25. Chapter 25 #2
“Look, Jessie,” she says, almost idly. I raise my brow at the nickname.
“I’ve worked with enough athletes and artists to know the pattern.
They go through… phases. Infatuations. They get very intense for a while.
Very all-in. Until the season ends, or the press shifts, or something shinier shows up.
Then they move on. It’s not malicious. Just momentum. ”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” I say flatly.
I know what she’s trying to say. But if she’s going to be a bitch, she needs to come out from behind the sugarcoated curtains and show her hateful face for real.
“Don’t take it too personal if he doesn’t show up. ”
She gives a small shrug.
I remember the feel of his thumb under my chin on the beach. I remember everything he’s said and done to me this past week, both over the phone and in person. He calls me before and after each game, FaceTimes me from his hotel room at night and falls asleep on the phone with me.
And I remember something else. This is my night.
I straighten up slowly, releasing my death grip on the rack.
“You done with the… gentle warnings,” I say, trying not to smile. “You’re very good at them, by the way. I can see why people pay you.”
Her mouth flattens a fraction. “I’m just trying to be realistic. I’d hate to see you derail it by confusing real interest in you and interest in the man you’re seen with.”
“Oh, I’m very clear on the difference,” I say. “Dom didn’t draw my patterns. He didn’t stitch these seams. He didn’t max out three credit cards so I could move here.”
“You think you’d be on this lineup without him? ”
“I think I’ve been working for this since I was old enough to hold a needle.” I hold her gaze. “I’m with Dominic, but he’s not my origin story. My work exists with or without his name attached to it.”
“That’s not how the world sees it.” Her smile is venomous.
“Then they can adjust their vision,” I say. “They’re overdue.”
Her eyes narrow.
Behind us, a voice crackles over her headset. “Valencia, we need you front-of-house. Press line in two.”
She doesn’t move.
“I get that you don’t like me,” I say quietly. “Honestly? I don’t care. But don’t insult me by pretending this is about my career, when you’re really just trying to get in one last twist of the knife because you don’t like where he’s looking now.”
Her mouth finally drops the fake smile and I step closer.
“You’re PR,” I go on. “You understand optics better than anyone in this building. Do you really want to be the woman who tried to rattle a guest designer ten minutes before her segment, on a night where half the cameras in this room are pointed at the table she brought in?”
Her nostrils flare.
“That doesn’t read ‘professional.’” I shrug. “It might ruin the show. And what will you do then, Val?”
I throw a nickname to return the favor. “You’ll have a PR nightmare on your hands.”
We just stare at each other.
Then her headset crackles again, louder. “Valencia. Now, please.”
She exhales slowly.
“Break a leg out there, Brooks,” she says. The sugar’s back in her tone now, but I can taste the venom underneath.
“Enjoy the show,” I reply.
She holds my gaze one long, assessing second. Then she turns, heels clicking, and disappears into the chaos.
My heart is pounding but the fear is gone. What’s left is electric.
“Segment Four to line-up in five!” someone yells.
That’ s me.
I wipe my palms on my skirt, straighten the tag on Look One, and move toward the models waiting in the wings.
My night.
Five minutes later, the music shifts. I feel it in my teeth first, that bass change. Segment Three ends. Applause swells, then fades under the house track.
“Segment Four to line-up!” the show caller shouts. “Jessica, that’s you!”
My name jolts me into motion.
“Okay, okay,” I say, darting to my rack. “Look One, where’s Look One?”
She’s already there, my first model, tall, severe, wrapped in my blazer dress. I smooth the front once, tug the hem into place, check the shoulder seams.
“You look perfect,” I tell her.
“Ready when you are.” She smiles with her eyes.
I move down the line, touching each look like a talisman. Satin skirt. Cropped tux jacket. The backless top that tried to kill me last month. I tug, pin, smooth, breathe .
Beyond the curtain, the MC’s voice booms something I can’t quite make out. Then “…introducing our guest designer, Jessica Brooks…”
My lungs fold.
On the monitor mounted in the corner, my name flashes on the screen at the end of the runway in clean white text. The lights shift into the palette I picked from a PDF mockup.
“Look One, go!” the caller snaps.
The model steps out. The monitor switches to the live feed. There she is—my look, my lines, my baby—walking under real lights in a real room full of real people. The fabric moves exactly the way I dreamed it would. The shoulders catch the light like armor. I hear a murmur ripple through the crowd.
