by Tara Lain
Red’s head snapped around. “What? Me?” He shook his head. “I don’t have any real talent.” He smiled. “I have a friend who’s an amazing mechanic and he takes care of all the cars in Ever After. Imagine having those skills.”
“Running a small business almost never needs just one skill set in my experience. Years ago, my wife and I ran a limo service. I was the car expert, but she did everything else—the customer service, the bookkeeping, the promotion. The business wouldn’t have run without her.”
“What happened to your business? Or is this it? Is this your car?”
Mr. Merlinson turned onto a very posh street with lots of brownstones and trees. “No, I’m just a chauffeur now. My Julia died and took with her all those other important skills. And she took my heart, of course.”
Mr. Merlinson said it so simply, but heat still pushed behind Red’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes. Nothing ever replaces the ones we deeply love. But we do move from dwelling on their death to rejoicing in their life. I do that every day. Minute really.” He pulled to the curb and stopped in front of a beautiful multistory townhouse with a small plaque outside that said House of Giuliana. Mr. Merlinson turned back toward Red just as Red was wiping his eyes.
Red sniffled. “Sorry. I think about losing my Gran or—other people I love. It’s really hard to imagine.”
“Hopefully, there will be no need to imagine it for a long time to come.”
Red leaned forward. “But if I move to New York, it’s kind of like losing them.”
“You need to do what’s right for you, Red, whether that’s to stay or go.”
Red wanted to sit in the car for the next hour and ask Mr. Merlinson’s advice, but his appointment was in three minutes. “Thank you, sir. You give me food for thought.”
Mr. Merlinson grinned. “Which is probably more than Elbey gave you for breakfast.”
“Boy, that’s the truth.”
At least Red was laughing instead of crying when he got out of the car.
“See you later.” Mr. Merlinson waved as Red walked to the front door and rang the bell.
Just as he was taking a breath, the door was opened by a tall, slim, elegant woman of maybe sixty. For a second, he wondered why they’d choose a person like that to welcome customers rather than a young, beautiful model everyone would aspire to be. Then the woman smiled.
“You must be Red Ridley, am I right? Precisely on time. We’ve been looking forward to seeing you.”
He smiled back. Yep, there she was. Everyone’s perfect grandmother, making you feel like you weren’t an idiot for spending two month’s salary on a dress. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m very nervous.”
She ushered him in with a light touch on his arm. “Aren’t you adorable. And you have nothing to worry about. We’re a very friendly bunch.”
That didn’t make him feel as relieved as it should. Nor did the understated opulence of the townhouse interior. Money leaped off the textured walls, the crystal chandeliers, and the Middle Eastern rugs. Elbey had told him that most designers studios were pretty basic and messy. Not this place.
She walked through the high-ceilinged foyer and looked back over her shoulder. “I’m Jillian, by the way.”
“Hello, Jillian.” He tried not to look like a hick, craning his neck at everything. In a large room to his right that had likely been the living room of the townhouse, three women were sitting in fancy chairs watching models display clothes. Probably customers. Farther down the hall, the rooms he peered into got messier and busier looking.
Finally, they walked through a door at the end of the hall where a ton of people were working like fiends. A couple half-dressed models stood in partly finished clothes as people walked around them as if they were statues. Five or six people sat around a large polished wood table littered with papers and laptops. One of those was Giuliana. Another was Brock.
The Wolfeman looked up and a warm smile oozed over his face. “There’s my boy. Just who we need to make all these magical fashions come to life.” He stood, walked to Red, and gave him a one-armed guy hug. As he did, he whispered, “Are you ready?”
Well shit. For a half a second, Red had felt ready. Nerves washed over him now like a tidal wave of jitters. “I-I hope so.” Behind Wolfe, Giuliana sat back in his chair and crossed his arms with an expression that screamed, “Show me something.”
A super-trendy, hipster guy approached Red, apparently in a total hurry, but he probably did everything like that. He grabbed Red’s arm as he said, “I’m Corey. Come with me.”
Red really wanted to yank his arm back, but he got the feeling that being compliant was a necessary quality for a model. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he’d go along.
