Rule #44 It’s the little things.
Matis
There’s a temporary runway down the middle of the club, partitioned with velvet ropes and chairs stationed on each side. The seats are all filled while the rest of the club is filled with guests and fashion industry professionals.
Standing near the bar, I help to greet guests as they come in and make sure everything on this side of the curtain flows smoothly. My eyes are on the room, scanning it from front to back. Wine is poured. Cameras are set up. People are taking their seats.
When I spot Ronan and Daisy standing behind the two rows of seats, I make brief eye contact with each of them before they avert their eyes. They both still hate me apparently. I’m not sure.
Aside from the brief text I sent Ronan the day I left London, I haven’t spoken to him. At least they showed up tonight for Amelia. That’s all that matters to me.
A flitting vision in green whizzes through the room, and I catch sight of Amelia. She looks frantic and stressed, and she’s no doubt running on fumes.
Leaving my station by the bar, I move through the crowd and catch her on her way back toward the curtain separating the audience from the models getting ready backstage.
“I can’t stop,” she snaps. “I have to get these pins backstage. One of the model’s shoulder straps are too long.”
I’ve watched Amelia work herself to the bone over the last couple of days, and I know all the telltale signs that she’s about to crash. I might not be able to control her, but I can at least offer myself to her.
“Hey,” I say softly as I guide her toward the edge of the room where we’re mostly hidden.
She’s tense, her body rigid and her expression tight as I put her between myself and the wall. Then I open my arms to her.
“Let’s just take a breath, d’accord?”
With a hmph, she tries to deny my offer. Then she looks at my chest and my waiting arms, and she releases the breath she’s holding. Once she’s against my body, I rub her back slowly.
“Inhale, one, two, three, four, five,” I say softly.
Her chest moves in sync with mine, at first erratic and resistant. But then on the exhale, she starts to relax into it.
“Good girl. Now repeat after me. Everything will work out.”
“Everything will work out,” she hums softly against my shirt.
“I’m doing my best.”
“I’m doing my best,” she mutters with a hint of annoyance.
“I am proud of myself.”
“I am proud of myself.”
“When I get home, I’m going to sit on my dashing French fiancé’s face until I feel better.”
At this, she giggles. “When I get home, I’m going to sit on my dashing, incredible, handsome, old French fiancé’s face until I feel better.”
With a grin, I pinch her ass. “What did I tell you about calling me old?”
Finally, she pulls away. “Well, you are.”
Then she lifts onto her tiptoes and presses her lips quickly to my face. Seeing the smile stretch across her lips fills me with pride.
“Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome, Trouble. I’m very proud of you.”
With that, she dashes off toward the crowd, looking much more at ease than before.
When I turn around to head back toward the bar, I come face-to-face with Ronan.
He’s glaring at me with an unreadable expression.
“Oh, hi,” I stammer.
It dawns on me suddenly that he was likely standing here the whole time, watching me with his daughter. Standing taller, I adjust the collar of my shirt.
“Is she okay?” he asks.
“She gets overwhelmed, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. She’s a tough woman.”
He nods, clearly mulling over something in his mind. “Yes, she is.”
His feet take slow, deliberate steps as he closes the space between us. Only a foot away, he stares into my eyes.
“But she’s still my little girl,” he adds.
I nod. “I don’t want to take your little girl away from you, Ronan.”
“You really love her, don’t you?”
“More than anything.”
“And you’ll take care of her.”
It hits me that he phrases it less like a question and more like something he’s acknowledging for the first time.
“Until the day I die.”
Then he claps a hand on my shoulder, giving it a subtle shake. And he utters the words that rock me to my core.
“Then the best years of your life are still ahead of you. Don’t take them for granted, and if you waste them, you’re a fool.”
With that, he turns away from me and walks back to his wife, leaving me reeling.
As I watch him go, I realize that I may never have the relationship with my friend that I had before.
But for the first time since he found out, I’m hopeful that he and I could someday have something new.
A bond built from years of friendship and the mutual respect that comes from loving the same person as much as we do.
I certainly won’t be able to talk to him about sex anymore. That much is true.
Fifteen minutes later, the lights go down, the music plays, and the show begins.
Standing in the back, I watch with pride swelling in my chest. Each of the club dancers emerges wearing one of Amelia’s creations, each piece an extension of the woman I love.
Bold colors, sensual designs, unique aesthetics.
Glancing at each of the representatives from the design program sitting in the front row, I try to gauge their reactions to the show, but they’re all so flat-faced and boring, I stop paying them any mind. If they don’t think she’s brilliant, that’s their loss, and she’s better off without them.
All Amelia’s friends and family are gathered around the room, clapping and cheering for each look as it comes out, and I know somewhere backstage, she is frantically prepping each model and trying to be sure the show goes off without a hitch.
I wish she could see this, though.
I wish she could see herself from my perspective.
At the end of the show, she walks out behind her models and takes a bow in the middle of the runway. The entire room erupts in cheers for her, and when she stands from her bow, her eyes find me.
As everyone disperses, Amelia goes straight to her parents.
With smiles from ear to ear, they engulf her in their loving embrace, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
I realize now that everything between them will be okay.
It was what I knew all along but needed to see their smiles and hugs to know for certain.
And I realize in this moment that it doesn’t matter if she makes it into the program or not. The program would only be one road in this map of her life, but there are a million other ways home. And it was never about the destination anyway. It’s about all the big and small milestones along the way.
This is what I stayed for. The treasure and the trouble.
Magic.