Miami
The afternoon shoot had wrapped early, leaving Luisa and Bel lounging by the hotel pool with a couple of other models and crew members.
Florida's evening heat was starting to ease, the setting sun casting long shadows across the water.
Luisa was nursing a mojito, listening to the comfortable buzz of conversation around her while stealing occasional glances at Bel.
It was their third day working together on this shoot and tomorrow would be their last. Though they hadn't explicitly discussed it, there was an unspoken understanding between them as always that tonight would be spent together, as it always was when they worked on the same job.
Their eyes had been meeting throughout the day with that familiar electricity, the silent acknowledgment of what would come later.
Bel was in the middle of a story about her friend Saskia's birthday party when she gestured with her hand and something caught the light.
.. a delicate silver bracelet with a small pendant that Luisa hadn't noticed before.
It was subtle but distinctive, the kind of piece that looked both personal and expensive.
"That's beautiful," Luisa said during a lull in conversation, nodding toward Bel's wrist. "Is it new?"
Bel glanced down, touching the bracelet almost unconsciously, a small smile that she seemed to try but couldn't quite manage to conceal.
"Thanks. Clem gave it to me for my birth.
.." She stopped abruptly, something flashing across her expression before she smoothed it away. "For my birthday last month."
It was the smallest of slips, but in that brief moment everything about Bel's expression changed.
There was a softness in her eyes that Luisa had never seen before, and an intimacy in how she touched the bracelet that told Luisa everything she needed to know about who Clem was and what she meant to Bel.
"It suits you," Luisa replied casually, but something inside her shifted.
Luisa and Bel never talked about their love lives, that was their unspoken rule.
Yet here was tangible evidence of someone else, someone who knew what Bel would like, who celebrated her birthday, who gave her gifts she treasured enough to wear.
The conversation moved on, but Luisa's thoughts kept returning to that bracelet and the look on Bel's face.
Later, when they ended up in Bel's room as expected, the sex was as passionate and intense as always.
Yet afterwards, as Luisa lay next to Bel in the darkened room, she found herself staring at the bracelet resting on the nightstand where Bel had carefully placed it before they'd fallen into bed together.
"Who's Clem?" Luisa asked quietly, surprising herself. They didn't do this, just didn't ask about each other's love lives outside the bubble of their encounters on location.
Bel was silent for so long that Luisa thought she might not answer. Then she said quietly, "Someone important to me. Back in London.”
"She has good taste in jewellery."
Another long pause. "She works in fashion, she’s got a good eye." Bel smiled. "She’s one of my best friends. I live with her and Saskia."
“Just best friends?”
Bel hesitated. “It’s complicated.”
“It looks like that. You’ve known her a long time?”
“A long, long time.”
The words hung in the air between them. Clem.
Someone who could make Bel’s expression go like that.
Someone who, clearly, was waiting for Bel back home.
Luisa felt a strange hollowness open up inside her, not quite jealousy, she couldn't be jealous with this arrangement with Bel that they'd had over the years, but something more complex.
She realised that she'd always assumed that Bel was similar to her, focused on her career, no deep relationships around it.
Hearing about Clem was a surprise, because it suddenly made her miss what she hadn't had since Miguel, all those years ago. She hadn’t thought about that for ages, but it hit her then, hard.
"Does she know about...?"
"No," Bel said simply. "It's not something we discuss. We’re not a couple, but we’re…
very close." Then, turning to look at Luisa directly for the first time since the conversation began, she added, "You and me is different.
What happens on shoots stays on shoots. That's always been our arrangement. "
Luisa nodded, knowing Bel was right. That was their unspoken understanding. Yet that night, as she returned to her own room before dawn as she always did, Luisa couldn't shake the image of that bracelet, or the way that Bel had touched it with such affection.
***
The next day was their final shoot together, and they performed as consummate professionals as always.
But as Luisa packed her bags that evening, preparing for her flight back to LA the following day, her mind kept returning to Bel and Clem.
Not with jealousy for Bel's affections..
. their relationship had never been about that, and her and Bel could never have worked as a couple. No chance and no interest either.
But what there was for Luisa a growing curiosity about what it might be like to have that kind of connection with another woman.
Her relationships with men had always felt like they were following a script someone else had written.
With Bel it was purely physical, contained within the boundaries of their arrangement.
But the thought of something more, someone who would think carefully about her birthday, know what kind of jewellery she might like, take enough care to choose something special.
.. that thought lingered and wouldn't leave.
Back in her apartment in LA a few weeks later, Luisa found herself looking at the bracelet she wore on special occasions, the gift from Julian, her not-boyfriend.
It was very expensive, designer, exactly what was expected.
But she could tell that there had been no moment of choosing something uniquely for her, no real thought beyond the price tag and the brand name and the advice of the shop assistant.
When her phone buzzed with a message from her friend Maria asking if she wanted to come out that Friday night to a new club she wanted to try, Luisa's first instinct was to decline.
She wasn't in the mood for another night of fending off men who recognised her from magazines or, worse, thought that revealing an overfamiliarity with her social media presence was somehow going to get her to go to bed with them.
But then Maria mentioned it was a women's bar... "A lesbian club but super chill, you'd love it, I promise". Suddenly something clicked into place.
"Why not?" Luisa replied, surprising herself. "Sounds fun."
She told herself she was just being supportive of her friend who was openly into that scene, that it would be a nice change from their usual nights out.
But as Friday approached, Luisa found herself thinking more about what it would be like to meet women in a context that wasn't a photoshoot, that wasn't just about physical connection behind closed doors.
What would it be like to have someone look at her the way Bel had looked at that bracelet? To be with a woman who wasn't just passing through her life between shoots, but who might stay, might learn what she liked, might think of her when they were apart?
By the time Friday night arrived, what had started as curiosity had evolved into something more intentional.
As she got ready, choosing her outfit so as to be just perfect, Luisa admitted to herself what she was really hoping for.
.. to meet someone. Not for a night, not for a fling, but someone who might show her what she'd been missing, someone who might look at her and see more than just her body or her face and want her for more than because she'd make them look good.
When she walked into the club with Maria that night, Luisa's eyes were already scanning the crowd, open to possibilities she'd never considered before.
She didn't know exactly what or who she was looking for, but for the first time she was actively seeking something beyond what she'd had with Bel all these years and what she'd experienced with any of the others.
And then, through the crowd, she saw her.
.. a woman with brown hair tied back loosely, dressed casually yet somehow striking, radiating a confidence that held Luisa's gaze.
Their eyes met across the dancefloor, and Luisa felt something flutter in her stomach, something that reminded her of the first time she'd seen Bel in Tulum all those years ago, but different too, more grounded, more real.
Amy.