Chapter 2
IRIS
“Mom, I’ll pay the contractors. The steel beams will arrive, and the living room will hold. I promise,” I say into the phone before she can push back. “Just focus on getting Dad to the hospital tomorrow, okay? And don’t worry about the bill.”
My thoughts move from the next round of chemo waiting for him to the way Mom works around her arthritis like it’s a minor inconvenience. I’m already counting treatments, transport, and repairs—everything they refuse to put into words.
The door handle rattles, then springs back, like someone’s losing a fight with their own coordination on the other side.
“Mom, I’ve got to go.” I end the call as a voice comes through the door.
“Eye, babe? You home?”
Reggie Nygaard. My roommate and bestie. The only man who’s ever called me his muse.
He’s been buried in New York Fashion Week, which explains why the doorway is suddenly crammed with hangers of wrapped gowns and extravagant accessories.
Lace trims, beaded pieces, and something that might be a face adornment drape over him.
“Coming!” I dash over and fling the door wide. “Are you relocating your entire SoHo workshop here? Because if we lose the lease over this, I’m blaming you.”
There are three of us in this Brooklyn apartment: Reggie, me, and his frocks. But for him to march in the entire mob? That’s unusual.
“Later, Eye. Later.” He stumbles in, half-strangled by satin.
“Gimme that!” I grab a handful of hangers before he keels over.
“Bless you, honey. Preview Room, stat.”
Once the last garment is rescued and rehung on the rolling rack, he herds me toward the sofa with the urgency of a man about to unveil a scandalous confession.
“So, how was it?” I flop down. “Give me the goss—”
Reggie silences me with a dramatic finger wag and snatches the remote. “No. This is bigger.”
A title card fills the screen: A Day in the Life of, with Charles Pompeo.
I wrinkle my nose. “What’s this trash?”
“Eye! I have survived pleated organza and deranged stage managers. For once in your life, be the Iris who simply cuddles me and keeps her commentary to herself.”
“Aww.” I tip my head onto his shoulder. “Fine.”
The host cracks a few jokes about celebrity makeovers gone wrong before the camera slides across a silver plaque: Avelis. It’s a posh clinic in Chelsea. A striking young woman sits inside, exchanging pleasantries with the host.
“Wow, she looks incredible!” Reggie gasps.
“Who is she?”
“Lydia Verity. Massive fitness influencer.”
I raise a brow. So this is how far my bestie’s standards for entertainment have dropped. But after the tears and frenzy of Fashion Week, I let it pass.
The screen swaps Lydia’s glow for something lit like an operating theater, the interview proper.
“So, who is Dr. Marcus Lockwood?”
Charles Pompeo is his usual mid-fifties self—sallow, smug, and utterly forgettable.
But the man in the spotlight is…rather striking.
His sculpted jaw is accentuated by his crisp suit, and his posture is all but made for the camera.
He’s not my type, but I can practically hear Reggie swooning.
He watches with the same rapture he reserves for Milan runway feeds, or that Survivor season when he couldn’t shut up about Michael Yerger.
“So he’s not that kind of doctor. He’s a plastic surgeon.” I can’t help myself.
Reggie shoots me a look. “A plastic surgeon is that kind of doctor. Med school, residency, the works. And someone like Marcus Lockwood? You don’t just wake up one day with credentials like his.”
Pompeo challenges the doctor. “You claim you perform surgeries where the results are natural?”
I peel my head off Reggie’s shoulder and lean forward. Let’s see what Dr. Perfect serves up.
“The beauty industry worships symmetry. That’s often its downfall. Symmetry can flatter, but left unchecked, it flattens character. Real beauty needs a disruption, a point of imbalance that makes it stay human.”
“Huh.” I let the thought hang.
Reggie notices it instantly. “So…not trash anymore?”
Marcus Lockwood does have something to say that isn’t, as Reggie would put it, prêt-à-porter. Ready-made. The greatest artists in history broke symmetry on purpose because irregularity is carnal. Maybe this guy isn’t just eye candy after all.
He adds, “If someone comes to me demanding their own blueprint, I’m not afraid to say no.”
Pompeo perks up. “So you’d look someone in the face and tell them their dream procedure is…ugly?”
I burst out laughing.
Reggie elbows me. “Don’t you dare side with Charles Pompeo.”
But then Lockwood fires back, “If you were the surgeon, you’d call it ugly, which is probably why no one’s ever asked you to sculpt anything but your questions.”
Even I have to admit, it’s a good line.
“He’s the real deal, Eye,” Reggie whispers, all spark.
“Uh-huh. Just like you swore Yerger was the greatest castaway to ever set foot on a beach.”
“Please. Marcus is light-years above anything I’ve ever endorsed. The man is the last hope for beauty and medical science. And maybe even humanity.”
