I Unintentionally Became Her Kitten

Chapter 75: Nails

The spa entrance was on the lowest floor of a skyscraper. The outer entrance didn't look particularly fancy but once we were inside, I recognized that sparkle that the class difference between Alisha and I made. Or… was I now a member of her class? I wondered but couldn’t reason one way or the other. We were partners, but we were still only partners in name. It wasn’t like we were married.

Should we get married? My brain started to do its usual short circuiting so I didn’t fully absorb what was happening as Alisha walked up to the receptionist.

They talked briefly and Alisha turned back to look at me.

“Kitten?” she repeated and I finally snapped my focus back to the present.

“Huh?” I asked, my heart rate starting to slow at least.

“Would you like a full mani-pedi?” she asked.

“Uh, sure,” I agreed. A full… mani-pedi? Manicure and pedicure?

“And we’ll do the two facials as well. We just… were in a car accident recently so we have injuries that need to be left alone,” Alisha explained.

“Oh, okay, where…?” the receptionist asked this with a great deal of caution.

“Mine is on my back, and hers is her right hand.”

I held up my still bandaged hand in demonstration.

“Okay, yes,” the receptionist stood. “You should be fine. The masseuse will just not do a hand massage on her when it comes to that point,” she explained.

“Thank you,” Alisha told her.

“You can follow me and I’ll take you over to the nail salon,” the receptionist told Alisha.

Alisha glanced back at me to make sure I was following.

“Is something worrying you?” she asked quietly.

I shook my head. “Nothing important,” I told her. “Just life things.”

“That sounds important,” she said.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her. It was a bit early to bring up marriage. A lot had happened but we still had only known each other a couple of months. Getting married now would be pretty reckless. I’d been doing some pretty reckless things lately, but that would be a bit much even for me.

I would text Sophia about it… but I didn’t have my usual phone and that would be a loose end we didn’t need with the Nico situation. I wondered how Tye was doing over there. I knew he said he could handle himself but that didn’t necessarily mean it would be a pleasant stroll in the park.

We came into a large room and the receptionist traded us off with another woman there, who smiled, again professionally, and led us over to some plush chairs with foot baths at their base.

I sat in one, shifting my purse to be comfy. The nail lady offered to take it but saw my panic and gave me a friendly, “that's fine,” and went about her business.

I relaxed a little. I couldn't just hand my firearm over to people right? She wouldn't look in my purse, but still.

Alisha reached over to pat my knee, as she usually did when we were in public and being too touchy feely would be frowned upon.

The nail lady wheeled a cart over with probably a couple hundred different nail polish colors on it.

“What color would you like?” she asked.

I looked at the arrangement there.

“Could you do a rainbow?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

Alisha smiled a bit at this.

“I'll do the same,” she told the nail lady before she even had the chance to ask 

“A rainbow?”

Alisha nodded. I was surprised. She did not usually tolerate childish things. But no one would be looking at her toes for a while I supposed.

Our foot tubs were then filled and the nail lady guided my feet into the hot water.

“Good temperature?” She asked.

I nodded and tried my best to relax. It was difficult since everything about this place was designed to make me relax. The chair behind and beneath me was warming up from a seat heater and relaxing in public was the exact opposite of what I spent my life conditioned to do.

Alisha at least settled back in her chair, getting comfy and closing her eyes.

I tried to replicate this but could not keep my eyes shut and with a glance over, I found her frowning as she was trying to relax.

Neither one of us was really in a relaxing mood. She tried again and frowned again, and flinched a bit when the nail lady came around with a pedicure set to start working on her feet.

“Oh, sorry,” she managed. And relaxed her legs back into the water.

I gave her a tap on her knee and she looked over.

I didn't want to audibly say, ‘I’ll make sure she doesn't do anything funky while you're relaxing,’ but perhaps I could convey this to her by giving her a reassuring smile.

She nodded and settled back in again, letting the nail lady take her feet to scrub them with a painful looking thing. It almost looked like a cheese grater. I shuddered a little and then realized this was going to be the same treatment I went through.

I watched the process. Alisha did get a bit more relaxed, though I caught her looking at the nail lady and me a couple times. There were also parts she winced at as the lady took a metal pick and dug out any dirt under her toenails.

And then her feet were scrubbed clean and set back in the water. The nail lady then turned to my seat and repeated this process.

The cheese grater thing did not hurt, but it did tickle. What hurt was having that metal pick shoved under my nails to route around and pull any gunk out and it was surprising how much had built up under there. It wasn't like I routinely got my feet dirty but I made a mental note to start scrubbing under my toenails so I didn't have quite so much grime there.

And then it was Alisha’s turn again and the nail lady pulled her feet out and drained the water and rubbed some kind of cream up her feet and legs before wiping her toes clean and starting to trim the nails back and filed them. And then she selected some paint colors: a red, orange, yellow, green and blue. And gave them a good shake before starting to paint Alisha's nails. It was a satisfying process. She was skilled and the paint followed the edge of Alisha’s nails perfectly and evenly. I was a little envious. I had attempted to paint my nails quite a few times but it was a constant struggle between the paint drying too fast, getting smudged or dented, accidentally painting my skin as well or having the paint sink into my cuticles and taking some skin off when I tried to scrape it away. I knew the phrase: beauty is pain. But it still sucked.

