Page 12 of Making It Live!

"At a cheap hotel?"

"…Sometimes."

"Sweetie."He set down the curl with the tenderness of a man laying a body to rest."Be honest with me.Has this hair ever, in its entire life, met an actual conditioner?Or have we been out here scrubbing God's gift with a bar of motel soap and a prayer?"

"He's been in war zones," Jillian offered helpfully."Like, actual ones.With guns."

"Honey, I can tell."He lifted a section near my temple and let it drop in disgust."This is I-washed-it-in-a-canteen hair."He squared his shoulders like a man accepting a mission."Okay.Here's what we're doing.We shape the curl — clean lines, give it some structure so it falls instead of explodes — and then we tame it.Because right now, with respect, this is less hairstyle and more weather event."

"Wow," I said.

"I say it because I care."

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with his caring, but Jillian cut me off.

"Yes to all of that.And the Japzilian."

I turned so fast the cape twisted around me."The what?"

"Japzilian," Dominic said, already sectioning my curls with clips like a man who'd been given orders and fully intended to carry them out."It's a hybrid.Japanese thermal smoothing meets a Brazilian treatment.We do the Brazilian first — smooths the cuticle, kills the frizz — then the Japanese conditioning to restructure the cortex.On curls like yours?"He kissed his fingertips."Honey, it's going to take this hot mess and turn it into movement.You'll still have curl, but it'll be intentional curl.Curl with a college degree.Lasts four to six months.You're going to love it."

"Japzilian," I repeated flatly."That sounds like a sex position."

"It's a hair treatment, Jimmy," Jillian said, not looking up from her phone.

"It sounds like something you'd find in the back pages of a magazine you'd hide from your mother."

Dominic snorted."Oh, I like him."He picked up his shears and a comb with the air of a man preparing for surgery."Trust me — when I'm done, you're going to look in that mirror and weep tears of joy."

"I'm already going to cry, and it won't be from joy."

"That's the spirit."

He started cutting.The first curl hit the floor and I flinched.Then another.I watched them fall and tried not to think about the fact that this was the hair that had been crushed under a helmet in Aleppo, shoved up under a watch cap in Kabul, gone unwashed for three weeks during a stakeout in Juárez.It was war-correspondent hair.It had seen things.And now Dominic was methodically dismantling it while humming along to a Dua Lipa song.

"This is a nightmare," I said.

"This is self-care," Jillian corrected.

"This is a hostage situation."

"You're being dramatic."

"I once watched a man field-dress a wound with a pocketknife in the back of a Humvee and it was less traumatic than this."

Dominic pointed his shears at my reflection."Sweetheart, when we're done you're going to walk out of here looking like you belong in a boardroom.Or on television.Or wherever it is people go to be powerful and well-conditioned."He resumed cutting."What you walked in here with, on the other hand?That was a before photo.Acautionarybefore photo.And I say that with love."

"You say a lot of things with love that don't feel very loving."

"That's because the truth hurts, baby.Hold still."

Jillian, who'd been watching the exchange with open delight, set her phone down and crossed her arms.I knew that posture.It was the one that preceded the question she'd actually dragged me here to ask.

"So," she said, her voice shifting into something more careful."Have you thought about the fact that you're going to be working with Nelson?"

I stared straight ahead into the mirror."No."

"Liar."