I roll my eyes. “You know this is all scripted, right?”
“Scripted doesn’t mean false.”
“Maybe not lies, but polished for drama.”
Then Pompeo steers the conversation toward charity.
I cringe. Finding common ground on symmetry with a plastic surgeon is one thing; trusting a wealthy man’s idea of “giving back” is another.
But Reggie gasps. “Look! He helps kids. Disadvantaged, scarred kids. He makes them look like themselves again. If that’s not a perfect man, I don’t know who is!”
That’s Reggie. Hopelessly optimistic, especially when the man in question is athletic, dreamy-eyed, and devastatingly handsome.
“After the break, the interview you thought you were watching takes a shocking turn when an emergency erupts live.”
Then, commercials roll.
I seize the moment, ducking into the fridge for champagne. “All right, enough Pompeo and Lockwood. Time to welcome home my bestie, NYC’s newly anointed guerrier de couture, properly.” I pop the cork and pour. “Here’s to pulling the curtain on catwalk carnage.”
We clink glasses, and Reggie pulls me into a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“So, how was it?” I ask.
He exhales, sinking into the sofa again. “That first hanger herd I hauled in? The lace-heavy one,” he says, circling his hands in the air in a way that unmistakably sketches the outline of masks.
“From the Obscured Beauty collection?” I say.
“Mm-hm. My crown jewel. And look at you, referencing my collections unprompted.” He beams. “I’ve got an editorial shoot with W.”
“Great exposure.”
“Naturally,” he says, flicking a wrist. “Now, the second herd? I need to turn it into looks for a V-I-S. Very Important Stylist. Tonight. Here. I’m avoiding SoHo because it’s suffocating my genius.
I need a me-space to build something Hollywood hasn’t even dreamed of in its fever states.
And it’s for the star who’s currently rewriting the screen. The one, the only…drumroll, please.”
I oblige, pounding out a drumroll on my thighs with my own sound effects.
He spreads his arms. “Jenna Ortega!”
My jaw goes slack. “Shut up. That’s huge!”
“Uh-huh. And this stylist? She’s dressed McKenna Grace, Lucy Liu, Louise Labèque, the works. So anything could happen.”
I shriek, half in awe.
He continues, “But hold on to your overpriced champagne, Eye. You are in the picture too.”
I brace myself. “What have you done?”
He waves his wrist in front of me. “Karoline. Freaking. Vitto. She saw this.” He points at the custom smartwatch ornament I made for his birthday.
“I told her about you, and now she’s talking to her sponsors.
” He grips my arm, vibrating with glee. “Do you understand what this means? You’re on the cusp of iconic! ”
I keep my voice even when I reply, “Wow, I’m flattered.”
Reggie freezes, his head tilted. “Only flattered?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure I want to dive into fashion politics.”
He flings his hand skyward. “Oh, you drama queen!”
I laugh, shooting him a look that reminds him exactly who the real drama queen is between us.
Just then, the program cuts back in, and Reggie tops off my glass like we’re settling in for a finale.
After Pompeo’s long-winded recap and repeated assurances that every camera placement is covered by retroactive consent or location agreement, they finally roll the live drama.
It’s messy. There’s some kind of scuffle, supposedly about a boy, but the footage barely shows anything beyond Lockwood’s frame.
Then it jumps to an operating theater, where the camera is tilted low from the floor.
Lockwood zeroes in and grabs the camera, the frame jerking like found footage.
Suddenly…bang! He flings it out of view.
“It’s so fake,” I declare.
Reggie gasps. “You cynic! Can’t you see what’s happening?”
“What I see,” I jab my finger at the screen, “is a man who somehow knows exactly where the hidden camera is. How? X-ray vision? Shouldn’t he be focusing on the kid, not the lens?”
“It’s exactly because he’s focused on the kid!” Reggie shoots back. “That’s why he noticed something was off. He’s vigilant. Extra eyes in the room. That’s what a hero does.”
I bark a laugh. “Oh, come on. And that perfect camera toss against the wall? They probably rehearsed six takes until it landed next to the producer without touching his hair.”
“Blasphemy! That wasn’t rehearsed. A surgeon’s hands, darling. Do you know what those hands can do? Think control, artistry.”
“Yeah, artistry in throwing props.”
Before he can retort, the program cuts to a follow-up interview in which the network asks Lockwood for comment. But he doesn’t say a word. He just holds up his hand. Long fingers, flawless movement, as if the hand itself is his signature.
Okay, I’ll admit. It’s a beautiful hand. For a split second, I feel Reggie winning me over.
“You’re only on his side because he’s fucking gorgeous,” I mutter.
“Not all handsome men are evil. Present company included.” Reggie winks.