The lady then gave Alisha some silly looking oversized flip flops, and let her sit there while she turned back to me.

The lotion she slathered up my legs was surprisingly warm and smelled pleasant.

She did my toenails with the same care and precision as Alisha's and I admired the almost candy-like color and gloss they had before she carefully put an identical pair of flip flops on me.

And then she left, leaving Alisha and I to chill for a bit.

“I forgot relaxing is hard,” Alisha commented.

“Will they separate us to do the facials?” I asked.

“Normally, yes. Do you not want that?”

“I imagine it would be easier for you to relax if I was there to keep watch.”

There was a sorrowfulness to her expression as she thought. “Okay,” she agreed. “But I'll be there for you during your facial so you can relax too,” she said.

I nodded and wiggled my colorful toes a little. “Do you like rainbows?” I asked.

“I like you and every time I see them I'll think of you. And that's going to almost never happen except when I get naked.”

I flushed. “I see.”

She relaxed back into her chair. They were big plush chairs and quite cushiony on top of being heated. I could see how someone might find this relaxing.

The nail lady came back and got us set up to do our fingernails at a table.

“And what colors?” she asked us.

Alisha selected a rich deep blue and I stared for a bit before selecting a pastel pink. The lady then did a similar process to our hands as she did for our feet but with gentler instruments. It still hurt when she dug under my nails, but not as much and she scraped the cuticles off as well. Despite how gross and painful it looked, this did not hurt at all.

“Could I actually get my pinky painted that blue?” I asked the nail lady as she started to prepare to paint my nails.

She looked up and then pulled the blue polish off of Alisha’s area to then paint my pinky with it. She was surprisingly fast with her painting and quickly finished mine before going over to Alisha.

“Would you like an accent nail?” She asked.

Alisha nodded, and bit her lip briefly. The lady didn't have to ask though and reached over to take my pink and painted her pinky that color before moving on to the blue. I was a little touched. The blue and the pink did compliment each other but I didn’t expect her to follow my lead here. She should be the one more comfortable in this environment, but I could tell there was still stress hiding under her calmness. We were four hours away, but that didn’t mean her city may or may not be on fire. Without smartphones it was hard to know if anything major was happening even outside of the criminal world. 

The nail lady finished her painting and then set us both up with the mini nail-dryers, leaving us to sit there again, and went about doing some cleaning.

There were other women getting their nails done, sitting back, actually relaxed, not just the uneasy relaxedness Alisha was managing.

I looked down at my toes, the polish was still shiny.

And then Alisha's phone rang and she stared angrily at her purse before carefully pulling her hands from the dryer and turning her purse around to dump her phone out without reaching in and finally managed to get the flip phone open.

She answered and clamped the phone between her shoulder and face and simply listened.

After a long moment she finally said, “yes, thank you,” and then listened again.

I kept my hands in the dryer but waited uneasily. Did we need to rush over there? Or was this just an update?

Finally Alisha said, “thank you,” again and messed with her phone to shut it and put her hands back in the dryer with a sigh.

“Is it good news or bad?” I asked.

She was still staring off at the far wall, where some ferns were in a planter.

“Alisha?” I asked.

Her gaze continued unbroken until she finally acknowledged me with a, “hm?”

“Is it good news or bad?” I asked.

“Oh… Nico finally sent out a message. People think I'm gone for good so he's starting the process of getting a banquet together.”

“A banquet?” I echoed. Because I'd heard Alisha and Tye talk about doing one themselves.

She nodded. “When things get… reorganized, sometimes a banquet is held. Since I'm out of the picture that means Nico is going to take over. So a banquet will be held to clarify that and if he so chooses, it's also the time he'll put new managers in place.”

Managers, as in captains, I followed.

“Wait, so if there's a purge…” I started.

She nodded. “Yes it's then that people will be getting pulled aside and given their choices, if they're given any at all. I wouldn't put it past Nico to skip that courtesy.”

“I see… so when are we going back?”

“I don't know. Tye will tell me as soon as he knows when the banquet will be. And… I guess we'll ruin Nico’s day and crash it.”

I nodded. This would be dangerous. But Alisha had been playing this game far too long. It was best to rip the bandaid off… I just didn't know if I wanted to be there when that happened.

If I wasn't though, I'd have no idea that Alisha was going to be okay. And then if she wasn't, I was dead anyway. Nico would not leave me to run about with the business’s workings in my brain. I knew too many people and too many places.

The safest place would probably be at Alisha’s side. That way I could protect her if it came to that, too.

“Let's enjoy the rest of our spa day,” Alisha said. “Who knows when the next one will be.”

I nodded in agreement and did my best to relax.

Note: We are approaching the end of this large arc. I have had to make the decision to stop after they go back to Alisha's city. At least for a while. Because I will be going to Japan (of all places) in May for pretty much the entire month and I still haven't brushed up on my Japanese... I also have no idea how I'm going to afford this trip so I'll probably be doubling up my work shifts or starting to do Instacart again or something. Like the flights are paid for and some of the lodging. But food and other travelling expenses are yet to be figured out.

So... at least between part of April through the end of May, I will probably be in radio silence mode. If you know anything really amazing to do in Japan I ought to add to my trip (I will be in Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Sapporo), let me know, because I'm a little lost. I pretty much only know extraneously touristy things.