He glances over his shoulder. “Coming in with the big-gun questions, eh?” He thinks for a moment before saying in a very matter-of-fact way, “It wasn’t, but now it is. At first it was a joke, sort of. I was newly single when the producers approached me. What better way to rebound?”
“Newly single?” I ask. I only have vague memories of him in a few local gossip mags with a thin model on his arm.
“Sabrina,” he says, his voice low.
“Sabrina Allen?” I ask. “You were dating Sabrina Allen? She’s, like…huge now. She’s a household name.”
“Not when I first met her.” He takes a deep breath. “We met at a Labor Day party.” He laughs. “It was a white party and she showed up in red. Mom loved her immediately. It got serious fast. She closed out Mom’s next show. Featured in print ads. And I loved her…or at least I loved that my mom loved her.” He shakes his head. “Wow, that sounds awful. I promise I only have the normally allotted amount of mommy issues.”
I snort at that, wishing I could tell him about my own real-life stepmommy issues.
“My mom and…We don’t share a lot in common. Sabrina was something we could share. God, just saying it now, I see how messed up it was.” He sighs. “I proposed. In Paris. She said no, and the next day she’d signed a one-year exclusive contract with Victoria’s Secret. When I told my mom that Sabrina didn’t say yes, I quickly realized she was more upset about losing her ingénue and muse than she was about my heart being broken. So I took a step back from the business. From Mom.”
“If you took a step back, how did you end up on a dating show trying to drum up excitement about the brand?” I ask, trying to fill in the gaps.
“I was bumbling around out in LA for a few months when I met Beck. She tried getting me to meet with her boss, and I kept saying no, but she was relentless. Then one day, my dad called, and he basically said, ‘Your mother’s arthritis is debilitating and the only thing she can do to slow it down is to step back from LuMac. Either you come home and run it, or we sell it for parts.’ When I got back to the city and teamed up with Jay, I found out that the brand was in bigger trouble than I thought. We were past the normal measures you could take for a failing business. We needed something wild. Something viral. I called Beck, and next thing I knew, I was the next suitor on Before Midnight.”
We briefly stop at a crosswalk like good New Yorkers, and I look up to him. “But what about when we first met? You said you had missed your first flight because you couldn’t decide if you wanted to go to LA?”
His jaw twitches. “I didn’t say this whole thing didn’t freak me out. I’ve seen dozens of people I grew up with open themselves up to fame. It doesn’t usually end well. The internet has a way of digging up your past or—”
“Are there things to dig up?” I ask. “In your past?”
“Oh, you know,” he says. “Just the standard skeletons. Family drama. A few questionable drunk pictures, but…I never wanted to be a public person. I wasn’t some child star or something, but to a degree, our lives were always public property anyway. Going on this show sort of feels like giving up what privacy I had left.”
“You could have always gone on Shark Tank,” I say.
The crosswalk signal turns white, and he tugs my hand, pulling me through the throng of people. “Yeah, Mark Cuban would be all over an aging formerly relevant fashion brand. I guess you could have always gone on Project Runway.”
“Make it work,” I say, mimicking Tim Gunn. I glance over my shoulder. “I can’t see the crew behind us anymore. Do you think we should wait for them?”
“Definitely not,” he says, his voice giddy. “You think you can run in those things?”
I glance down at my sparkling shoes. They’re art, but run in them? I’m not so sure. “I’m not much of a runner to begin with, but I’m willing to attempt a light jog,” I tell him, the thrill of losing the crew sending adrenaline rushing through my body.
“Let’s go.”
There’s a wild expression on Henry’s face. It’s the most carefree I’ve seen him since…ever.
We take off down the street, our feet slapping against the pavement as we turn the corner. My dress ripples behind me, and it feels like we’re playing a wild game of tag. With Henry by my side, what would the crew even do to us if they caught us? Send us both home? I think not.
I shriek as I trip forward, my heel catching in a missing chunk of sidewalk. As I stumble out of my shoe, my fingers slip from Henry’s.
“Shit,” I mutter, catching myself with one hand on the pavement.
“Are you okay?” he asks, doubling back to pull me up and steady me.
“I’m fine.” I hold my bare foot up, balancing on one heel now. “It’s the shoes. They’re on loan. They’re worth more money than I have to my name.”
He grabs a glittering stiletto, inspecting it closely. “Not a scratch.” He quickly pops down to one knee as he guides my foot back into the shoe, his fingers wrapped around my ankle as I balance myself on his shoulder.
He looks up at me, his eyes heavy-lidded as the city spins around us, streetlights flickering on as the sky turns to a misty dusk. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
I nod wordlessly at the sight of him on his knees before me as a simmering heat spreads through my abdomen.
He stands and takes my hand again as he pulls me off the ground into Bryant Park.
“Are you trying to woo me?” I ask.
His eyes search mine.
“Bryant Park,” I say. “The Cathedral of Fashion.”
“I should lie and say this was totally on purpose, but I’m just trying really hard to lose our wardens.” Clear from view of the street, we slow to a stroll.
Sierra and I spent the last four years lurking around Bryant Park like it was some hallowed space. It might not be the home of Fashion Week any longer, but we couldn’t help but feel like we might catch a glimpse of one of our idols just strolling around, reliving their Bryant Park glory days. But today the park is just a park full of normal people doing normal things.
Constantly looking over our shoulders for signs of the crew, we walk right into a ballroom class for senior citizens.
“Come on,” says Henry, pulling me farther into the class run by a petite middle-aged couple using nothing but their iPhone and a plastic cup to amplify the music.
“It’s a class,” I say as I kick off my shoes and let them dangle from my fingers to stop my heels from continuously sinking into the grass. “We’re not students.”
“I don’t think they’ll mind.” He leads me to the back of the group and pulls me to him, his hand spread across the base of my spine.
I lean my head against his chest and let myself be held.
“Let’s pretend for just a moment,” he says.
And he doesn’t have to be any more specific than that. I know just what he means. Let’s pretend we’re two normal people on a normal date taking a normal stroll in a normal park that I haven’t been dreaming of since I was old enough to know what Fashion Week was.