Taking a Shot Read Free

as his salt-and-pepper hair joined mine on the floor around the chair. Jonny finished shaving Dad’s head a lot quicker than Dad had done mine.
    “No weird bumpy spots?” Dad asked me.
    I brushed away a tear and shook my head. “No weird bumpy spots.”
    He got up and left without saying another word, heading toward the mirror.
    Jonny started to put the clippers away, but Babs got up and said, “Not yet. Do mine next.”
    “No!” I couldn’t believe I’d just shouted at him, but I couldn’t let Babs do that, even though the thought that he was willing to made my belly flip.
    I loved his hair. It was this perfect blondish-brown shade, and he had it cut in a faux hawk lately that made me want to run my fingers through it. I couldn’t do anything like that. Dad would kill Babs if he even looked at me funny, whether he’d done anything or not—not that he ever would. I was just another girl with a crush on him. He had more than enough of those to choose from. There was no reason he should choose me over any of the rest of them.
    Babs was only a couple of years older than me—only twenty—but I didn’t think age was really the issue for Dad when it came to the thought of me and a guy. He was stuck on the fact that I was still in high school, and he seemed to think I shouldn’t even date until I was about sixty or seventy, or maybe not even then.
    It didn’t seem to matter to him that I’d already turned eighteen and was old enough that I could make my own choices. It happened two and a half weeks ago, actually, on the day that I’d started my first chemo treatment. Happy birthday to me. Here’s some cake you can puke up later.
    Babs stood in the middle of the locker room, his hands still balled into fists at his sides, staring at me. “I want to,” he said. “I feel like it’s the only thing I can do.”
    There wasn’t anything for him to do. I shook my head, this time feeling like I might actually get sick. “Please, don’t. I can handle losing my hair, but I don’t think I can take it if you shave yours off. Plus, all of Portland would hate me.”
    He laughed, but it was an angry sort of laugh. Hurt. Like I’d hurt his feelings, which made no sense at all. He clenched his jaw, and it made his dimples come out. “Okay,” he said finally. “But only because you asked me not to.”
    I took a couple of steps until I was standing right in front of him. “Thank you, Babs,” I whispered.
    “Jamie,” he said. “Call me Jamie.”
    As he spoke, I could smell the sweet-and-spicy cinnamon scent on his breath from the mints he was always popping in his mouth. I was that close.
    I stretched up on my toes and kissed him on the cheek, right where his dimple always showed up. “Jamie…thank you.” I don’t know what made me kiss him like that, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
    He brought his hand up, and I thought he might touch my cheek or my head. My pulse thundered like a wild stampede, and I couldn’t breathe for wanting him to touch me in some small way, even though it was a crazy thought in the first place.
    “You’d better back away from my little girl, dipshit,” Dad said from right behind me.
    Jamie dropped his hand to his side so fast you would have thought Dad had shot it.
    I took a step back, almost bumping into my dad. “It’s my fault. He didn’t do anything.” I turned to face him, and Jamie backed away to busy himself with something else. “Really, Dad.”
    “Your mother’s waiting for you,” he said, but I knew he was pissed. His eyes were more bloodshot than before, like he’d been crying. That was probably why he’d left for a minute—not so much to look at his own bald head.
    I nodded. “Yeah. I’m going.”
    “Are you two coming to lunch with us today?”
    “If I can get her to stop crying once she sees me like this. I’ll text you to let you know.” I raced out of the locker room before either of us started crying again and hurried past the reporters before