Chapter 19
DREW
The Blackwell Summer campaign had two more events coming up to promote the store and the new clothing Blackwell Couture was offering. The next one, the yacht party was mostly handled and ready to go. That just left the big sidewalk sale to iron out.
It was going to be like an elevated pop-up street market, like a dreamy summer market where we take over the plaza right in front of the shopping center where Blackwell Couture is located.
We had teamed up with the other stores around the plaza, who were going to have their own booths set up, so everyone was onboard with it.
We would be bringing in food trucks and there will be a DJ, and it should be like a block party vibe but for rich people who will buy our clothes.
All those arrangements had already been made.
I just wanted to make sure the Blackwell stuff stood out and looked good, since we were hosting the whole thing.
That’s why I ran the layout and décor by my brother Micah.
He knew how to make things look good, and he got paid a lot of money for that expertise.
I answered my phone when I saw Micah’s name. “Tell me you have something good.”
“Good morning to you too.” I could hear the ocean in the background. He was either on his deck or still on the beach. Knowing Micah, probably the beach, toes in the sand. “I’ve been looking at what you sent over. The designs from New York.”
“And?”
“And it’s fine,” he said. “It’s clean. The layout works. The color palette is very Blackwell. It’s also very safe.”
“That’s what I thought. Boring.”
“You’ve got a premium fashion brand setting up a market in front of a flagship store in Beverly Hills and the design reads like a corporate retreat at a nice hotel.” He paused. “It doesn’t feel like summer. It feels very New York. We’re not New York.”
I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. “So we’re on the same page.”
“We’re on the same page.” I heard him shift, the creak of a chair.
“So what are you thinking?”
“Okay.” I could practically see his expression.
When he got into creative mode, it was best to get out of his way.
He got a faraway look in his eyes and usually did a lot of talking with his hands.
“Forget the tent structures New York proposed. Standard event tents are fine for a corporate activation. This isn’t that.
You’ve got a plaza. You’ve got natural light and a building that already has presence.
You don’t need to hide it under a canopy. ”
“So what do we do instead?”
“Umbrellas,” he said. “But not the Home Depot kind. Think Italian market. Think old lemon grove. You string them with lights and greenery and you run them in clusters so the space feels like a series of rooms instead of one big open lot. People wander through them. They discover things. Every vendor section feels like its own little world.”
I reached for a pen and pulled a notepad toward me. “I like it.”
“The vendor stations themselves need to feel like they belong to the store and the neighboring stores. Not like a pop-up. Not like a street fair with matching banners.”
“What about the music situation?” I asked. “New York had a DJ platform staged at the north end of the plaza.”
“Move it,” he said. “Center it. Make it the heart of the whole thing. Not elevated, not on a stage. Level with the market floor so the DJ is part of the experience instead of performing above it. You want people to feel like they wandered into something, not that they were invited to watch something.”
“I’ve already got the food trucks lined up,” I said.
“Rich people block party,” he joked.
“That’s exactly the vibe. I like the idea of ditching the tents. I want it to feel more natural.”
“I’ve got some more ideas,” Micah said. “But I need to see the space again. Can I come by?”
“Now?”
“Why not? You’re there, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I’ll be waiting.”
“On my way.” He hung up before I could say anything else.
I set my phone down and looked back at the notes I’d been scribbling.
The New York layout was sitting in a PDF on my desktop, and every time I looked at it, I felt the same low-grade dissatisfaction I’d been trying to articulate for three days.
Micah had been on the same page. My cousins and their operation were impressive, but it was a different vibe.
I was lucky Micah wasn’t working on a movie set and could tap into his infinite creativity.
Kensey appeared in the doorway with her travel mug and her bag over one shoulder and her hair loose. Damn, I didn’t remember her being so beautiful. I must have been blind.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning.” She set her bag down at her desk. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong but our morning is going to be a little different than usual.”
“How so?”
“Micah’s on his way over. He’s got ideas for the market setup. Good ones, actually. The New York layout isn’t working.”
She nodded. “I know it’s not.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t want to add to your pile. What exactly is he proposing to change?”
I walked her through what he’d told me on the phone. The umbrellas instead of tents. The repositioned DJ setup. The idea of making the space feel like something people wandered into rather than something they were directed through. She listened without interrupting.
“That all sounds good,” she said. “But we’ve got less than two weeks.”
“I know.”
“So whatever he’s envisioning, it needs to be achievable in less than two weeks. I’m not pulling off miracles.”
“That’s exactly why I need you in this conversation,” I said. “He’s going to get big. He always gets big. I need someone to keep it real.”
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s go down and walk the space before he gets here so I know what we’re actually working with.”
Micah pulled up forty minutes later. He climbed out of his truck in board shorts and a faded tee and sunglasses, looking like he’d come from the beach because he probably had.
