but even she hadn’t imagined that it would happen quite this quickly.

  It hasn’t happened yet.

  But it would. Despite the doubts that annoying voice tried to plant into her brain.

  Of course, it would have been easier to ignore that voice a couple of days ago, back when she didn’t have to worry about finding a contractor to complete the renovations on the late nineteenth-century Greek Revival she’d just purchased to house their new venture. Using the bulk of the money her aunt Hazel left her for the down payment, Nyree hadn’t considered saving any to pay a contractor. Why would she when her two older brothers owned their own construction business and had offered to do the work for free?

  She should have known better.

  How many times over the past twenty-four years had her brothers, Desmond and Lance, come up with excuses for why they couldn’t fulfill promises they’d made? Nyree had yet to forgive Lance for reneging on his promise to drive her to the LSU Math Competition back in her junior year of high school. She was the only member of the St. Pierre Math-o-holics who didn’t get to compete.

  But this was more important than a high school math contest. This was her dream. It was her three best friends’ dreams, too. And, once again, her brothers were letting her down.

  Okay, fine. So maybe she had moved up the timetable for construction by a couple of months, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given Desmond a head’s up. She’d called him as soon as she’d left the lawyer’s office with her real estate agent, letting him know that she’d convinced the Whitmer family to close on the sale early. He’d just mentioned during Sunday dinner that he and Lance had finished the big job they’d been working on, and had some time off before the next one would start.

  It wasn’t that Desmond and Lance couldn’t help her, it’s that they wouldn’t. And she knew changing the start date on them wasn’t that big of an issue. Nyree had seen them adjust their work schedules for clients in the past.

  No, it’s because her brothers didn’t take her “little beauty products business” seriously.

  And that’s what hurt the most.

&
nbsp; They thought she was playing around, wasting her time with this little hobby of hers.

  Nyree was done listening to them criticize what she considered her most important achievement. She didn’t need those two. In fact, she wouldn’t accept their help now even if they dropped everything to work on The Whitmer House.

  Of course, that meant she was now stuck having to search for a new contractor. Someone who wouldn’t push the work aside because they had more important clients to tend to. Someone who wouldn’t charge her an arm and a leg. Someone who would be able to complete the work in less than two months.

  Nyree fought the panic attack that was so very close to taking her down.

  She didn’t have time to panic. Her nervous breakdown would have to wait until after Any Way You Want It’s grand opening in a couple of months.

  Besides, today was a day to celebrate all of her hard work. She’d resisted telling the girls about closing early on the house, on the slim chance that she wouldn’t be able to make it happen. Even though in her mind it was never a question. Once Nyree decided that the grand opening for Any Way You Want It would take place on what would have been her Aunt Hazel’s 50th birthday, there was nothing that would stop it from happening. They were opening their doors on April 4th, even if she had to do all the work herself.

  Feigning nonchalance, Nyree plopped into the shop’s remaining vinyl salon chair. The towel draped over the left armrest covered a huge swath of duct tape that Reesa had to replace every few weeks. Three state-of-the-art chairs, with padded seats and removable headrests, were in route from a warehouse in California. There would be no duct tape-covered anything in their new digs.

  Because it was the middle of the day, the only other person in the shop was one of Reesa’s senior-citizen regulars who came in for a weekly wash and roller set. She sat under the domed hair dryer, lost in an edition of Us Weekly.

  “So, what’s good?” Nyree asked, grabbing a red sucker from the bowl of hard candy on the shelf. It was an ode to Aunt Hazel, who used to keep candy readily available for patrons in her salon.

  “I should be asking you that,” Reesa said. “How are things going with the Whitmer House?”

  “Oh, I’d say they’re going okay.” Nyree slipped a hand in her pocket and pulled out a single key hanging from a red and white Chauvin Realty key ring.

  Reesa gasped. “Is that the key to the house?”

  “What?” Cheyenne lifted the hair from her face again. “How did you convince them to give you the key already?”

  A massive smile broke out across Nyree’s face. “Because I closed on the house yesterday,” she said.

  The three of them erupted in squeals, then simultaneously apologized to the customer who jumped from under the hair dryer, her eyes widened in shock.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Holston,” Reesa said, helping the octogenarian back into her seat. When she returned to her styling station, Reesa opened the narrow drawer and pulled out a set of stapled papers. She held them up to Nyree. “Do you mean to tell me I can finally rip up this lease?”

  “She told you to rip it up weeks ago,” Cheyenne said. “You should know better than to doubt our girl over here. When she says she’s gonna get something done, you bet your ass it’s gonna get done.”

  Nyree hunched her shoulders in a humble shrug. “What can I say? The girl speaks the truth.”

  “I know I shouldn’t doubt you, but I want to make sure,” Reesa said. “My landlord is willing to go down to a six-month lease, but he stressed that I have until the close of business on Friday to decide. If I don’t renew, I have to be out of here by mid-April.”

  “Any Way You Want It will be opened by the beginning of April,” Nyree assured her. “Trust me.”

  “I do,” Reesa said with an emphatic nod. “But it’s easy for you to say that when you have a well-paying job at the chemical plant and steady paychecks coming in. Just remember that I live from customer-to-customer. If I don’t have anywhere to do hair, I don’t eat.”