“Look Two, ready… go!”
The next model walks.
I hover in the wings, eyes flicking between the sliver of runway I can see past the curtain and the flat, unforgiving honesty of the monitor. Every insecurity I’ve ever had is waiting for something to go wrong.
Nothing does. My clothes don’t fall apart. No one trips. No seams pop. The audience leans in .
Between looks, my gaze snags on the crowd. I can’t see faces clearly through the glare, but the monitor feed pans out, just once, for a wide shot.
There, in the middle rows, is Dannie, with big hair and bigger energy, hands clasped under her chin, eyes huge, like she’s watching the birth of her firstborn. Why isn’t she filming? She promised she would film everything for my parents who—
My eyes shift to the people next to her and my brain lags for a moment.
No, that’s—
For a second I’m convinced I’m seeing things, that this is some stress-induced hallucination. But the camera lingers, just long enough for my mother’s profile to come into focus. My father’s jaw, clenched in that familiar, stubborn line, his shoulders squared.
They’re here. My parents are here. What are they doing here? They don’t have the money to spare for a flight, not last month, not this month. We talked about it. We made peace with it. I promised I’d send them the footage, and promised I’d FaceTime them after .
Emotion slams into my chest so hard I almost lose my balance. My throat goes tight, eyes stinging, and for one heartbeat I think I might actually cry.
They came.
They’re seeing this. With their own eyes. Not on a screen. Not through someone else’s shaky video.
My parents are here to watch their daughter’s name go up in lights, and I don’t understand how that’s possible, but I don’t have time to understand it.
My mom’s hand is over her mouth. My dad’s trying to pretend his eyes aren’t shining and failing.
The camera swings to the front row. I catch a flash of Melody’s profile, smiling from ear to ear, her wild curly hair like a halo. Next to her, Jace in a suit, grinning, pointing at Look Two. I see some of the other guys with them, but the seat next to Jace is empty. Dom’s seat is empty.
If Jace and the guys are here, he should be too. He’s missing this. He’s missing everything.
I hold back a sob. He’s not my emotional support animal. He’s allowed to miss things. But he should be here—
“Don’t look,” I hiss at myself. “ Not now.”
“Look Three, go!”
The show rolls on without waiting for my feelings.
My third look hits the runway and I can hear it again, that intake of breath from the crowd. The director wasn’t lying. The models they put in my looks move like they were grown in a lab for this.
“Final two,” the coordinator says at my shoulder. “You’re killing it, by the way.”
“I might throw up,” I say.
She pats my arm. “Do it after the finale.”
“Okay,” is all I can say, torn between being glad my work is finally out there and my heart sinking with each second. Because he’s. Not. Here.
The penultimate look goes. The music shifts again, building. My closer is the tux I’ve been fussing over. It took blood, sweat, and tears to finish, and even though I made it for Dominic, I’m just happy real people will see it.
And they pulled a celebrity for it, apparently.
Somewhere off in the opposite wing, there’s movement. I catch glimpses in reflections and gaps between racks: a broad back in my jacket in a strip of mirror, just for a second, before someone steps in front of my line of sight.
“Closer in thirty,” the caller says into her headset.
“Who is it?” I ask the coordinator, a last desperate try. “Come on. Give me a hint. Initials. Instagram handle.”
She just smiles, her eyes on the runway.
“Please?” I try again.
“You’re about to find out.”
The second-to-last model comes off the runway, high on adrenaline.
“Final look to doors,” the caller says. “And… go.”
I look up at the monitor.
A figure steps into the mouth of the runway.
At first, my brain goes clinical on me, like I’m critiquing someone else’s show.
The tux fits like it was pinned directly on the body, not adjusted after.
The shoulders fill the jacket perfectly, the waist nips in where I drafted the pattern to hug.
The trousers fall in a clean line over polished shoes, no pooling, no break.
Good walk, I think numbly. Strong presence. Whoever he is, he wears it perfectly .
Then the camera angle shifts and the light catches his face. My heart drops to my feet. I feel like I’m freefalling off a skyscraper.
That’s not “whoever.”
That’s Dom.
For a second, the world genuinely loses sound. The clatter backstage, the bass, the voices in headsets—everything gets sucked out of the room like someone opened a door to space.
It’s him.
Dominic Moreal walking down a fashion runway in my tuxedo. My tuxedo that I made for him. My knees actually go weak. I grab a fistful of curtain before I humiliate myself and hit the floor.