Okay—reign it in, Amelia. Amazing against his skin tone was something I’d say about Ethan.
Liam drove out of the estate and turned on the next major road toward the business district. “My mom went a little overboard with the shopping. I’m set for any future interviews. Or if I decide to do a Freaky Friday switch with Ethan and go out to a club. She bought me a shiny shirt.”
“A shiny shirt? Do explain.”
He leaned back, then forward. His mouth formed the start of words which never materialized. “I’ll have to show you. I know I’m Italian heritage, but I’m not one of those guys who can pull off gold chains and club shirts.”
I busted out laughing at the image of Liam in an iridescent deep-V with gold jewelry laid over exposed chest hair. “I can’t even see Ethan in those clothes. He doesn’t own any shiny shirts does he?”
His grin drained. “He probably does.”
I straightened the leather case on my lap. “A well-dressed man doesn’t need shiny accessories. Just a good fit.”
“Is that some designer’s slogan?”
“No, it’s the truth. And I specifically said man not woman, because a woman deserves every accessory available. Shoes, purses, necklaces, earrings, scarves—all of it. Maybe not all of it at once.”
He shook his head. “Fashion is like this whole world I don’t understand.”
“Which is why developing a fashion app was a natural fit.”
He shot me a mock-defensive look. “I swear, I’m going to find something to make fun of you for.”
Oh, there was plenty. They say the Internet is forever, and I really didn’t need Liam digging up my deleted prom boards. Yikes.
At the DeCoursey’s headquarters, we rode an elevator up to a high-level floor. The doors opened to sea-blue walls and tropical plants springing from low, sleek planters lining the path to the front desk.
While we waited, Liam adjusted his tie about eighty times.
“You’ll be fine,” I reminded. “Remember your cues and the presentation slides do the rest. We’re super early so we can review the materials if you want.”
He wiped nonexistent sweat from his temple. “No, I think we’re good.”
“Your dad?”
He nodded. “Conferencing in at five after.”
I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that Mr. Laurenti passed on showing up in person to the meeting. Without him in the room, we had the chance to present ourselves. Though, calling in felt like checking up on his kid—as if Liam wasn’t capable on his own. From what Liam told me, Gigi showed genuine excitement about the meeting and wished him well as she flew out the door to her own appointment with the TV producers.
“You don’t think the producers want to make a show with your family, do you?” The thought struck sudden and fierce. Would they involve us? What if they spun off a Housewives-style show featuring the wealthy wives’ household staff? Miami’s working class working for the estates. It sounded both genius and horrible. So, a real chance.
“None of us are good on camera. Even Ethan does better standing around instead of acting. He tries too hard.”
“The reality show thing is weird. It’s supposed to be real, but it’s staged. You have to act like you’re not acting. Pru is good at it.”
“Pru is obnoxious.” Liam’s eyes bulged. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“We’re not besties. Not hardly.”
“But you hang out with her sister. I figured you were in with the whole lot of them.”
“After the way Pru talked to you at the restaurant? No way.”
Liam considered this but didn’t follow up with anything. I hated to bring up that awkward encounter, especially remembering how Pru accused me of being Liam’s girlfriend. Maybe accused was too harsh a word. Assumed.
Time passed like a pot waiting to boil. We played twenty questions until finally we were summoned by the reception desk. A woman in eggplant-colored Prada heels escorted us down a hall to an office with windows facing the financial district’s high rises.
We stopped at the door, waiting for the go-ahead.
“Amelia.” Liam’s hand brushed mine. This time neither of us flinched. I grasped his fingers, and his own hand wrapped around mine. We both squeezed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I fed Johnny a mouthful of fabric. I sewed fast, fueled by beats from one of the lamer dance movies I could turn on and ignore while working. I needed to work, work, work to vent my frustration. No, my anger.
The laptop beside me paused. Mami stood next to it with her finger on the keyboard. “How did the presentation go?”