Corey pulled him into a back room and pointed at a rack of clothes. “Start with that.” He waved at a pair of jeans and a jacket on the end of the rack. “Style yourself.” And he walked out.
Well, double shit. What does style yourself mean exactly?
Carefully, he stripped down to his boxer briefs, hanging the suit on the far end of the rack. He grabbed the jeans, stuck one leg in—and stopped. Holy shit, how tight are these things? That morning, he’d have sworn he’d never in his life want to be as thin as Jacond. Hell, they already called him a beanpole. But at this moment, he got it.
Hopping on one leg, he got his other leg in and squeezed his admittedly almost nonexistent butt into the stretchy—thank God—denim. When he got the things zipped, he glanced in the tall mirror. Jeee-sus! Had he ever looked that—yeah, the word was sexy—in his life?
Dragging his eyes away, he pulled on the shirt and again paused. Whoa. It redefined shirt. Big sleeves and an asymmetric cut meant the outfit surpassed jeans and a shirt. It was fashion in its truest sense. He’d felt great in the suit, but this was ridiculous.
Corey’s impatient voice hissed through a crack in the door. “Aren’t you ready yet?”
Red gasped and thrashed in a circle. Styled! Oh God.
He’d come in wearing socks and loafers on his feet. He’d kicked off the shoes. Now he pulled off the socks and put the loafers back on barefoot. He stared in the mirror and pulled the band from his hair, letting the auburn mane fall around his shoulders.
What else?
All kinds of makeup lay everywhere on a dressing table with a mirror and some lights. Sorting through it, he grabbed a mascara wand and wiped it on his lashes. Wow. He’d never done that before and would have loved savoring the experience. It made his long lashes look endless and emphasized the odd shape of his eyes.
“Come on!” Corey’s voice came from the door.
Red jumped back from the mirror and started toward the door, stumbled and landed against the wall. Fuck! He’d been so busy dressing he forgot he had to walk.
Chapter Eighteen
Brock looked up from his conversation with Giuliana and paused in midsentence as Red stepped out of the dressing room.
Sweet God. Brock knew that the kid had one of the great faces, but he’d never really seen his body. In the baggy clothes he wore at home, he looked skinny. In the designer suit, he was fashionably slender. In this. What an ass, and the elastene denim cupped a more than admirable package. To his own amusement, he felt his cock rising, despite the fact that if Red blew it and looked amateurish, the egotistical designer would never let Brock forget it. Worse, he might take business away from BrandFace, otherwise known as money from Brock’s pocket.
Sadly, aside from his spectacular beauty, Red’s beginning wasn’t promising. He stood by the door to the dressing room looking like an animal about to be shot, all wide eyes and throbbing pulse in his neck.
Brock glanced at Giuliana whose raised eyebrows were certainly an admission of Red’s astonishing look, but now he was waiting for more.
Brock stared at Red until he made eye contact. Red really looked like he might run. Consciously, Brock dropped him a wink, then added a slow smile. He flipped up his thumb.
Red co
cked his head and a very tiny twitch at the corners of his mouth indicated he’d seen and received Brock’s message.
Whatever Red thought that message was, it seemed to do the trick. He started to walk and it was amazing. One foot crossing over the other, but not as extreme as some models, he managed to look butch and femme at the same time, and sexy in a subtle, sneak-up-and-grab-you-by-the-balls way. Interestingly, instead of adopting the somber, blank stare of the runway model, he kept the sneaky little grin and, man did it work. Sassy, confident, and in-your-face, his expression said he looked great in these clothes and so would you.
When he reached the end of the room, he paused, turned, and walked back toward the dressing room, but stopped and flashed one glance over his shoulder.
Brock realized he was smiling literally from ear-to-ear and Red must have seen it, too, because he winked and disappeared into the room.
Schooling his face to neutral, Brock turned to Giuliana, who was doing a similar charade. Brock could see the sparkle in Giuliana’s pale eyes, but he was playing it cool to make sure Brock didn’t price this newcomer like an established supermodel. Funny, the prospect of haggling with Giuliana gave him almost as much of a hard-on as Red’s impeccable ass.
