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Andy’s day couldn’t start worse. First, she somehow slept through her alarm—courtesy of staying up late in the night to finish reading a book despite knowing better—then, the metro was, for some unexplainable reason, late, and at last, when Andy’s patience was already so thin around the edges that you could see through it, it started raining the moment she stepped a foot on the sidewalk.
She had no coffee, no will to live, and Miranda to face. The latter was the worst out of the three, up until she sat down in front of her computer, blinked blearily at the screen, and realised that, on top of all of that, she also forgot to grab Miranda’s coffee.
“Fuck,” she whimpered. Emily, used enough to Andy’s theatrics by now, didn’t look up from her own computer.
“What?” she asked, annoyance coating her words. Andy shook her head, caught herself, and cleared her throat.
“Nothing! Nothing, just—stay here, okay? Stay here. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, tops—”
Naturally, the cloudburst meant that Starbucks was overflowing, and that meant that Andy was squeezed between the people for twice as long as on the sunny days, and when she finally got to the counter, the barista looked exactly as exhausted as she felt.
“Hi, skim latte, no foam, and two americanos,” Andy blurted out. “Make them extra hot, please.”
The look she got in response made it clear that she wasn’t getting anything extra. And she didn’t; the cups, when she got them, burned her fingers less than usually when she placed them into the cup holder; she took a deep breath, praying that Miranda won’t make an issue out of that, too.
“Okay,” she said, steering herself against the wind and rain outside. “Okay, Andy, you can do this.”
She could not do this.
When she got back to Runway at last, her coat was dripping, her hair was curling like crazy around her head almost like a halo, except it was not a halo but a sign that Andy couldn’t take care even of something as small as hair. And on top of that, she was twenty minutes late with the coffee.
Miranda was in her office, on a phone. She set it down as Andy entered the room; Andy’s stomach tightened into a small knot at the sight. Being important enough to stop a call for had never been a good sign before.
Miranda’s eyes moved over Andy’s face, went up to her hair and then back, going lower with a speed that had to be deliberately paced to make her squirm. In the silence hanging in the office, the water dripping down from her coat and onto the floor was perfectly audible. It probably left wet spots there, too.
“Your coffee.” Without waiting for Miranda’s approval, she took a step closer, placing the cup holder on the desk. The carton had dents from how hard she was grabbing it. “Is there anything else you need?”
The silence stretched. Andy bit her lip fighting to keep her breathing steady. She was a good assistant now. She didn’t screw anything up. It was the rain’s fault. Miranda was going to be moderately understanding about this, she was sure.
“Your hair,” Miranda said at last, voice weirdly muffled. Her face was set into something impossible to easily categorise; interest, yes, but also displeasure, one that made the knot in her stomach tighten even further.
“I’m sorry, Miranda, I—the rain. I didn’t use anything today to keep it straight, and there was rain, and, well.” She shrugged, catching herself a moment too late; who in their right mind shrugged at Miranda?
“You look like these little cherubs from renaissance paintings,” Miranda noticed, and the words themselves might’ve been nice if not for the sharpness beneath. “All—small and plump and with unruly hair.” She paused, the last remains of warmth evaporating from her voice. “It’s unbecoming.”
Andy pressed her lips together, looking up to not let the tears appear. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t, despite how the close-to-sleepless night has stretched her thin.
“I understand,” she replied. The words felt stretched thin on her tongue. “I’ll make sure it won’t happen again.”
The next time the weather forecast showed that it was going to rain, Andy put her hair in a bun, secured it with hairspray and hairpins, and called it a day. It worked perfectly with keeping everything in place; a little less so with keeping Andy comfortable, but when was the last time that her day at Runway had been pleasant?
Miranda kept casting glances at her the whole morning, in the moments when Andy pretended to be engrossed in the empty screen of the computer, or talking on a phone, twirling the cable around her finger, or walking across the room to pass Emily some papers. Just constant glances, here and there, ones that Andy carefully ignored. Out of sight, out of mind. She didn’t have the emotional capacity to worry about Miranda disliking another hairstyle.
Only when the tension in the office seemed to have reached new, previously unchartered highs, did Miranda decide to break it. “Andrea!”
Andy stood up before Miranda got the chance to repeat herself, swallowing hard before walking into her office. She kept her hands clasped in front of her, fingers twisted together so that she wouldn’t play with them.