What a question. I let off the presser foot and slung an arm over the back of my chair. “We did really well. No tech issues, Liam was brilliant, I impressed them. It was awesome.”
Abuelita appeared in my doorway. “You sound like that angry chef on TV.”
I blew my frustration out in a loud breath. “Mr. Laurenti was supposed to call in, but he bailed. His name showed up on the web conference thingy the whole time, but never activated.”
Worse was seeing how crushed Liam had been, even though the DeCoursey people loved his idea and offered to pilot test the app in their Miami stores. It was the best possible outcome from the meeting, but all of it soured by Liam’s own father being a no-show.
“We should celebrate!” I’d said to Liam once we hit the parking lot after the meeting and happy-danced for thirty seconds. (Okay, I happy-danced.)
“I just thought he’d be there.” Liam kicked a stone into a sewer grate. “This time, I thought he’d show.”
“What do you mean this time?”
Liam stuffed his hands into his pockets. The move was surprisingly dapper given his sleek suit. With the high rise behind him, Liam could’ve been a spread in GQ. “I’m not a sports kid. My school activities are quiz teams and Model UN and computer club. I can count on one hand how many times he’s shown up to one of my events. But Ethan’s soccer games? He only misses if he’s traveling for business.”
“I’m sorry.” A lot of my friends at school had parents who couldn’t make school events because of work, but it was more like they didn’t have vacation time or would get fired. Mr. Laurenti worked for himself. If he could make it to some of Ethan’s games, he could make it to see Liam.
I finished explaining the situation to Abuelita and Mami. Abuelita tsk-tsked. “Oh, Mr. Laurenti. Why he refuses to make time for Liam, I’ll never understand.”
At least my dad had an excuse, living out of state. Mr. Laurenti worked so much he might as well live someplace else with occasional weekend visits.
Mami leaned against my dresser. “I don’t think you need to feel sorry for those boys. They have everything and a trust fund on top of it.”
“Money isn’t everything,” Abuelita said, and drifted from the room.
Mami circled her fingers around her hoop earring. “It is and it isn’t.” She moved to my bed and sat. “Mila, I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately. It’s been a strange summer.”
For real. “It’s okay.”
“I’ve been picking up extra work and trying to see Alex with his crazy schedule.” She poked at the pile of fabric scraps littered around Johnny. “I missed this. Your noisy machine and your dance movies. I’m glad you’re helping Liam, I really am, but I like this.” She gestured toward the mess. “I like to see you in your element.”
I’d missed sewing, too, with all my time helping Haylo and Liam. I didn’t realize how much until this very moment.
“I don’t want to you lose sight of yourself,” she said.
“It’s not like that.” I told her more about the app and the stylist work. How both Haylo and Liam constantly assured me how much I’d contributed. How I’d helped them achieve what they wanted. I showed her the logo Liam made me. “I was thinking I can build up a portfolio and get more stylist work. After the show airs, Haylo’s name will get me new clients.”
“I never heard you talk about being
a stylist until these Lohmans showed up. Are you sure? You always wanted to design your own clothes.”
“I didn’t know I could be a stylist.” A hefty dose of defensiveness crept in.
“Don’t forget yourself in helping all these other people. You have dreams, too.”
I leaned back in my sewing chair. Then I got up. The dress I’d made at the internship was still wrapped in plastic and zippered into a garment bag. I unhooked it from its spot hanging on the back of my closet door. The long zipper parted, and I laid the dress across the other end of the bed from Mami.
“Mila, it’s beautiful!”
She’d only seen pictures. In all our busyness, I’d never taken the dress out since I’d been back.
“Thanks.” Memories from the workroom flashed through my mind. The hours of patterning, the design courses, the lectures on fashion history. I loved it. I loved all of it, and playing stylist, too. “What if I want to do everything? How do you narrow it down?”
“You’re lucky to have such problems. You’re good at so many things.” Before I could stop her, Mami had her arms around me, squeezing. “You are my proudest accomplishment.”
