me that there would be five models—two males and three females—and that each would wear two pieces during the show. The most important designs would go to Kerynne and Cai as the opening and closing pieces on the runway. I was hoping that the other models weren’t quite as difficult to deal with as those two were, but I knew that they probably would be.
I finished up a few last things and then headed over to plop down in my bed. I hadn’t finished and could stay up longer to keep working, but that would have been an awful idea. Tomorrow wasn’t a day that I could show up being overly tired. I’d make mistakes if I did. So, I curled up in my bed and pulled the blanket over me as I shut my eyes. It took less than a second before I had drifted off to sleep.
The banging on my apartment door was what woke me up and immediately made me realize that I had forgotten to set the alarm before passing out last night.
Shit.
I looked at the time on my cell phone and realized that I was already over an hour late to Arlo’s office. If it had just been a meeting with him alone, I would have felt bad but not been in such a panic. But this meeting was with all five models for their fittings in the designs. That was a lot of people to piss off before this thing had even gotten off the ground.
The banging on my door became louder with the crash of someone’s fist against the wood. No one had ever banged on my door aside from the landlord; but seeing as though I knew I had remembered to pay my rent this month, I had no idea why he would be bothering me on a weekday morning. I did know that I didn’t have time to deal with whoever was outside of my door, though. I was already hopelessly late.
I scrambled out of bed and raced to go answer the door in my pajamas, which consisted of only a loose T-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts that I hadn’t gotten around to washing in a few days. My hair was a tangled mess that was falling into my face, so I quickly used the hair tie on my wrist to knot it up on my head as I went to answer the door. I couldn’t have been more surprised to see who was standing there when I peered through the peephole.
“Arlo?” I said in shock while I opened the door.
“God, Hensley, you scared me half to death,” he said with an anxious voice as he pushed into my apartment.
I stood in front of the open door and turned around to look at him in confusion. “Wait, I scared you?” I asked. “But you’re the one who showed up and banged on my door as if the place was on fire.”
“You didn’t show up to work,” he said as he stood there staring at me in my less-than-desirable outfit.
I looked like a yeti with my hair already falling down, thanks to the stretched-out hair tie.
“And then you didn’t answer any of my calls or texts.”
I closed the door to my apartment and went over to pick up my phone to look at it again. Yep, sure enough, there were at least a dozen missed calls and unopened messages.
“Geez, I’m really, really sorry,” I said. “I was up late last night, working on finishing the clothes for today, and I fell asleep without remembering to set my alarm. I’m so sorry that I overslept and am late to the model fitting this morning, Arlo. I won’t let it happen again; I swear.”
He took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m not mad at you about the fitting or about running late,” he said as he finally started to look calmed down. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what to make of this.
Not only was Arlo not mad at me for being irresponsibly late to an important meeting with the models, but he had driven all the way from Manhattan to Astoria in order to check on me when I didn’t answer my phone. I mean, I knew that he was a good friend and all...but to leave his office in the middle of a work morning and leave the models standing there waiting on him, just in order to push through traffic to make sure I