Chapter 14
CLEO
Bridal boutiques were just so pretty. I was in my element immediately. I was calculating the lighting and backgrounds. The mirrors that gave a bride trying on a dress several angles would be perfect for dramatic shots.
This was where years of working alongside Melody had made me genuinely excellent at something I also genuinely loved.
Finding the angles, reading the light, knowing instinctively which moment to capture before it happened.
I had my camera around my neck and my phone in my back pocket.
I already had a mental content strategy mapped out before we’d made it past the reception desk.
Melody’s followers were going to lose their minds over this. She was a plus-size fashion influencer who’d spent years proving that style had no size requirement.
A bridal dress shopping series was the kind of content that her community lived for.
Real moments. Real emotions. A real woman finding the dress for the most important day of her life.
I could see the whole arc already. Her followers were already invested in her relationship with Austin.
They were absolutely going to celebrate with her.
And when the wedding was announced, she would get a surge of followers. And then the baby announcement. It was going to be a wild ride. My job was to make sure none of it was missed.
“Okay,” I said as a consultant materialized to greet us. “Ground rules. Don’t look at the camera unless I tell you to. Just be in the moment. Forget I’m here.”
“You’re impossible to forget,” Melody said.
“Flatterer. Go try on dresses.”
I spent the next two hours doing what I did best, moving quietly around the edges to document the moment without being overt about it. The genuine reactions were always better than the posed ones.
The consultant was wonderful. She was patient and completely unbothered by my camera. She’d clearly worked with influencers before.
We didn’t find the dress at the first spot, but we expected as much. The first shop was never the shop. But we got good content and a clearer sense of what Melody was looking for, which was its own kind of progress.
“Tapas,” Melody declared as we stepped back onto the street. “I need carbohydrates and something fried before the next one.”
“You read my mind.”
We found a cafe and ordered tapas and I got a Diet Coke. The nectar of the gods.
I could feel Melody watching me. Little glances between bites. The occasional pause that said she was clearly deciding whether to say something.
“You’ve been quiet today,” she said.
“I’m always quiet when I’m shooting.”
“You’ve been quiet when you’re not shooting too.” She tilted her head. “What’s going on in there?”
I considered deflecting. I had been doing it for a long time. But this was Melody and she was not going to believe the “I’m fine” line. She would know better.
“Cash invited me on his business trip,” I said. “To Rome. He thought he might need someone with my skills if his client needs rebranding help.”
Melody put down her fork. She picked it back up. Put it down again. “Rome?”
“Rome.”
“Cash?” She said his name like she was checking that she’d heard correctly. “Cash Bancroft invited you to Rome?”
“I was just as surprised as you,” I said with a shake of my head.
She pressed her lips together. “That’s so unlike him.
He has access to like, a hundred talented people he could have called.
People who know the Bancroft brand inside out, who’ve worked with that kind of corporate client before.
” She stopped herself. “I don’t mean that badly.
You know I don’t mean that badly. I love you and you are beyond talented. ”
I waved my hand dismissively. “I know.”
“It’s just that you’re not exactly corporate.”
“Bancroft brand-minded,” I said. “No, I’m really not.”
“And Cash doesn’t take risks like that. He’s the most calculated person I’ve ever met.” She studied me. “Why did he ask you specifically?”
I took a sip of water and debated how to answer. “He thinks I have the right instincts for it. He’s been pushing me toward doing my own thing. He thinks the trip would be good for me. A chance to work on something that isn’t for someone else.”
Melody went very still. I watched her process this. I didn’t fill the silence. I let her work through what I said.
“Is that what you want?” she asked quietly. “To work on something that isn’t for someone else? For me?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said. “For a while, actually. About going into business for myself. I have ideas. Real ones. Cash was just the first person who said out loud that I could do it.”
Melody was quiet.
“I think the trip was his way of nudging me toward a first step,” I continued. “I almost said yes.”
“But you didn’t?”
“But I didn’t. Because of the dress appointment. And the wedding. And because you just asked me to be your maid of honor and I’m not missing this, Melody. Not for anything.”
She nodded slowly. “Do you want to quit?” she asked.
“What? No.” The denial came fast and genuine. “No, of course not.”
But even as I said it, I felt the lie. The part I didn’t say. I couldn’t say. Not yet.
The honest answer was more complicated than no. The honest answer was that I didn’t have time to do everything. I wanted to be everything Melody needed me to be during the biggest year of her life. But I also wanted to build something of my own from the ground up.
Melody’s brand was bigger than it had ever been, and walking away from that when she needed me most wasn’t something I was capable of. Wasn’t something I wanted to be capable of. Her brand was my baby.
Nine months, I told myself. Let the dust settle. After the baby was born, she was going to be too busy for content. Then I’d figure it out.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, and I meant it. “Not now. There’s too much happening. I want to be here for all of it.”
Melody’s shoulders dropped with a relief she didn’t try to hide. “I need you,” she said simply. “I know that’s not fair. But I do. More than ever right now.”
“I know.” I reached across and squeezed her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She squeezed back. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
We sat with that for a moment. I felt relief at finally being honest with her. I paid the bill before she could argue about it. Yeah, she was about to be a billionaire, but I didn’t want to treat her any differently.
We walked to the next boutique. It was upscale with velvet couches and chairs for those who came along for emotional support. We were offered champagne, which we politely declined.
I felt the energy in the room shift. Melody’s breathing changed when the consultant pulled the dress from the rack.
I knew it. I just knew. Melody disappeared into the changing room.
I prepared for the shot I knew was going to be in the album I was already planning.
I wanted to document every moment of this journey for her.
When she stepped out in the dress, I lowered my camera without meaning to because for a moment I forgot I was supposed to be documenting anything. She was extraordinary.
The dress was simple yet elegant. It didn’t need all the bells and whistles.
Ivory silk with rouching across the belly.
A neckline that was somehow both modest and devastating.
Nothing fussy, nothing overdone. Just Melody, and the dress, and the way she stood in front of the mirror with tears in her eyes.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
She turned slowly, watching the fabric move. Tears flooded her eyes but had not spilled over just yet. I suddenly remembered my job and got the camera up just in time to catch the exact moment she decided.
We left with a receipt and a promise the alterations would be done in two weeks’ time. Melody was still slightly glassy eyed in the best possible way.
Austin’s driver was waiting at the curb. Something else I was getting used to. We slid into the back seat. I put my camera in my bag and let myself breathe.
“I found my dress,” Melody said, like she was still getting used to the sound of it.
“You did.”
She turned to look at me, and she was beaming. “I’m getting married in twenty-seven days.”
“Yup.”
She grabbed my hand. “Tell me everything is going to be okay.”
“Everything is going to be so much better than okay. This is the dream. You have your happily ever after. This is your forever.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Thank you for being the best friend a girl could ever ask for.”
“Always.”
She started talking about her doctor’s appointment tomorrow. It was the first proper prenatal visit, the one where they’d hear the heartbeat. Austin was already planning to record everything on his phone to share with the family.
She talked about the baby the way she’d talked about Austin in those first early weeks. With a mixture of wonder and disbelief that something this good had actually happened to her.
I listened, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought about Rome. What I wasn’t doing.
The driver pulled up outside my building. I gathered my bag, kissed Melody on the cheek, and told her to call me the second she heard that heartbeat tomorrow.
“Obviously,” she said.
I got out. The car pulled away. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment and thought about what my dream was. Did it look like Melody’s or was mine something different?
The only way to find out was to allow myself to actually have the dream.