When hair stylist Jai Hathaway decided to open his own salon, he knew he would sacrifice some of his personal time to run the business. But long hours working late have him feeling lonely, and he just doesn't seem to connect with the few men he dates. His business partner Kiki suggests what he needs is to find a different type of guy, someone who isn't in the salon business, but not only does Jai not know how to find a guy like that, he isn't even sure where to look.<br><br>On a particularly cold morning in January, the salon's hot water goes out and Jai scrambles to find a plumber on short notice. Enter Duane Schneider, sexy and confident, and interested in getting more than just Jai's hot water boiling. But he's so outside Jai's comfort zone that, at first, the stylist isn't sure how to react. When it becomes obvious Duane wants to continue things outside of business hours, though, Jai agrees to a date, if only to see where the evening might lead.<br><br>Is Kiki right when she said Jai needed to find someone different? Or will Duane turn out to be just his style after all?

Just My Style

“Trust me, you don’t want to try with some of our clients.” Jai laughs and shakes his head—he’d rather push back his morning appointments than hear them bitch about an icy shampoo. “Once the hot water’s back on, we’ll reschedule. Just so it isn’t out too long. That’d be one hell of a bad hair day in the city.”


Duane snorts derisively. “Yeah, right. Like everyone comes here. I think the city as a whole is pretty safe.”


“We have a large client base, I’ll have you know,” Jai snaps, defensive. “Most of them ask for me personally. I had to reschedule a tonof appointments today because of this.”


“Don’t blame me the water went out,” Duane replies. “I’ll have it up and running as fast as I can. Probably sooner if you’d give me some space to work…”


Jai glares around the basement but doesn’t take the hint to leave. “Yeah, well, this is a shared basement. Several stores have access to it, so I can’t just leave you down here by yourself, you know.”


Chapter 11