15

Good Load

"That belt, and that dress," I say to Kevin as I point at the two pieces (an Aegean puffed sleeve blue dress and an Indigo belt), as we work in my office. Racks of clothes surround us, and we had about a month and a half before the Fasho Primavera Fashion Show.

"Amber see if you can find shoes that go well with the belt," I say and look around in realization. "Where are the fishnet stockings?"

Sofia's eyes widen. "I'll get them, sorry." I give her a soft smile and she disappears to get me those stockings.

I watch as Amber looks through the shoes, and I survey them. "Grab the green ones," I say. She looks at me.

"Which ones?" I point to the ones in the back. The shoes were in see-through bags hung on the racks. She pointed to the one I want and I nod. She zips the bag open and takes the shoes out. She bends down and helps the model into them.

"Were you looking for fabric with a floral print?" A voice comes from my door, I look and see Brian. I nod with enthusiasm.

"Oh my god, yes, thank god you reminded me, be a dear and bring me any you can find." He nods, throws up a thumb, and walks over to the elevator.

I look back at the model, the shoes were on, as well as the dress and the belt. "All that's missing is the Fishnet stockings," Amber says. "I'm going to take off the shoes, I just realized the stockings go first."

I nod and bite my bottom lip as I wait for Sofia.

"So," Kevin, who was straight but could as easily be seen as gay, leans against my desk next to me with a knowing smile. "I heard there was a date."

My face flushes, and I smile, remembering the day at the Cafe two days ago. "It wasn't a date."

One thing you have to know about Kevin is that he had his moments of confidence when he wasn't under pressure, I try not to put pressure on my designers, but when my perfectionist side appears, there's nothing I want to see but what I'm asking for. Right there, and ready to go.

So of course, it only made sense why he was standing beside me asking me about my personal life, things were right on track.

"So she says..." Amber says. I smile widely at her and roll my eyes like a dumb high school girl. I mentally shake myself back into my body and stand up straight.

Sofia opens the door with her back, and she pushes the rack into the room. Amber looks away from me and begins to flip through the stocking. She holds up purple stockings and I nod. She helps the model slip into it, and then she puts on the green shoes.

"Dilan," I say to the model. She looks at me. "Do me a favor and walk from the door to me and twirl...let's see how that looks."

She nods, and she walks over to the door and struts toward me finishing with a twirl. Everyone looks at me, expectantly. "Alright, I like it," I look down at her shoes. "Do the shoes bother you in any way with the stocking?" I look up at her. "Be honest."

"They feel fine."

I nod. "Alright," I look at Kevin. "Take this outfit and place it with the other outfits we assembled. Hopefully, Brian gives us the floral print fabric before the end of the week and we can start the garments." He nods, and Amber helps the model out of the outfit.

I turn to Sofia, "Sof, get Marco on the phone, let him know I'll be a bit late."

When I got home, I went straight to my living room where Marco and Alexander were sitting discussing Marco's company.

"...I'm happy about that, you know," Marco says as I walk over to the leather couch and slump down on it. He and Alexander look at me.

"What a day, sorry I'm late."

They shake their head. "All good?" Alexander asks.

"Yeah, just a busy day, got a batch of work done." After Sofia called Marco, Brian walked in with three different floral print fabrics, it was miraculous. I cut up the fabrics right away, and Amber passed me the pins as I pinned them to the dress form. We did that with three dress forms and then settled on sewing them the first thing tomorrow.

The boys nod, then a smile appears on their faces. "What?"

Before they can reply I see Minda, "Minda," she walks over. "Please prepare dinner, and get me some wine."

She nods, with a smile and turns to walk away.

"I'll go get myself some wine," Marco says and walks after her. Sure make yourself at home.

I brush a piece of hair behind my ear and take my purse off my arm to put it on the coffee table, but before I could Alexander rose from the armchair and approached me. I swallowed hard, trying to hide the lump in my throat.

He sits on the coffee table, making me pull my bag to my lap with his unexpectedly quick move, and looked me over from top to bottom. I was used to being looked at, people on the streets gawked at me before looking away when they got caught, but the way he stared at me.

He didn't look at me like a friend would.

"Where's Marco?" A voice asked, Alexander, glanced over my shoulder. I swiveled in my seat. It was Yufei, he glances between us and walks over steadily toward us.

"Grabbing a drink," Alexander answered.

Yufei nods and sits on the armchair beside me, facing the one Alexander was sitting on before. Little did Yufei know, he just saved me from Alexander and his sexy gaze.

Minda walks over with a wine bottle and a wine glass. "Thank you," I say. She nods and walks away. Marco comes back, with his wine preference and sits back down beside me on the leather couch.

I open the wine bottle and pour myself half a glass. I don't pick it up yet, instead, I open my bag and take out my fashion plan book. Where I sketch out designs and plan them out. It was well organized. I don't let anyone touch it.

I flip it open. "Marco," Yufei says now. I keep flipping through the pages. Marco hums. "Let me talk to you real quick."

I look up and watch as they stand up and walk over to the foyer, where they stand out of our sight.

I look back at the book, Alexander sits beside me and takes it before placing it on his lap. As he flips through it, my face heats up. My designs were personal. They were like little secrets. And here he was looking at them.

He flipped through them, a concentrated mask covered his face. "Fashion is an escape for me," I tell him. He meets my eyes for a few seconds to let me know he's listening before flipping to the next page.

Then he flips to the last used page, where my recent work was. A sketch of a soccer uniform takes up most of the space on the page, the other spaces are covered with the colors I pictured the uniform would be coated with.

He said nothing for a minute. He studied the outline of the uniform, and then he turns to me and says, "This is pretty cool," a gentle smile spreads on his face. "You have quite the talent, Margo."

He turns back to the design, admiring it some more.

Marco and Yufei walk back and sit down. I lean forward and grab my drink before taking a sip. "You two doing alright?"

They look at me with a smile, they looked happy, excited even. What were they up to?

Alexander places the book back on my lap gently, like if he hadn't it'd crumble into millions of tiny pieces.

I open my bag again and slip my laptop out. I place the book back into my bag and open my laptop on my lap.

"So," I start. "I did the ad, and about twenty people have signed up to try out for your team."

"That's what I'm talking about," Marco says with a slap to his thigh.

I keep my eyes on the screen and scroll down the list of names, then up. "Take a look yourselves." I place the laptop on the coffee table, and they lean forward to look at it.

"Stupefacente!" Marco exclaims.

"Last Friday, I made some arrangements and got Columbia University to let you guys do the tryouts on their football field." They all looked at me like I was the bucket full of treasures at the end of the rainbow.

I smiled proudly, "It'll be on Tuesday, March eighth, so prepare for that," I look at them all with a serious expression. "Who's the coach? Who's the manager?"

"Marco is the coach and manager, but Alexander will be the co-manger," Yufei fills me in. I nod.

"Are you helping them?" I ask him. He nods with a shrug.

I smile. "That'll be good for you."