Chapter 19 #2
Giorgio watched the whole thing from the side and started laughing.
“It will never work,” he said with a gloating grin.
He wasn’t talking to Ryan, though. He looked dead at Graeme and said, “He’s never going to stick with you.
He’s far too fickle for that. He’ll ditch you both and be off to Paris or New York or wherever his career takes him as soon as the fashion world snaps its fingers. ”
Graeme looked stunned as he turned to Ryan for confirmation. Art just looked irritated, though. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” he demanded from Giorgio.
Giorgio seemed to think that was hilarious. “Your little kitten has claws,” he said.
Ryan knew Giorgio well enough to know the jab was deliberate on several levels.
Although Art did look like a cat with its fur up as he glared at Giorgio.
Ryan didn’t want his lover fighting his battles for him, though, so he rested a hand on Art’s arm in an attempt to still him and stared right at Giorgio.
“I am not coming back to you,” he said slowly, emphasizing each word. “I don’t care if you cut my career off at the knees. Do I care about fashion? Yes. But there are things I care about more.”
Giorgio huffed a laugh, like he didn’t believe him. “You’re ambitious, Ryan. You’ll never be satisfied with a second-rate career designing for bargain stores, or teaching at your family’s quaint little arts center.”
That blow hurt, but not for the reasons Giorgio likely thought.
“What my family has done is amazing,” he said, believing it with his whole heart.
“That quaint little community arts center does more for the world than any of your overpriced, elitist designs ever will. It improves people’s lives and brings a community together.
The children who take art classes there create more magic than you ever will in your life. ”
“Hear, hear,” Art said, clapping Ryan’s back and standing strong by his side.
Graeme slipped into place on Ryan’s other side, and although it might have looked cheesy and saccharine to a jaded soul like Giorgio, Ryan had never been happier. He wanted a career in fashion, but he needed the two men who stood stalwartly by his sides.
“Suit yourself,” Giorgio said, sending them a look that said he thought as little of them as the dirt on the street. “But don’t count any of your chickens before they hatch.”
Ryan had never been so glad to watch someone walk away as he was to see Giorgio’s back retreating.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” Graeme said, reflecting his thoughts.
“What a wanker,” Art agreed.
Ryan smiled, throwing an arm around both of his men’s waists and pulling them close, but the hug and the quick pair of kisses, one planted on each of their cheeks, was all he had time for.
“He’s going to try something else to sabotage this show,” he said, diving back into work as a few more models and Gloria moved in, seeing that the coast was clear. “He’s already done just about everything he can to torpedo the whole thing.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Graeme asked, looking around.
“No, sweetheart,” Ryan said, shifting fully into work mode. “I love you, but the best you can do right now is to go have a seat and clear the way for everyone to get dressed.”
“Got it,” Art said. He grabbed Graeme’s arm and said, “Come on, lover boy. Let’s let our man do his thing. We can tell him all about our sexual gymnastics last night later.”
Graeme turned bright pink. Ryan laughed out loud. The comment was designed to change the mood and throw everyone off-balance, and it worked.
Ryan’s heart went with his partners as they pushed their way back through the busy models, but his head stayed in the game, right where it was.
Art and Graeme’s short visit felt like it made things easier and lighter for him.
There were still hiccups, one of his racks wasn’t where it was supposed to be, a few more models had problems getting there on time, but by the time he took his place in the wings, then walked into the long gallery to introduce his collection, he felt more confident than he had in years.
“Welcome, everyone, to my spring collection, The Power of Threesome,” he said, grinning at the audience and loving their reaction to the slight tweak he’d made to his original collection name.
“This collection is a small miracle, though I’m not going to go into all the reasons why.
I’ll only say this. I am the luckiest man alive, and I don’t care what any of you think of it. ”
He blew two kisses, one with each hand, at Graeme and Art as they sat in the front row, three quarters of the way down the runway.
Art reached out to catch his cheesily. As Ryan turned around to head backstage, he spotted Giorgio sitting with Marco Valliant on the opposite side.
Marco was leaning over, saying something to Giorgio, who had a stony face.
Ryan didn’t dare hope that Marco was telling the man off, but he wouldn’t have complained if he was.
The pulsing, throbbing music he’d chosen to underscore his show flared up in the speakers placed around the room, and just like that, Moira stepped out onto the runway in his first look.
The show was nerve-wracking, to say the least. With each new look that walked the runway, Ryan expected something to go wrong.
Little things did go wrong throughout the show.
Shoes weren’t where they were supposed to be, one of his highlight pieces developed a loose hem which the model could have stepped on at any second, and the pieces Javier’s last-minute finds wore didn’t quite fit as well as they were supposed to, but there were no outright disasters.
Ryan watched the whole thing on the monitors in the staging area. He cared about what his clothes looked like walking, of course, but what he really wanted to see was people’s reactions.
No, what he wanted to see were Art’s and Graeme’s reactions.
He’d designed everything in the show for them, even though he was only just realizing that now.
Every piece said something about their summer, about the gardens and ruins of Hawthorne House.
Everything fit together in threes and triangles, giving the audience’s eyes something fascinating to look at with every step the models took.
But mostly, the show was there to tell a story of falling in love with two men.
So when the threesome, bride in the middle, walked out at the end of the show, tears filled Ryan’s eyes, taking him by surprise.
Those three designs were everything he felt about him, Art, and Graeme.
The three of them were a unit. They were different, but they needed each other.
They would each be lesser without the other two.
He hoped and prayed that the three of them were like the threesome walking down the aisle—together forever.
That was the only thing that mattered. Whatever happened, whatever tricks Giorgio played or reversals of fortune he fell into, if he really did end up designing for a bargain store just teaching classes in fashion design for the rest of his life, he would be happy.
He had love, more of it than he deserved, and that fulfilled him.