Miranda looked up at her; a bad sign in itself, if Andy knew any. “What are your favourite restaurants in the city?” she asked. She sounded bored, judging from how she elongated the consonants. Andy has had a lot of time to learn about all of her tells, especially after Paris.
“My—restaurants,” she repeated, blinking against the confusion with Miranda’s words. What was the point of asking about her favourite places? It was either to mock her for her choices, or to judge her for them as unfitting in the fashion word still, and neither of the options was something Andy wanted.
“Am I being unclear or are you being intentionally slow?” Miranda’s fingers found her necklace, twisting the beads between her fingers. Andy’s eyes caught on the movement and refused to shift from there. “Your favourite restaurants, Andrea. Is that really this difficult of a question?”
“No, Miranda.” Andy took a slow breath. She bit her lips, wondering about what answer Miranda was searching for. “I like—I like the sushi place on Fifth, I don’t remember the name, and the Ristorante Amalfi, it’s Italian, and there’s also this one with steaks, Old Homestead, love coming there, really.” She’s been there once, with her father, to celebrate her moving out when he visited for the first time. It was way out of her budget, but it seemed like something that would interest Miranda, not to mention that if Andy gave her the name of the cheapest Chinese takeout in her neighbourhood, she’d be looked at like she was crazy.
“Did I ask you to ramble?” Miranda muttered. She was back to work, scribbling something on a piece of paper with one hand, flipping through some photos (Valentino, probably, Andy’s mind supplied) with the other. “No. Exactly. Book me a table at the Amalfi for Sunday. Two people.”
Andy blinked before her mind got back to work from staring at Miranda’s fingers where they rested against the paper. “Of course, Miranda.” Booking a table was easy. Just a call, dropping Miranda’s name if the restaurant was high-end and booked for months in advance. Amalfi was not one of these; a pleasant, mid-range Italian cuisine, where Andy dropped sometimes with her friends. Was Miranda trying to act more down to Earth? “Who do you want me to call with the invitation?”
Miranda’s eyes lifted from the photos, icy-blue and sharp, making Andy fight the urge to shiver under them. “To… call,” she repeated. She raised a brow, something challenging in her expression. “What do you think, Andrea? Who would I want to dine there with?”
Andy was not in the mental state for Miranda’s games. “Donatella,” she blurted out, the first name that got on her tongue. Miranda pursed her lips; not Donatella, then. Sure. Andy could do this. “Oh, or is that another of these secret Runway meetings? Do you want me to get Irv for you?”
“Andrea.”
“You can always tell me later,” Andy assured her, nodding eagerly. “I’m under the phone. Always. Even in the middle of the night. You know it.”
Miranda’s eyes didn’t move from where they were fixed on Andy’s, very much moving ones. She inhaled. Pursed her lips. “Meisel,” she said at last. Was it Andy’s imagination or did she sound bitter? “Call Steven Meisel and make sure he’ll be there. I so hate wasted reservations.”
Andy called him the second she sat down, hearing a couple of excited of-courses in response, together with, “Anything for Miranda, I’ve been trying to meet with her to set up a photo shoot for ages, really, you are a godsend.”
Andy hummed in response, confirmed the reservation, and moved on to the next task.
Her phone rang at four in the afternoon two days later, when Andy moved from ironing her third dress to the fourth one. It was Sunday, she had no Runway work, Miranda had no reason to call her, and yet she was calling, all while Andy was staring at the screen like an idiot, already steadying herself against another impossible demand of her boss.
“Andrea. Meisel cancelled; food poisoning of some sorts or—whatever,” she started without preamble the moment Andy picked up. In her mind’s eye, she saw Miranda waving her hand, annoyed with the mortals’ problems. “The reservation is going to be wasted if I don’t get a replacement. I told you how I hate those.”
Andy barely stopped herself from pointing out that a reservation in a restaurant like Amalfi wasn’t necessary in the first place.
“What do you want me to do then, Miranda?” she asked, forcing a pleasant tone. In her left hand, the iron was growing heavier; she put it down, pressing the phone to her ear with her shoulder, and continued on with the ironing. Miranda really did have the talent to pick up the worst imaginable times for her calls.
“I don’t know, Andrea,” she drawled. Andy wanted to groan in frustration; she settled on a questioning hum instead. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Irv,” Andy offered without thinking. The iron made a crease on the dress’ material; she furrowed her brows at it, offended, and then ironed it out. And then again, just to make sure. “Or—Donatella is in New York, actually, or I could call Tony and get the twins, if you want to spend some extra time with them, or—”
“And there is truly no other thing you can think of.”
