Chapter 5 #3
Nearly everyone leans in at the same time to take a selfie with Daniel, closing me in.
I duck my head, eyes cast at the wet ground.
Without looking where I’m going, I collide into a man, and Daniel loses his grip on me.
Disoriented and wobbly on my heels, I tumble to the ground.
My dress rides up and exposes my upper thighs, and I frantically try to pull the hem down.
Adjusting the dress proves impossible, as I’m sitting on the back of the soaked fabric with no room to move.
I hear Daniel shouting, “Which one of you knocked her over? I’ll sue your ass for assault. Who was it?”
The “oomph” sounds coming from the fans tell me that he’s shoving his way back through the group.
I attempt to stand, but the black jeans and scuffed sneakers surrounding me leave no space to do so.
Claustrophobia starts to trickle in, and my head feels fuzzy.
Just as I start to panic, two strong arms yank me straight up and plop me on my feet.
Frightened, I lift my gaze to the stranger and find a pair of familiar icy blue eyes fixed on mine.
“Tessa?” Giovanni’s thick eyebrows are furrowed as he scans my body, searching for physical injuries.
Noticing my askew hem, he immediately pulls down my dress to cover my exposed thighs.
His fingers graze my skin, and a current of internal warmth juxtaposes the chill of the wet fabric.
I see a flicker of… Is that worry in his eyes?
No, it must be the flash of the camera lights.
I’d ask why he’s here, but remember that this fancy restaurant is down the street from his shop.
“What is this? What’s happening? Why are these people… Back the fuck up. Get away from her!” he shouts at one of the paparazzi shoving a camera lens in my face.
“Um… I…” I really don’t want to tell him about Daniel, but I don’t know how I’ll get out of this one. Overwhelmed, my eyes mist over and a tear escapes. Shit. I cannot show weakness in front of him. He’ll never let me live it down.
“Are you crying?” Giovanni sounds horrified, glaring daggers at the fans with a disgusted look he reserves only for cheap polyester.
Tucking me under his arm, he navigates through the knot of people with ease, pushing them aside like they’re bobbins of thread.
He starts walking at a faster pace, creating a good amount of distance between us and the fans and whispering in my ear, “I’ll take you to my shop.
We’re almost there. What do those people want from you? How can I—”
“What are you doing? Get the hell away from her!” Oh no. Daniel rips me away from Giovanni, causing my body to lose ten degrees of warmth. My brother’s hand replaces Giovanni’s arm on my shoulder, steadying me. His breaths are erratic, almost like he sprinted after us.
“I suggest you remove your hand from her before I break it,” Giovanni warns in a cold, practiced tone of voice that actually scares me.
My brother doesn’t move an inch, and Giovanni looks just unhinged enough to follow through on his threat.
“Step the fuck back,” he commands, forcefully shoving Daniel.
If I wasn’t so traumatized, I’d snicker at how my brother’s six-foot-two, two hundred pound body staggers backward like a baby deer learning to walk. I rarely have the pleasure of seeing someone humble him. He’s going to get so much shit for this later.
I weakly interject. “Daniel… I’m fine, it’s all okay, he—”
“Is this your boyfriend?” Giovanni asks in a strained voice, focusing all of his rage squarely on my brother. “Where the fuck were you when she was getting swallowed up by those people?” He moves closer to me, growling, “Testa di cazzo.”
Breathing heavily from running toward us, Daniel wears a bemused expression now.
My brother is a lover, not a fighter. His job was to literally run away from the line of scrimmage.
I watch his brain process this interaction in real time.
His pupils might as well be pickleballs as they ping-pong between us, trying to understand how we know each other.
It’s not every day that someone genuinely doesn’t recognize Daniel.
You’d have to live under a rock—or in this case, a pile of designer suits—to not know the DT.
“Tessie, you know him?” Daniel asks gently, frowning at the bottom of my soaked silk dress.
“Tessie?” Giovanni grumbles. I turn my head to face him, and my nose almost grazes his neck. When did he get so close to me?
“Yeah. I know him. It’s fine… We’re fine,” I reply awkwardly.
“She works with me. I see her every day,” Giovanni interjects haughtily.