* * *
Red closed the dressing room door behind him, leaned against it, and gave a silent yell. Yes! It hadn’t taken a behavioral psychologist to see that Giuliana had been pretty happy with Red’s walk. Even his poker face couldn’t hide the glitter in his eyes, and when Red had turned around, hipster Corey had been staring with big eyes. He’d cooled it up fast when Red looked at him, but not before Red got a good look.
Shit! While he stood there gloating, he wasn’t dressing. He whipped off the jeans and pulled on the pants of a suit even more super cool than the one he wore in. There was no shirt with it, so Red just left on the one he had on, pulled on the suit jacket and powered out the door.
Fifteen minutes later, he’d worn two more outfits and they were asking for the finale? A tux maybe? That would be fun. He hadn’t even worn a tuxedo to his high school prom—because he hadn’t gone.
Red rushed back into the dressing room, pulled off the denim suit he’d had on and looked for his last outfit. Uhhh. There wasn’t anything left. Wearing just his briefs, he sneaked open the door and whispered, “Corey. Psst, Corey.”
Corey turned, scowled mightily, and shoved Red back into the room as he pushed in. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“There are no more outfits.”
Corey stalked to the rack, grabbed a handful of pale pink silk, and held it out. “Duh!”
“Corey, that’s a dress.”
“Obviously. Put it the fuck on.”
“But—”
“Just wear it, newb.” With a huff, he walked out the door.
“You’re fucking kidding me.” Elbey had said the designers might use him in men’s and women’s shows, but Red had thought that meant in sportwear or man-tailored suits, not fucking ruffly, pink dresses.
He wanted to sit down in the middle of the floor and go on strike. Compliance, remember?
With a long-suffering sigh, he grabbed the dress and, telling himself he was just faking it, he stepped into the long, sinuous gown that slid up his body like a caress. Wow. Struggling to reach behind his back, he managed to get the zipper most of the way up with his right hand and finished by reaching way over his shoulder with his left. Poor women. Do they have to do this all the time?
A pair of high-heeled shoes stood beside the rack. They’re fucking kidding. He picked them up and checked the size. Nine. Right! He wore a size twelve. The loafers would obviously look awful, so he glanced in the mirror, saw that the hem of the dress covered his feet, and he walked out barefooted.
With a sniff, he brushed past obnoxious Corey and stalked the length of the room.
This time Giuliana’s mouth actually fell open. Whether that was bad or good, Red barely cared. He wanted to snarl, “Take that, asshole.” But he didn’t.
As he turned and walked back, Brock asked, “Red, why are you barefooted?”
Red turned. “The shoes didn’t fit.”
“Models are frequently asked to wear shoes of the wrong size.”
“Yeah, well those are three sizes too small.”
Brock didn’t manage to keep from barking a laugh, then covered it with a cough. “I guess that explains it. Thanks.”
Red didn’t even bother to take off the bit of makeup. Hanging the amazing dress carefully, he redressed in the original suit and sidled out of the dressing room. Brock and Giuliana were deep in intense conversation and didn’t even look up.
Fine. Red stepped beside Corey and whispered, “Tell them I said thank you. I need to go.”
Corey gave Red side-eye and said, “Not that they’ll care. Buh-bye.”
Red shrugged, walked down the long hall, and out the front door. Like an answer to a secret wish he hadn’t even admitted to himself, Mr. Merlinson stood beside the back door of the town car. What was that line they always used in romance novels? He let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He smiled. “Hi.”
Mr. Merlinson opened the door wide and smiled back. “Come sit and relax.”
Red slid in, Mr. Merlinson closed the door, and Red let his head fall back on the cushy leather seat. Whew. A couple moments later, he opened his eyes at the sound of the door closing.
Mr. Merlinson said, “Where to?”
“I need to return this suit, grab my bag, and get to the station. I have to be home tonight so I can work tomorrow.”
“Done.” He pulled away from the curb. “What work do you do, Red?”
“I’m a waiter at a local restaurant in Ever After called Mom and Pop’s.”