Normally I’d eye roll, but after the stress of today’s presentation and seeing Liam rejected by his father in front of a boardroom of executives, the tears let loose. I sniffled into her shirt. “Sorry I’ve been moody lately. I think I’m trying to figure out what I want.”
She pulled back and swept hair from my eyes. “I think that’s what I’ve been trying to do myself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Only a few weeks remained until school started. The app presentation was finished, and now we—or Liam, more so—waited on DeCoursey’s for the next step in testing the app for real in their stores. For legal reasons, Liam needed his father to cosign the contract, since Liam wouldn’t turn eighteen until next year. Bummer that he actually needed his dad, but I was hopeful they could work together.
Meanwhile, vendors flooded the estate to set up for the Lohmans’ Welcome to Miami party. Now that I’d finished Haylo’s style profile, I backed off to make time for my own projects, and to hang with Maya. There was also the pesky issue of finishing my supervised driving hours so I could get my driver’s license.
All that to say my focus was definitely elsewhere when Ethan Laurenti walked up to my back patio.
“Amelia.”
I couldn’t help the shivers down my back when Ethan said my name. “What are you doing here?” Even in the recent weeks we’d been hanging out, we’d always seen each other at his house, or out somewhere. Never at my house, in my own backyard.
Ethan’s olive skin was darkened further from hours out boating and fall soccer training. His right arm was tucked behind his back. He sprung it forward, revealing a bouquet of daisies. The bright purple and pink kind that looked dipped in neon. “I miss seeing you around.”
He handed me the flowers, which were tied at the stems with stiff, silver florist’s ribbon. “These are beautiful.” I took in the jewel-toned petals’ sweet scent, buying myself time from the confusion I felt at seeing him here, in my space. He missed seeing me around. Because I’d always been lurking, and waiting. And now I wasn’t.
“So.” He looked over our two-seater patio table and the little clay pots messily spilling over with flowers and at least a few weeds. “What’s up?”
I nodded toward my planner. “Scheduling my time. Theater club at my school has a new member meeting before classes start. I’m going tonight. I’m hoping to do costume work this year.”
“Cool, cool. Oh! I wanted to tell you. I met this guy Reuben. He’s the PR guy for a new club opening downtown. They’re starting an all-ages night. He’s a New York guy, so he knows what he’s doing. I’m going to help him with his opening. You want in?”
My planner pages for August and September were pretty booked already according to the number of stickers I’d used up. “Maybe.”
“Hey. I actually came here for a different reason. Come on.” He reached past me and flipped shut the planner cover, then took the daisies and laid them on top. He held out his hands.
I stifled annoyance at his closing of my planner, but took his hands, anyway. Curiosity. Catnip, Desiree’s voice echoed in my mind.
He led me through Abuelita’s disco garden, past an overgrown area none of the Laurentis’ house guests would ever see, and around back to the stables.
Magnus stood beside another horse, a gray horse, a few steps beyond the stable doors. Both horses were fully tacked. The estate trainer brushed down the gray one with gentle but precise strokes.
Ethan took hold of the new horse’s bridle. “Care for a ride?”
“Really?” Total joy overtook me in an instant. I clapped my hands together, holding in a squee. I’d dreamed countless times of being offered the chance to ride. “Thank you. This is amazing!” I reached for Magnus and he whinnied in response.
“This one here is Bright Star,” Ethan said. “She’s an Arabian. Mom brought her in from Kentucky. The show wants to use the stables for a story line, so we need her familiar with the property before the cameras get on her. I thought of you for the job.”
Ethan’s words drowned beneath my own thoughts. The word job stuck out oddly. Job? So, this wasn’t a carefree afternoon ride. Whatever. This was a chance to ride again, and I was taking it. “Can I ride Magnus?”
“Sure,” he said after a pause. “I thought you’d want the Arabian, but sure you can ride Magnus.”