Every day seems like an unnecessary piece of information.
“Uh, yeah,” I begrudgingly admit. “He’s Haus of Lamont’s embroidery specialist.”
“This is Giovanni?” Daniel’s grinning now. Asshole.
“You talk about me? With your… boyfriend?” Our party of perplexity changes from a reservation of two to three as Giovanni joins us in confusion.
“Brother,” Daniel interrupts, raising his index finger. “I’m her bro-ther,” he joyfully corrects, slowly emphasizing the word “brother” like Giovanni is Elmo and it is a Big Word.
Why are these men acting so messy? On the Lord’s Day, no less? This is Friday night behavior.
“Okay,” Giovanni barks awkwardly, still far too loud for the minuscule space between us. I watch his chest slowly rise and fall as he seems to settle himself. “Okay then. It’s nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand to my big brother, whose smile appears to be permanently glued to his face.
Giovanni glances back at the fans. Most of them scattered, but a few appear to be heading our way.
“Would you like to come into my shop?” He gestures to his door, now only a few businesses down from where we fled to just a handful of minutes ago.
“To, ah, get away from the people.” Is he…
nervous? Why is he nervous? Maybe he’s a fan, after all.
The three of us walk at a brisk pace until we reach his shop.
We enter in silence as the bell rings above the door.
Giovanni immediately turns the lock, then leads us to the back.
He ushers us into his office, and I take it in, admiring a photo of a beautiful sea-scape hanging on his wall. It must be from Italy.
I’ve never been in his office long enough to appreciate the decor.
“Please take a seat,” Giovanni announces in a ceremonial way. Standing behind his mahogany desk as if it were an altar, I suppose the tone is fitting. He certainly acts like his shop is holier than church.
And like members of his weird congregation, we both obey and slowly ease into the two leather chairs on the opposite side of his desk.
“Would you like some…” Giovanni trails off as he looks around his office for something. “Water, maybe. Or perhaps a hard candy,” he offers, nodding at the bowl of foil wrapped candies that lives on his desk.
Who is this polite imposter? Just two weeks ago, he was telling me I needed to come back to the shop because I didn’t articulate all of my “silly demands” properly the first time. I eye him suspiciously, wondering if his shift in attitude is due to my brother’s fame.
Giovanni fiddles with his sewing glasses. “Are you in town visiting Tessa, then?”
I guess not.
Daniel lights up at his question, waggling his eyebrows and giving me an are you hearing this? expression. Giovanni observes the two of us with a small frown on his face, noticing our obvious silent conversation.
“I’m in town for a work event,” Daniel tells him carefully.
Giovanni nods. “What is it that you do?”
“Right now, I run a charity. But the event is related to my old job in New York.”
“You worked in New York? Where?”
“I used to be a wide receiver on the Mustangs football team.”
Silence. So much quiet fills the space, I think I hear one of Giovanni’s literal pins drop.
He coughs. “That’s, ah, a very interesting career. Tessa’s never told me about you. Hm, I mean she never told me about what you do.”
Why would I tell him anything?
Daniel snorts. “Don’t lie on my account. Tessie never talks about me to anyone. She acts like I don’t exist. I’m pretty sure she’s embarrassed of me.”
“You exist in my heart, Thompson; that’s not enough for you?” I playfully ask, as he gently shoves my shoulder.
Giovanni hasn’t blinked once since we sat down, probably absorbing our interactions and saving them for analysis later. I watch him watching us and try to estimate how long it’ll take him to put all the pieces together.
“Thompson… You’re DT. I’ve seen you on a billboard, I think.”
Two minutes, twenty-two seconds.
Daniel grimaces. “Fuck. I hated that thing. I lost a stupid bet to my agent and had to do an advertisement as punishment.”
Giovanni taps his pencil on his desk. “But Tessa’s not…”
My skin heats, and I shrink in my seat, the soft Italian leather cool against my back.
He furrows his brows. “Oh. Cohen is a fake last name, then. Obviously.”
I feel a rush of air on my face from my brother’s neck swiveling toward me at lightning speed. “Tess. Tell me you didn’t.”
