Chapter 11 #2
“I see,” Coco said, bringing her to the present. “What are you going to do about the Chanel dress now? I’d love to help, but you must have noticed by now that my designs have nothing in common with her. Unless she announces a new line featuring feathers.”
Celine imagined her mother would be plucking her from head to toe like one of the chickens the cook had prepared for them last night. “I will figure it out myself”—she clutched Coco’s hands tighter—“I truly appreciated your help yesterday. And I promise, you won’t have to lie again.”
“Don’t mention it. We’re friends, no?”
“Definitely.” Celine smiled. “We better get to work. The timer will go off soon.”
“Speaking of…” Coco broke off, peering around Celine’s station. “Where are your supplies?”
Celine whipped her head around as if to catch a glimpse of Bastien from across the hall.
She had been so taken up with her sketch that she hadn’t even looked up at the timer.
But he seemed to have vanished from the building altogether.
“Bastien was supposed to collect them for me, but I don’t see him anywhere. ”
“Come on.” Coco hinted with a tilt of her head towards the fabric room. “The last I saw him, he was in there.”
The corridor was empty, save for a few scattered rhinestones that must have fallen like bread crumbs out of someone’s supply box; the door to the fabric room locked. Celine pinched the bridge of her nose to keep her temper at bay.
“Maybe he’s still trying to find your supplies?”
A sudden rustle came from behind the door. Coco and Celine leaned in, pressing their ears to the frosted glass. Quiet for a moment. Then a muffled moan echoed, causing them to reel back—Coco’s cheeks heating, Celine’s eyes narrowing.
“I cannot believe”—she started, sharply twisting the handle and pushing the door inwards—“that you are actually this sordid!”
Sprawled on the floor between rolls of fabric, Bastien was leaning against the wall, his arms wrapped around Elana, who was straddling his lap. His face was hidden in her dark waves.
“Sordid?” he asked, lazily lifting his head from her neck.
Celine’s nostrils flared. “I thought I told you to collect my fabric, not fornicate in it.”
“You also told me to be friendly if I ran into anyone from the other teams. This”—he flicked a long pointer finger between himself and Elana—“can be construed as making friends. At least in my vocabulary.”
He had finally crossed the line. She had tried to overlook some of his jibes, even the fact that everyone, including his own family, assumed the worst of him.
Always for the sake of the competition. But two weeks hadn’t yet passed since they had started their team; Celine’s patience was wearing thin and this was the final straw.
From now on, there could only be war on both sides or begging on his, for she planned on making Bastien Ménard regret the day he decided to taunt her at Folies-Bergère.
“Get. Up,” she seethed. “Now!”
“Apologies, Mademoiselle LeBeau,” Elana drawled, lifting herself from Bastien’s lap. Compared to his dishevelled appearance, she had actually managed to retain her poise. “I didn’t know you two were like that.”
Celine’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”
“You know…”
Smoothing out the marks Bastien’s hands had left on her velvet dress, Elana sidled between Celine and Coco.
“Like what?” Celine repeated.
Elana chuckled. “He’s all yours now,” she added with a shrug of her bare shoulder, before fixing her sleeve to cover it and pushing through the glass door.
Bastien remained on the floor.
Celine kicked him with the pointed toe of her heels. “Move!”
He brought himself to his feet with considerable reluctance and began recollecting the scattered pieces of fabric around him. “Tell me, Celine, are you always this repressed? Or are you jealous?”
“Oh, you flatter yourself exceedingly.”
Celine wasn’t jealous, no. She was furious. Outraged that Bastien couldn’t take one thing seriously.
“Do I now?” He turned around to face her.
His hair was mussed, his grey eyes still clouded by his earlier activity.
And towering over her, he appeared much like an angel plucked from Heaven and tainted with sin.
“If you are resolved to believe that it is all just bravado, maybe I should prove you wrong. Although, judging by Cosette’s flushed cheeks, I’m sure you two heard just how entitled I am to flatter myself. ”
As if he felt the need to prove it to her, he moved his hand to run one teasing finger along her jaw.
Celine couldn’t deny that her entire body prickled under his touch. Frisson, she recalled having read somewhere: aesthetic chills that were caused by pleasant stimuli. Though calling Bastien pleasant was, by all means, her lowest point.
“Interesting,” Coco muttered, cutting right through their dispute. “You can really see a static spark going off between your foreheads.”