Andy bit her lip, looking up at the ceiling. It was off-white, with a crack in the corner. “No—no, Miranda, not really. Do you want me to call Irv?”
“I’ll manage.”
The sound of a finished call ringed in Andy’s ear. She took the phone away from it, shrugged at the screen, still with Miranda’s number visible, and went back to ironing. The less work Miranda demanded from her, the better.
Emily pulled Andy to a side the moment she stepped a foot on Runway’s floor. “What did you do?” she hissed right into her ear, eyes shooting daggers. “The last time I saw her this fuming was when the Tom Ford spread went to hell, so what did you—”
“I did nothing!” Andy protested, pulling away from Emily’s vice grip on her clothes. “Meisel cancelled on her yesterday, maybe she’s pissed about this?”
“Or maybe you just royally screwed something up?”
“There was nothing to screw up!”
Emily grimaced, straightening up. “Well, there must be a reason for her behaviour, and it’s not me.”
“Not me—”
“Andrea,” came Miranda’s voice, almost sing-songy in its tone. Emily flinched.
“Go!” she hissed, “you do not want to make her wait today, trust me.”
Andy scrunched her nose, patted down her hair—straightened now, no frizz visible, but better safe than sorry—and walked to Miranda’s office with short, quick steps. Miranda was waiting for her leaning against her desk, arms crossed across her chest in a way that made it challenging to keep attention away from her decolletage.
Andy swallowed.
“The dinner was a catastrophe,” Miranda started. The blue of her eyes bit directly into Andy’s soul as she stared at her, clearly displeased. “Irv was boring—that was a given, of course—but the company talk he was so eager to make was,” she clicked her tongue as she uncrossed her arms and placed them on the desk behind her, “distasteful.”
“I am so sorry for that, Miranda.”
“And you want me to believe you didn’t have any other ideas except for him and Donatella.”
Andy licked her lips “Well—um, there were the twins, of course, I’m sure you spending time with them would have been—”
“Nothing besides them?”
What was Miranda looking for? A proof of Andy’s incompetence? Of her not trying enough, or not controlling her calendar down to the smallest details, or of her not knowing all of Miranda’s potential dinner partners from the top of her head on a Sunday afternoon?
Andy’s incompetence, probably. An excuse to switch her and Emily’s positions back again, to have Andy running with errands instead of managing Miranda’s day. There was no other possible explanation—and no way for Andy to change the outcome now, standing in front of Miranda.
“No, Miranda.”
“Mm.” The corner of Miranda’s lips tightened; displeasure, loud and clear. It could have been as well broadcasted for the whole Runway staff to see. “That’s all.”
Andy fled.
“I don’t understand, is it so hard to find a good-looking dress?”
Andy didn’t move her eyes from the computer’s screen, where she was filling up Miranda’s meetings for the next month. She did not.
“No, of course not, Miranda.” Emily, with a tremble in her voice. “It’s just—you gave me no framework to work with.”
“I gave you framework. Beautiful dress. A gift. Andrea!” The last word was loud enough that Andy had no way of longer pretending that she wasn’t hearing their conversation.
“Yes, Miranda?” she asked, hurrying up from her desk to stand right next to Emily, who was twisting her hands behind her back, her distress radiating from her.
“I want you to go buy a dress,” Miranda started, not moving her gaze from Emily. “A good dress. Beautiful dress. The prettiest you can find. A gift. Make sure it fits.”
Andy’s tongue itched with the questions—fit whom, maybe what?—but she forced herself to keep them down. You did not ask Miranda questions.
“A dress,” she repeated. “Any particular designer?”
Miranda’s gaze moved slowly to rest on her, heavy enough to make Andy want to squirm under it. “I believe you know what’s going to work the best.”
Andy suppressed her frustrated groan until she was alone in the bathroom, biting her fist to muffle the sound.
Back to errands, then.
Oscar de la Renta’s store was a place that Andy hadn’t visited in the over a year of working for Miranda. Dior and Chanel and Valentino and Prada were easy enough to get used to them. Hermes saw her weekly. But de la Renta, with the designs that Andy fell in love with, was avoided for the simple reason of Miranda not needing anything from him.
But when sent to fetch a dress with no framework and an unlimited budget, the least Andy could get out of the task was some fun time.
“Hi,” she greeted the sales assistant as she walked into the store, keeping her eyes fixed on the other woman’s face. She wasn’t going to gawk around in awe. She was not. “I am—well, it’s going to sound stupid, but I’m looking for the prettiest dress you have. For Mi—for my boss.”