He pulled his sunglasses off and looked up at the front of the building, then at the plaza in front of it. He was taking it in. “Okay,” he said finally. “I see it.”
“See what?” Kensey asked.
He pointed toward the center of the plaza. “That’s where the energy wants to go. Right there. Everything should pull toward that point.”
Kensey had her notebook open already. “Walk me through it.”
He did. We moved through the space with Micah talking and gesturing and occasionally stopping to crouch down and look at something from a different angle.
He talked about the umbrella clusters, about the way the light moved across the plaza at different times of day and not wanting people to get too hot.
We moved along the north end of the plaza and Micah stopped again near where the DJ platform had been positioned in the New York layout. He shook his head slowly.
“It’s wrong up here,” he said.
“That’s what I said on the phone,” I told him.
“You said move it center,” Kensey said. “What does center look like exactly? Because if we pull the DJ into the middle of the foot traffic, we’ve got a crowd management issue. People stop moving when there’s music. They cluster.”
Micah pointed to a spot roughly fifteen feet south of where we were standing.
“There. Not dead center. Offset slightly west, which means the sound carries east into the shopping area but the heaviest foot traffic stays clear. You create a natural gathering point without blocking the vendor corridor.”
She walked to the spot he’d indicated and stood there, looking in both directions. I didn’t have any idea what they were talking about but they clearly knew. I was going to accept they were better at this than I was.
“That could work.” She was already writing. “What else?”
He walked her through three more ideas in the next twenty minutes. A flower installation at the entrance that doubled as a photo backdrop. Scatter seating instead of grouped tables. Each time he got ambitious, she caught it and shut it down.
“No,” she said.
“Hear me out.”
“We have twelve days. No.”
Micah looked at me. I raised my hands.
“She’s not wrong,” I said.
He made a face that conceded the point without quite admitting it. “Fine. Forget the water feature.”
“The rest of it is good,” she said. “The rest of it is genuinely good, Micah. I mean that. But I need it to be achievable.”
“It’s achievable.”
“Then put it on paper and get it back to us tomorrow so I can start making calls.”
He laughed. “You’re tough.”
“I’m efficient,” she said.
She excused herself then, something about needing to call someone before they closed for lunch and walked back through the front doors with her notebook tucked under her arm.
Micah watched her go. Then he looked at me. He didn’t say anything immediately, which was worse than if he had. He put his sunglasses back on and turned back toward the plaza, hands in his pockets.
“You can’t look at your assistant that way at work,” he said.
“What way?”
“Like you’re thinking about nailing her against the nearest wall.”
“Fuck off,” I said.
“I’m serious. You were doing it the whole time. It was very uncomfortable. You were totally making googly eyes.”
“I don’t even know what googly eyes are.”
He laughed. “Why aren’t you guys sleeping together?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“Ever heard of friends with benefits?”
“She’s not that kind of friend.”
“You’re the one that said it came damn close to being that kind of friendship.”
“Yes, but she pulled back and I agreed.”
“You made a mistake,” he said. “She’s good, by the way. Really good. She kept me honest, which is not easy.”
“I know she’s good.”
“You’re going to have a hard time letting her go back to New Jersey.”
I didn’t answer that. He hadn’t asked it as a question anyway.
I knew she was leaving and I was prepared for it.
There was no future for us. But dammit, I could not stop thinking about her.
It had been all-consuming. I’d thought of at least eighteen different ways I wanted to have sex with her.
If I allowed my imagination to run wild, I could think of another fifty.
I wanted her. Not the way I’d wanted the women I’d dated over the years, the easy, uncomplicated wanting that faded naturally after a few months because it had never been more than surface deep.
This was something that had been building for the better part of a decade.
One night on my patio had turned it from a manageable thing into something loud and persistent that I couldn’t think around.
I wanted her hands in my hair again. I wanted to hear the sound she made. I wanted to run my tongue from her toes to her ears.
“Stop,” Micah groaned.
“What now?”
“You’re totally thinking about sex.”
I sighed. “I am.”
He laughed. “Look, for what it’s worth, she looks at you the same way.”
“I doubt that.”
“Trust me, that’s a woman that has thought about you naked—a lot.”
“It’s complicated,” I said, falling back on the most basic, generic excuse ever.
“If I were you, I’d just do it. Use the time you’ve got and figure out the rest later. Things might change. You’ll never know if you don’t at least try. Don’t overthink it. You’re both mature enough to handle a fling.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” I said.
We walked to the front of the store and he paused. “I like her,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”
“I know. Thanks. And thanks for the help with this setup. It’s going to be another killer event.”
“No problem. See you later.”
I walked back inside and spotted her at the coffee bar getting another hit of caffeine. When she saw me, she smiled and held up a second cup. She’d gotten one for me.
I wanted her and I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be satisfied until I did.