Page 49 of Not You Again
I take the steamer from him so I can finish the job. “I just figured a man with your status at work would own more.”
He pushes off the wall and maneuvers behind me to drink out of my coffee cup, clutching the towel at his hips with his other hand. “Not all of us can make our own clothes on demand. I have plenty.”
I snort my disagreement, but keep my mouth shut. It’s not my place to judge how many items of clothing he has. But my side of the closet stuffed full stands in stark contrast to his barren three suits and five dress shirts. I flick off the steamer and turn to face him, setting it down on the dresser. “All done.”
The corner of his mouth lifts in a half grin.
“Don’t get used to it.” I pluck my coffee cup out of his hands and take a sip.
Completely shameless, his back to the cameras, his eyes dip into the V of my robe before skating slowly up my chest to caress my neck before finally meeting mine again. His half grin turns into a full one. “You look beautiful.”
Heat rising to my cheeks, I counter, “And you look like you’re going to be late.”
“But at least my suit will be wrinkle-free.” As he slips around me toward his suit, he tugs on my messy bun. Before I can protest, he presses his lips to my cheek. “Thank you.”
I almost forget my tablet on the way out the door.
I’m halfway through pinning a ballroom skirt onto a dress form for one of my Fashion Week designs when I hear my laptop ping with an email. Always when my hands are occupied. I finish the draping, stabbing pins into the form with more force than is strictly necessary. None of it’s working anyway. Instead of a ballroom skirt, all I can see in my mind is a towel clinging to Kit’s hips.
A ballroom skirt can’t capture the intimacy of marriage like that towel can, and suddenly this dress feels so foreign I’m not sure it came from my own mind anymore. My insecurity about being good enough to design my own line rears its ugly head with such force I take in a sharp breath.
Space. I need space.
I already spent the morning procrastinating assembling this dress by filming TikToks of fabric swatches in the sunlight coming in my loft windows. I also filmed a few of my other designs, explaining which silhouette looks best on certain body types. Those videos should last me a week of content at least.
Frowning, I approach my laptop and wake the screen. I groan when I read the subject line: PAST DUE—ATLANTA FASHION WEEK FEE. The email is short and to the point. If I don’t pay up by the end of the week, I lose my spot in the tent at Fashion Week.
I planned on paying the fee when Clover Callaway wrote me a large check for the delivery of her dress. As it never came, the fee for my spot at Fashion Week slipped my mind. And now I might lose my spot because a man couldn’t keep it in his pants.
The frustration rises in me so quickly, I don’t know what to do with it. I pace the room for a few seconds, mumbling every curse I can think of and call the bastard some creative names under my breath.
After all the work I’ve done on my own—never going into debt, never applying for a business loan, never asking anyone to help me—my dreams are still at the whim of someone I don’t even know. Someone who will never understand what this means to me, how important it is that I show at Fashion Week.
My swearing gets more colorful as my resentment mingles with the shame I feel at spending so much on materials for Fashion Week, confident nothing could go wrong. I should know better than this. I should be more cautious. I shouldn’t have reached so far out of my comfort zone. It was a silly, childish thing to do.
As the shoulds reach a fever pitch, profanity isn’t enough. I whip around to the dress form and tear the fabric off. The form wobbles at the base as my obscenities get louder, echoing off the walls. Pins scatter on the wood floor as painstakingly cut muslin joins them in a heap. By the time the form is bare, I’m trying to catch my breath.
Someone clears their throat behind me.
I gasp and spin around, smoothing my hair back into my messy bun. My brain short-circuits when I see a man in black pants and a white button-down standing inside my studio holding two large brown paper bags. My hands shaking, I force a smile. “Can I help you?”
“Is this Andrea Dresser Designs?” he asks, eyeing all the bolts of fabric on the far wall.
I clear my throat and nod. “It is.”
The man lets out a sigh of relief. “I was worried I had the wrong place.”
“Wrong place for what?” I frown as I look him over. Is this one of the grooms from a wedding I designed for? Or a high-profile bride’s personal assistant sent to scout out my business and make sure I’m not a liability?
You blew that one, Andie.
“I’m from La Campagne.” The French restaurant down the street? He holds up the bags that look damn heavy, bulging at the seams. I gesture for him to place them in the kitchenette as he explains, “This is one of everything we have.”
I dare to peek into one of the bags. It’s packed to the brim with to-go containers and smells suspiciously like garlic bread. “I didn’t order anything.”
“Oh, no.” He waves it off, and I’ve definitely missed something. “A Mr. Watson ordered it and told us where to take it. We don’t normally do deliveries, but he tipped really well.”
Something warm tugs inside my chest. I thank the man for his trouble and start unpacking the bags. He was not kidding about there being one of everything. A few salads, two loaves of bread, several entrees, and three desserts in total.