  “You know I keep a cornbread casserole in my freezer at all times,” Cheyenne said. “If you ever need it, just say the word. I’ll thaw it out for you.”

  Reesa rolled her eyes as she picked up the needle she’d been using to sew in Cheyenne’s weave. “I’m serious. It freaks me out to even think about the new place not being ready on time. That’s the start of my busy season. Between prom and weddings, I work nonstop from April to the end of July. I can’t afford to lose even a day.”

  “Yeah, and driving all the way to Metairie to work at that chiropractor clinic everyday is draining my bank account,” Cheyenne said. “My local clients don’t like it, either.”

  Just after the national chain massage company Cheyenne worked for went out of business, her friend began doing private work. A few months ago, she was nearly assaulted by a client in his home. After the incident, they’d all agreed that Cheyenne would not do any more private massages. It had been the catalyst for Nyree to stop just talking about the future and finally look into purchasing a building where they could house Any Way You Want It.

  “The house is going to be ready,” Nyree said. “Trust me. It’s handled.”

  “Whatever you say, Olivia Pope.”

  Her girlfriends all teased her about being a mini version of the fictional crisis handler, even though—as Nyree was quick to point out—she had been handling things well before Kerry Washington’s character rolled onto the scene.

  “Did you go over the changes the house will need with Desmond and Lance? They aren’t going to try to do all the work themselves, are they?” Reesa asked.

  Nyree pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to come up with the best way to tell her friends that her two older brothers, aka The Biggest Idiots East of the Mississippi, were no longer doing the renovations on the house.

  Even though Desmond’s unwillingness to move his schedule around for her had a lot to do with it, it wasn’t the only reason her brothers were no longer overhauling Whitmer House. Nyree no longer wanted Desmond involved in the renovations because her eldest brother was a bully, plain and simple. He’d dismissed the plans Nyree and Reesa had come up with for the salon; drawing up his own vision of how they should arrange the new shampooing stations and pedicure chairs instead.

  Once Nyree shot down his ideas, he’d become even more obstinate. It was typical of Desmond. If he didn’t get his way, he grabbed his toys and ran home, just like a damn baby. She didn’t even bother to talk to Lance about it because, when it came to their construction business, he always deferred to their older brother.

  Well, those two meatheads weren’t the only men in town who could hammer a nail into a wall.

  Nyree had spent much of the morning calling around, looking for a new contractor. The biggest problem, of course, was finding someone within her budget who was willing to take on a job with such a tight deadline.

  Yeah, she knew she was asking for a lot, but she was willing to put in the work, too. She’d made an arrangement with the supervisor of the chemical lab where she worked. She would finally use some of that paid vacation time she’d been storing up for a rainy day so that she could oversee the renovations on the house and pitch in however she could. Whatever it took to get this done in time to open by her Aunt Hazel’s birthday, Nyree was willing to do it.

  “No,” she said, “My brothers aren’t planning to do all the work on the house.”

  Or any of the work on the house.

  “Good.” Reesa nodded. “Because there’s no way only two people will get all that work done in time for us to open in two months.”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” Cheyenne clapped her hands. “I just got a text from Amara.”

  “Is she still on location with whatever movie she’s working on?” Nyree asked.

  Cheyenne nodded. “She’s on a quick break. She said this warmer than usual weather is giving the makeup department on the movie set fits.”

  “Ask her if we got the job,” Reesa said.

  “I
am.” Cheyenne’s thumbs swept across the touchscreen.

  Only the hum of the hairdryer could be heard as they waited for Amara’s next text.

  “Yes!” Cheyenne said. “Amara just heard back from the bride-to-be that she’s been in contact with. She wants us to do their hair, makeup and pre-wedding massages.”

  “For the entire wedding party?” Reesa asked.

  Cheyenne nodded. “What should I tell her?”

  “The wedding is on April 9th, right?” Nyree asked. “We can handle that. Tell her to accept the job.”

  They all squealed again, but managed to keep their voices down this time.

  Cheyenne slipped her phone back into her pocket. “I have to hand it to you, Nyree. Coming up with that package deal for weddings and bridal showers was the best idea ever.”

  Nyree made a show of patting herself on the back. Cheyenne threw a hair clip her way.

  “Hey!” Nyree dodged the clip. “Can’t a girl bask in her stellar idea for a moment?”

  “No.” Cheyenne stuck her tongue out at her.

  “Either keep still or have lopsided hair. Your pick,” Reesa said. She looked over at Nyree. “We still haven’t decided if our signature color will be sangria or mulberry. Don’t you think we need to make that decision, especially now that we’ll have this entire wedding party a week after we open?”

  Nyree was more concerned about the electrical system being able to handle industrial hair dryers. She’d leave deciding which shade of purple they should choose as their signature color to the other girls.

  “I’ll go with the majority,” Nyree said.

  “I just want to make sure it all looks perfect,” Cheyenne said. “I’ve got a lot riding on this.”

  “We all do,” Nyree reminded her. She scooted off the chair, walked over to the products she’d brought in earlier and picked up a stout bottle with a pump cap. She tossed it over to Cheyenne.

  “Use this on your edges and scalp once a week. It’s a combination of almond oil and rosemary. It’ll keep your hair healthy under that weave.”