“And are you in need of assistance regarding that?” the woman asked. Andy shook her head—she knew her way around clothes well enough on her own now—and got a smile in response, strained around the edges. “If you’ll follow me, then?”
Andy let herself be led to the further part of the store, not trying to hide her delight anymore. After months of seeing the safe, slightly boring designs, the explosion of colours and shapes visible wherever she turned her eyes to was wonderful.
“You can start with these,” the assistant said, gesturing at the rack with at least thirty dresses. “I’ll be around if you need anything.”
Andy dived between the hangers with a single-minded focus. Something beautiful and fitting; the former was easy; most of de la Renta’s designs were beautiful. The latter, though…
Runway’s May issue was going to be kept in blue and white; on the cover, naturally, but Miranda also wanted blue woven throughout. The dress, to fit, needed to be blue and white as well; not many options to work with. But if not de la Renta then maybe Dior, or Hermes—somebody had to have something in these colours. Anything.
Pretty, too. Pretty and blue.
Miranda was going to get the prettiest, the bluest, the most fitting dress of them all. Andy had even checked the measurements of all of the models from the May’s issue—all zeros, no surprises there—just to be sure the dress fit them properly. If only she could find it.
The first rack proved no salvation; either the blue was of the wrong shade or the dress was straight-up generic. Not ugly, never ugly; merely boring and mundane. And Miranda wanted something impossibly beautiful for the issue; Andy had no intentions of screwing that up. Or worse, showing Miranda that despite working at Runway, she still had no taste.
The latter was arguably worse.
A flash of blue in the corner of her eye caught her attention; she turned to see it properly, her heart picking up its pace from excitement, and fell hopelessly, pathetically in love.
Blue flowers bloomed across white silk in a bold pattern, with nothing shy or subtle about them. The dress’ skirt was long and flowing, pooling around the mannequin’s feet despite the way it clung tightly to the torso, and—Andy barely suppressed a gasp—with a ruffled bandeau neckline. No sleeves.
“This is it,” she whispered to herself. The assistant—how much were they paid to be this attentive, Andy wondered—came up to Andy with a wide smile plastered across her face.
“This one is one of my favourites from the newest collection,” she started, lifting the material to showcase it. It reflected light beautifully, all soft; Andy’s fingers itched to touch it. “Spring and summer this year. Would you want to try it on?”
She wanted to. Wanted it so badly that it hurt; there was never time for her to allow herself to browse these stores for fun, to let herself pretend, just for a moment, that she belonged between all of this beauty.
There was no point in trying it on only to see how she looked in it, though, and with no hopes to wear it outside the dressing room on top of that. No reason to make herself even more miserable among Miranda and Emily and Serena and all of the perfect models who wore designers. Who could afford designers instead of borrowing them from Runway’s closet.
“No, thank you,” she’d heard herself say, her lips stretching in a smile that she hoped didn’t look as insincere as it felt. “No, I’ll just—I’ll take it. Size zero, if you still have it.”
“Well, then,” Miranda drawled. Recently, she had started doing that more and more, probably growing bored with Andy. All it did, though, was make her try harder to please Miranda, ignoring the way she was simultaneously growing resentful of her impossible demands. “How does it fit?” She jutted her chin at the garment bag thrown over Andy’s arm, hiding the dress inside.
Andy’s brows furrowed before she controlled them back into something neutral. “It’s—blue. White. The—um, that fits the cover, doesn’t it?” It came out more as a question, but with enough good luck, Miranda wasn’t going to notice that. “Pretty. Fitting.”
“And how does it fit you?”
“I am not on the cover, Miranda.”
“I didn’t ask if you were on the cover. I asked you how the dress fits you.” Miranda’s voice had lost the drawl, moving into the sharper, more dangerous syllables with ease. “So, how does it fit? Don’t tell me you got it without trying it on.”
Andy, who had never tried on anything she was buying for Miranda, definitely didn’t do that with the one dress in which seeing herself would hurt. She swallowed. “I didn’t put it on.”
Miranda clicked her tongue. “Well,” she said with a slow shrug that she somehow made seem graceful. Everything she did was graceful. “Do it now, then. I want to see how it drapes. The bathroom is on the left.”
Andy’s cheeks were on fire, Miranda blurring in and out of focus in front of her. She misheard. Miranda didn’t mean her. Miranda couldn’t mean her. “I—do you want me to call for Emily? Or Serena?”
