Thankfully, I recall Raegan’s lesson from yesterday, about the signal lights on the streets. Green for go led me to activate the Sony, and I am relieved when red for stop yields the same results before I am ogling those frilly derrieres like the full-blooded caveman I am beneath my gentleman’s breeches.
If I am going to indulge that side of myself, it will not be with Monsieur Sony and friends. As marvelous as it all is, nothing on that palette is real. Here and now, I need as much reality as possible.
As I step out into the hall, I only hope that reality is ready again for me.
Everything out here sounds exactly like it did before. Naught but the plunking rain and whistling wind fill my ears. There is no significant movement from the small vestibule at the other end of the corridor. The shadows are a little longer, since the day is shifting from afternoon to evening, but the storm eliminates all other modes of determining that.
Still, I am glad for the gloom. Raegan was not a joyous puddle stomper in the torrents yesterday, which gives me hope that she has avoided a repeat stomp today. All my instincts hail the validity of the thought before I notice the leak of golden light from a doorframe at the end of the hall.
As I watch, the light flickers. Movement in the room. From something or someone?
I am willing to gamble on the latter.
As I approach, a smile grows on my lips. The door has a small steel lever attached, which is flipped around to hold the portal slightly ajar. My lips lift higher once I push into the room and inhale the sweetness of herb-infused violets.
The scent of my heart’s home.
Oui, even the one from two hundred years ago.
But I already know to keep that to myself. Raegan’s frenetic aura dictates the boundary, even from the little seating area across the room. She does not look up, too focused on whatever she sketches on the paper sheets in her lap. Between her swift strokes, she jostles one knee and then the next. Clearly, her mind is seeking answers just as mine was yesterday. I am simply grateful she ran down a hall to sort things out instead of tearing across the city again.
Yet as I also learned yesterday, sorting things out is not as simple as those syllables.
Another temporary blockage of the light, which comes as she rises with her sizable sheaf of papers. Fortunately, they look to be bound at the top in some manner. She tucks the pad against her left elbow as the pencil in her right gets pressed back into service as she begins a circuit of tense pacing. I do not want to admit that the stress makes her even more beautiful, but that is like denying my very humanity. It is almost like watching a dance number from one of Big Apple Spectacular’s hip-hop musicals.
Sketch-sketch-one-two-three-four.
Sketch-sketch-five-six-seven-eight.
“Raegan?”
She does not answer my hail. I am not thrown. In many ways, I understand. Before I spotted the consulate, a fly on my arm would have spooked me—and several times did. The disjointed terror was what kept me running. Anything to keep up the hope that I would eventually escape.
Sketch-sketch. It is her own version of running.
“Raegan.”
“What?” Stumble-stumble. “Huh?”
“Ssshhh.” I can extend a hand, soothing her from afar, when she whips around with a startled gawk. “It is only me.” I long to toss aside the haphazard tables and chairs just to be near her again. I have to settle for dropping into one of the faded chairs next to window since she quickly reclaims her place in the other.
“I’m sorry,” she rasps, pressing several fingers to her forehead. They are littered with pencil smudges, which helps her create a cute gray bridge between her tawny brows. “I needed to put my head back on straight. In the process, I guess I found some inspiration. Once the fever hits, I give in and get lost, especially when it hasn’t happened for a while.”
I lean over, sneaking a glance at the first drawing of the sizable stack she has formed the round table between the chairs. “Well, inspiration has been good to you. Magnificent gowns, dreamt by a femme magnifique herself.”
And more modest, at least in sketch form, than what the designers for the cancan girls imagined. Oui, I see the generous cleavage, but breasts are…meant to be there. Natural and exquisite parts of feminine couture. Even a man of turbulent passions, such as myself, can and should contain his baser side at the sight of a bare nipple. Better yet, at two.
Raegan’s laugh is light to the point of dismissive. “You’re being kind,” she scoffs. “I mean, obviously I’ve been influenced by a certain historical hunk in my world lately, with the split skirts and statement wigs, but these are just for messing around. Something nice for the concept files if a client wants something vintage-y and unique.”
“Concept files?” I drop my bantering side, glauming a hard frown. “Why would your clients not want you to execute on these in full? Obviously you have a skilled eye for dramatic impact. And I know naught of intricate fashion construction, but the details in these suggest that also possess that.”
The splotch bridge breaks apart as she tosses back an amused spurt. “Much easier said than done in the twenty-first century, mister. Thanks to your people in particular, fashion is a high-prestige industry that takes connections, clout, and a shit ton of pixie dust.” She leans her cheek against a hand, causing her curls to tumble over her neck and shoulder. “I’ve got lots of number one and even a little of two, but the fashion fairies have been mighty stingy with the magic dust. So, for now, I’ve to get on with the styling gig.”
I set aside her sketches but do not waver my gaze from her gorgeous face. “Which entails doing what?”
“Working with celebrities and other notables as an advisor, of sorts. Making sure the current and upcoming trends work for their figure and brand, in the context of whatever big occasion will help them break the internet.”
I only grasp every third word of that part. Thankfully, it is enough to inform my reply. “So others employ you to tell them what more others are creating, rather than benefiting directly from your unique talent.”
Her lips compress. “In about twenty pissy words, yes.”
I hike my brows. “Is pissy now a word for accurate, as well?”
Thankfully, she abandons her brusqueness. I have not come searching for another imbroglio with her, but my vexation is too real to hide. Very thankfully, she seems to see that too. Moreover, she also seems…stirred by it.
“Do you really think these are that good?”
She scoops up the stack and ruffles through them. I am delighted about the new consideration in her gaze, as if she too is beholding her handiwork in a new light. My chest puffs a little higher. I put that look on her face and am damn proud of the fact.
“It’s been a while since I hit a jag like this,” she confesses quietly. “After a while, when you start telling yourself you’re irrelevant so many times, you just start believing it. It gets easier to ignore the inspiration because you doubt that too. You just doubt…all of yourself.”
She slides the stack back to the table but does not yet surrender her reverent touch. Looking there, at her slender fingers with their functional oval nails decorated in green and gold swirls, I am awash in a wave of new awareness. An unignorable need to lean for her. To wrap those fingers with my own.
“And now, you have stopped doubting.”