He chuckled. “I love that. Take the description that city slickers use as a pejorative and own it.”
Red grinned. “I never thought of that, but yes. They have good homemade food, generous portions, and, if I might say, excellent service.” He full-on smiled at the thought of being back there.
“Sounds wonderful. I’ll have to put it on my wish list for future travels.”
“You’d like Ever After, Mr. M. It’s a great town.” Phil’s face flashed in Red’s mind and he released a breath. “With the usual share of assholes.”
“Ah yes. Big and small, all towns have them.” He made one of those mystical left turns through a barely perceived break in traffic. “I must ask, Red, is everything done with Mr. Giuliana, or will you be coming back to New York for further negotiations?”
Some of his excitement at going home dampened. “I don’t exactly know. Brock, I mean Mr. Wolfe, was deep in conversation with Giuliana when I left. But it kind of doesn’t matter, because I only got two days off. I’m not leaving anyone in the lurch. I’ve gotta go home.”
“I understand. A man of conscience.”
Five minutes later, he pulled up in front of Elbey’s apartment. Mr. M. turned around and said, “Go up and change, put the suit on a hanger and bring it back to me along with your suitcase. I’ll get you to the station on time.”
As Red stared at the directory, an older man walked out the door. Red grabbed it, slipped in, ran up the stairs, and ended up gasping at the door to Elbey’s apartment. He bit his lip. What if Elbey’s not there? Red didn’t have a key. But when he knocked, Elbey answered right away. They grabbed Red in a big hug. “Darling, how did it go?”
Red shrugged. “Okay, I guess. When you said I needed to develop a genderless walk, I didn’t know you meant they’d put me in a dress!”
“I knew it! Who could resist dressing that face and body in women’s clothes?”
“It was a total fail on the shoes. I have huge feet.” Red made a beeline for his bag, opened it, and started removing the suit in favor of his own jeans and a sweater. “Sorry. I’ve got to hurry. Mr. Merlinson is waiting for me downstairs.”
“Ooh, Brock gave you his driver. How grand.” They plopped on the bed. “By the way, you’ll need to invest in a
good pair of heels in a neutral color, since you won’t be able to wear the styles provided.”
“Mmm. Maybe. Can I borrow a hanger?” Elbey pointed at the closet and Red carefully hung the suit pants on a wooden hanger he found unused and then draped the jacket over it. He turned to Elbey. “I never thought I’d see clothes that were more amazing than this suit, but Giuliana’s stuff was epic. I mean I never felt like that before.”
“Yep. Every now and then, we get something to keep. It’s so grand.”
Red smiled. “I can’t ever thank you enough for letting me stay here and making me feel so welcome. I sure hope I get to see you again.”
Elbey scowled, which looked funny on that pretty, pretty face. “Again? Where are you going? I thought you were just giving the suit back.”
“I have to go home. I work for a living.”
“Right, you work for a living. You’re about to become the most sought-after male model in New York.”
Red’s stomach flipped. If it was in a good way or bad way was hard to tell. “Well, until I do, I’ve got a shift I need to work tomorrow.”
Elbey jumped up and hugged Red again. “You’re crazy. I’ll bet I could get you five jobs tomorrow, but have a safe journey. I’ll miss you until I see your face again.”
“Thanks, Elbey. You’re pretty great.” Grabbing his bag and the suit, he rushed out the door.
Seconds after Red slipped into the car and Mr. Merlinson headed toward the train station, Red’s phone rang. He was still hanging the suit on the hanger above the car door when he tapped his phone screen. “Hello.”
“Red?” It was Brock.
“Oh hi.”
“Where did you go? Corey said you marched out with your tail on fire.”
“Uh no. I just had to get moving so I didn’t miss my train. No tail, no fire.”
Brock’s voice came cool and soft. “What do you mean train?”
“The train back to Ever After, Brock. You told me to take a couple days off. That’s what I did. I have to work tomorrow at Mom and Pop’s, like you said. That’s what we agreed.”
“I said that before I knew that Paolo wants to use you in his new campaign.” He said that with a lilt in his voice like he expected Red to cheer. Red better not disappoint.