“Stop it,” I hiss, begging him not to embarrass me further in front of Giovanni.
“Is Cohen a family name? A maiden name, maybe?”
Daniel stifles a laugh. “She wishes it was a family name.”
Giovanni looks baffled. “I’m sorry, I’m not following.”
My brother opens his mouth to speak, and I pinch the skin on his arm with a vengeance only a sibling could inflict. He flicks me off, undeterred.
“Seth Cohen from The O.C. was Tessie’s childhood crush growing up. It’s hilarious that she pretended to fictionally marry him as an adult.” Looking distressingly gleeful at this revelation, he asks, “Does Mom know?”
“It’s a basic last name! That’s the only reason I picked it!”
“What is The O.C.? A place? Where is it?” Giovanni fires off rapid questions like he’s going to time travel and physically visit the set of the Y2K TV show.
“It’s an American show about teens with poor judgement,” Daniel explains, his lips curling into a mischievous grin. He chokes as the laughter he was holding back comes tumbling out all at once.
Giovanni, on the other hand, appears to be angrily scribbling something down in his notebook. I crane my neck, trying to see what it is that has him so bothered.
He sets his pen down and cracks his knuckles. “So, you two are close then?”
“As close as two siblings might get. But enough about us, Giovanni,” Daniel says in a bright tone, clapping his hands together. “Tell me, why are you perpetually angry with my sister?”
My jaw drops. Giovanni’s does, too.
“Uh… I…” he stammers.
I glower at my brother. “Daniel Thompson, I swear to—”
“Kidding, dude,” he says with a grin. “But can you lighten up? All she does is complain about you.”
Is my brother trying to kill my career? I scramble, attempting to salvage whatever working relationship I had with The Tailor of Terror.
“It’s not all the time—”
“How often would you say she complains about me?” Giovanni interjects, like a political pollster completing a constituent survey. He scratches his chin, waiting for an honest answer, which he certainly won’t get from me. I hope Daniel doesn’t—
“Only on days that end in the letter ‘y,’” my brother replies solemnly.
“Daniel!” I admonish.
Giovanni shifts his attention to me. “You talk about me?”
I can’t tell if he’s upset or delighted; maybe a little of both. I’m not sure where he dug up the nerve to be offended, as if he didn’t tell me that a design I worked on two months ago with Lamont was the “bare minimum” I could do.
“Yep!” Daniel responds cheerily on my behalf, and my skin starts to feel itchy.
He glances at his watch, then back at Giovanni.
“Listen, I have a call with Gracie soon, but be nicer to Tess, yeah? Lighten up on the critiques. I’m pretty sure she’s one harsh comment away from moving back to Ohio.
” He stands up and brushes invisible lint off of his pants.
“This has been enlightening. Gracie’s gonna eat this up when I tell her.
Gotta run. Love you, Tessie.” He pecks me on my cheek and leaves, abandoning me to clean up the rubble of the bombshells he dropped.
I stare at the ceiling like it contains the passcode required to unlock the best excuse.
“He was exaggerating. I don’t really—”
Giovanni frowns. “You’d move back to Ohio?”
Word vomit rises in my throat. I try to push it down, but my effort proves futile.
I must be shaken up from the paparazzi, because I can’t find one good reason to end this conversation.
“I… honestly don’t know. I’m not making any progress on getting a staff role.
I’m eons away from showing my own collection.
And even if I had all the plans in place for my future line, I don’t have enough money to afford high-end tailoring or photography.
Esme said she’d take pictures for free, but I don’t want to take advantage. ”
Giovanni raises an eyebrow. “Does your brother gamble or something? How in the world would you not have enough money?”
I scowl. “I make my own way. I don’t take his money.
” A formidable thought occurs to me. “Oh my God. Please don’t tell Lamont about this.
I’m begging you. Not only would he be on my ass for the unprofessional nature of our exchange today, but I don’t want anyone to know my relation to Daniel,” I plead.
Sighing, Giovanni starts saying, “I wouldn’t ev—” He quickly cuts himself off, bringing his thumb to his chin. “I’d like to cash in my favor now.”
I swallow nervously, squinting. “What is it?”
“Be my girlfriend.”