the cushion and lifted my legs up to go over his lap. “Thank you for bringing me out here tonight.”
“You’re a natural here,” he smiled. “Like this is your element, and you just didn’t even know it. I’m glad you came out tonight with me; you needed it. I think you should come out with me more.”
“I’d like that,” I said. I meant it, too. This was the most fun that I’d had in a long time. I’d been working so hard that I almost forgot what it felt like to let loose a little.
“I have another idea for you, too,” he said as he pulled us two more drinks from the tray of a waitress passing by.
I wondered how this club made any money if all the drinks were free. I’d never seen a club like this before. There must have been something that I was missing.
“I think that you should fill in for one of the missing models who dropped out,” he said. I would have thought that he was kidding, but the look on his face was totally serious.
“What? I can’t do that,” I laughed. “I’m not a model.”
“True,” he said. “But you could be a fill-in model, just for this show. I mean, you’re beautiful, the fashions are all your designs anyway, you already know all of us, and we could show you how to walk the runway.”
I squished my face up as if I had just sucked on a sour lemon. There was no way that I could pass as a model, although he was the second guy to call me beautiful now, and that made me feel really good. Besides, there’s no way that Arlo would allow it.
“I don’t think Arlo would let me model for the runway show,” I said.
“Screw Arlo,” he said as he raised his glass in the air as if he were giving a toast. “You’d be doing him a favor. He’s running around like a chicken with its cock cut off—”
“I think you mean head,” I interrupted as I snorted in laughter.
“The same thing,” he continued. “You’d be saving his ass, and he should be thankful for it. There’s no way he can find a replacement model by next week.”
At first, I had scoffed at the idea. But then I started to consider it. It would be helping Arlo out with the show, and it did sound like a lot of fun. It would be difficult to both attend to the models during the show and be one. But how cool would it be to be able to say that I actually modeled in a runway show of my own designs?
“Ah, see?” Cai said with a wide smile that showed all of his perfect teeth. “You like the idea; I can tell.”
8
Chapter Eight (Arlo)
I didn’t sleep at all last night, like not even for a few minutes. I was up all night feeling bad about the way that I had treated Hensley. Then I was also trying to figure out why in the hell I acted like that, to begin with. I’d dealt with many stressful situations in this business before, and I had never lost my cool on anyone, not like that. What was it that made me act like a child having a tantrum and projecting all of my frustration onto someone else? And why her?
I knew exactly why her. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. I had known now for days. I had known since I saw her in that dress and touched the small of her back. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, though. Hensley and I had been friends for just over four years. Why was this happening now? I needed to be able to think straight and focus on how I was going to save this rushed runway show from eminent ruin. I couldn’t have a clouded head or lack of judgment right now, or it was going to tank my whole new line that was about to release, which would mean a disastrous image for Luscious. I’d worked way too hard to get to where I am with my brand, and I wasn’t about to let it all go to hell now. Hensley’s career was riding on this, too.
This successful show and release would mean an instant future for her in the industry, and I couldn’t let her down by screwing up that opportunity for her. She’d worked too hard. But I knew that there was no