Swivelling on her, Celine and Bastien pinned her under a shared, vexed look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Coco said, studying them still. “Just an observation. You may proceed with your quarrel.”
“There is nothing to proceed,” Celine snapped icily. She looked at Bastien again. “Gather the fabrics and bring them to our station before Monsieur Baudelaire’s timer goes off. And do not dawdle.”
· · ·
Bastien decided to linger outside for a little while longer and enjoy the last rays of the afternoon sun, warm and peaceful, before he had to return inside the House and try on the gown.
Though he could almost hear an annoying, self-righteous voice in the back of his mind yap at him to backtrack right that instant.
If he was honest with himself, Bastien liked it—because Celine meant it. She meant every word of admonishment she sent his way on the daily, and for Bastien it was rare to find someone who didn’t use the word scoundrel as a flirting device.
Still, he supposed he ought to pull his weight properly, for the sake of their team.
He was starting to enjoy entering the fashion house every day and being surrounded by that all-too-familiar noise of sewing machines and the hectic atmosphere of brilliant minds overloading with ideas.
He missed being in his mother’s studio. He had loved seeing her working on a new line; it had been his favourite thing in the world.
Looking at all the mannequins, treating them as glamorous friends he was meeting at a party, who would soon be positioned behind storefronts for all pedestrians to stare at in awe—Bastien had never wanted to be anyplace else.
Sighing, he pushed off the wall. The past was past. No matter how close it seemed now that Celine had brought a piece of it back for him, Bastien didn’t want to dwell on what he couldn’t get back anymore.
He was about to return inside when the door opened before he had a chance to pull on the handle.
“Save your breath, baby vamp,” he started, watching as Celine barrelled right into the street, her stride fast. “I know I’m late, again, but—”
The words died on his lips when she outright sauntered around the corner, ignoring him altogether.
Okay, maybe I deserved that.
“Celine?” Bastien moseyed after her, listening for the clicking of her heels among the established bustle of the neighbourhood.
He found her sitting on the marble steps of the House’s back door, ensconced between the two walls that made up the entrance alcove.
“At least yell at me for being late. You should know, I don’t take the silent treatment too seriously. ”
There was no reply.
“Celine?” he called, feeling a prickle of unease crawl between his shoulder blades. He approached hesitantly, unsure what had driven her outside. “What’s wrong?”
Shaking, Celine quickly hid her hands behind her back like a culprit caught in the act. The tip of her nose was red. “N-nothing.”
“Are you crying?”
“It’s nothing,” Celine repeated, yet the colour seemed to have drained from her face.
Bastien crouched in front of her and lifted her chin. He took her in slowly, trying to find where the issue lay since she refused to talk. His attention fell on a red smear across her dress, looking an awful lot like blood. “Did you get hurt?”
She shook her head. “I told you, it’s nothing.” Tears welled up, glistening in her eyes. But not spilling. She was determined not to cry in front of him.
“It’s clearly not nothing. You better tell me who is to blame. If that Franz—”
“It wasn’t Franz.”
“Humour me then.”
Seconds turned to minutes before Celine moved her arms from behind her back. Any suspicions Bastien had harboured towards Franz Olivier vanished when he saw her left hand coated in blood, gleaming like syrup under the sun.
Celine tried to stifle a sob. “I s-sewed through my finger.”
And the needle was still inside. Bastien couldn’t make out where it was poking out from or how it had entered, but it had clearly pierced through the flesh. He quickly dropped to a crouch in front of her, reaching for her other hand that was shaking.
“I was on the s-sewing machine,” Celine started, choking on a sob, “when something across the hall rattled loudly, like someone had f-fallen or I don’t know, but I-I looked over and—”
She brought her hand forward, still not daring to look at it.
“Merde, that’s a lot of blood.”
Bastien stared at the injury, transfixed, as he tried to hold back a grimace. He jumped to his feet the second the blood began dripping onto the pavement, saturating it with glistening drops. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go check if Monsieur Baudelaire has a quick aid or something in his office.”
“No!” Celine clasped her good hand over his sleeve, pulling him back. “No, you can’t! He'll think I’m incapable. I-I got distracted. Who does that when sewing?”
“Celine—”
“Please!” she insisted. “Please, I cannot fathom being made an example of in front of the other contestants.”