The trainer reviewed tips for us—more for me, because I’d only ridden a horse once. (Sort of. It was a really slow pony at a fair.) The trainer moved a mounting block of three short steps beside me. I was about to climb up when Ethan appeared at my side.
“Here, let me help. Lift your leg.” His hand gripped the back of my calf and directed my foot into the stirrup. “On the count of three, push up with your other leg.” His words tickled my earlobe—that’s how close Ethan and I stood. “One, two, three!”
With Ethan’s hands steadying my stirruped foot, I pushed up until both legs straightened and I landed folded over the top of the saddle. Okay, this was not graceful. Ethan was behind me while my rear end pointed at his face. I managed to swing my leg over the saddle. Magnus, like a champ, barely stirred as I situated myself.
Ethan mounted Bright Star in one fluid motion that was just unfair to humanity. He made it look insanely easy, and I knew he barely rode unless Gigi made it a family thing.
We started the horses at a walk into the fenced-in area connected to the stable. Magnus’s shoulders moved beneath me at a steady pace.
“You good?” Ethan asked.
“Yup!” Only a loss of dignity at mounting a horse so terribly. My daydreams made this all look much easier.
“We need to get Haylo and Fayth on the horses,” Ethan said. “Hay’s always been freaked about riding. Every summer in the Hamptons, we kids all went riding. My mom’s kind of a pusher on that front, but you know that. Haylo refused every time. She’d stay back in the stables brushing the horses for hours.”
I could relate, but only because of circumstance. “I feel like I know Magnus from the times I’ve visited him, but being up here, it feels different.”
“You should tell that to Haylo. She listens to you.”
We rode toward the edge of the fence line, which didn’t take long. From this position on horseback, the whole estate framed into view like a painting. Vibrant trees and flowers lined the outside of the fences between the grazing area and the Laurentis’ gardens. “This is beautiful.”
“What?” Ethan called over his shoulder, now ahead of us a few lengths. He slowed until we caught up.
“Oh, just that this view is so beautiful.”
Bright Star snorted and we both laughed. “Shush, girl, you’re ruining my game.” He patted the horse’s neck. “I was about to say I see a beautiful sight, too.”
I waited for him to finish his thought, but Ethan only looked at me expectantly. Wai
t. Me? I was the beautiful sight?
He tugged at the reins and Bright Star stopped. “Amelia. I’ve been thinking for a while there’s something here.” He gestured between us. “Something more.”
“You have?” My own voice sounded distant and small.
“Haven’t you felt it?”
I searched my thoughts. This, right here, was everything I’d dreamed of. This was more than the luxury yacht. More than a posh party. This, riding side by side with Ethan on the estate, with him telling me I was beautiful, was the epitome of fantasy. It didn’t get better this (though, fantasy me would wear head-to-toe Ralph Lauren with classic English riding boots). No, regardless of fashion choices, this was the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life.
I had my stylist gig and a future at design school. I had great friends and a good family. This was the final piece. The piece I’d been longing for.
Ethan was waiting on my response. “Um.” I clenched the leather reins. Magnus’s ear twitched back, thinking I signaled to him.
“Haylo said you might be shy about it.”
“What?”
“Just, when I told Haylo how I felt about you, she said to take it slow. You and I have known each other a long time. The weird thing is, I don’t really know you all that well.”
“So you talked to Haylo. About me.”
He half shrugged in his laid-back Ethan way. “What better person to ask than the girl who hired you as her stylist? You two have been hanging out a lot.”
Suddenly this very big moment shrunk down around me like plastic cling wrap. I needed space to think. The air didn’t get more open than this, but my senses were squashed beneath Ethan’s presence.
Suddenly, Magnus lurched forward. I must have squeezed my thighs too tight at the same time I tugged on the reins. We were off!
“Thanks, boy,” I said to him once I got my bearings. When I couldn’t run myself, the horse ran for me.
“Amelia, wait!” Ethan’s voice faded as we put distance between us. Magnus was old, so his canter was not exactly speedy. But the escape gave me time.
Alterations Page 21