“I want you to try it on,” Miranda clarified. She was toying with her glasses, one temple tip resting on her chin, not moving her gaze from Andy’s face.
“I—I’m sorry, Miranda,” she forced out when her throat stopped closing painfully, “but I—the dress is size zero. It’s going to fit Emily or some of the models. Not—well, I’m not exactly size zero, am I?”
Miranda’s face moved on from annoyed to displeased, her eyes cold enough to make a shiver creep up Andy’s spine. “Did I ask you to buy a dress for a model?”
Andy blinked at her, partially from confusion, mostly to get rid of the tears suddenly burning in her eyes. “No, Miranda, just—just to buy a fitting one.”
“And you bought one for a model instead.”
“Well, I mean, it does fit the cover—”
“That’s enough, Andrea,” Miranda interrupted her, and oh, this time she sounded close to being angry. “You’re dismissed. Leave the dress on the chair and go.”
Emily placed a briefcase on her desk with a heavy thump. “I don’t know what she’s expecting to do with it here,” she said, bracing her hands on her hips with a grimace. “But here we are.”
Andy tore her eyes from the notes she was organising. “What’s that?” she asked around the pen that somehow ended up between her teeth. “I mean,” she corrected herself, taking it out. “What’s that?”
Emily shrugged. “Some delivery of hers, don’t ask me. It’s heavy like someone put stones inside instead of whatever Miranda wanted. And then the next thing you know, she won’t be pleased with it, and I’ll be dragging it back while she moves on to the next whim.”
Andy stood up and walked around the desk to join Emily at hers. The briefcase had small silver latches on the sides, suspiciously pretty for how utilitarian the leather itself was. She opened her mouth, but before she could ask a question, the phone rang.
Emily lifted one finger and picked it up. “Miranda’s office,” she spoke, her voice back to that pleasant, polished tone with no hint of her earlier irritation. “Yes, we—yes, what’s your name again?”
Andy watched her lean over the desk to grab a pencil and scribble something on a post-it note. The briefcase called to her; all black, utilitarian except for these two silver latches, and apparently heavy. Interesting.
Miranda chose that exact moment to call out from her office, in the measured tone of hers, as always. Andy flinched at the sound, the smallest jerk, as if she was doing something illegal by being curious about the case’s insides. “Emily. The delivery.”
Emily waved her free hand at Andy, pointing with her chin first at the briefcase, then at Miranda’s office. She mouthed a go, her brows furrowing in that funny way they always did when she was annoyed, and then she turned her attention back to the phone pressed against her ear. A real issue, then.
Andy grabbed the briefcase—which was, in fact, heavier than she expected—and went.
Miranda was standing next to a bookshelf, her back turned to Andy. “Emily,” she greeted her. “What took you so long?”
Andy licked her lips, dry out of nowhere. “I’m sorry, Miranda,” she said, “Emily is on a call right now.”
Miranda turned around, her eyes moving down Andy’s body like they always did nowadays, checking if anything was out of place. “Andrea.”
“I have your briefcase,” Andy offered, lifting it up a bit. “Do you want me to put it on your desk, or—?”
“The desk is fine.”
Andy nodded eagerly. She stepped further into the room, placed the briefcase on the desk as quietly as possible, and then backed a step. Delivery done, her hair was tamed, no rain, her clothes good, and thus everything should be fine. Nothing to make an issue out of.
Miranda walked to the desk, though she kept her gaze trained on Andy. “Actually,” she mused, her eyes flicking down Andy’s face and then back up, “you could help me with something.”
Andy exhaled, hoping Miranda didn’t hear how it shook. “Of course, Miranda.”
Miranda hummed. She put her fingers on the latches and clicked them open. Her nails were painted nude, perfect like anything about her.
From where she was standing, Andy wasn’t able see the inside, just the lid, stark black against the white of Miranda’s desk and laptop on the side.
“Come here,” Miranda beckoned Andy close, not moving her eyes away from the briefcase. “Around the desk.”
Andy did. Her steps, despite the heels she was wearing, made no sound on the soft carpet. Her shoes, when she looked down at them, had a slight scuff next to the front, a contrast to Miranda’s flawless ones.
“For the Meisel photo shoot,” Miranda said as she reached inside the briefcase. “I am still debating the cuts.”
Andy’s eyes flickered to Miranda’s fingers, to the necklace held in them; a collier, sparkling in the definitely-not-photo-shoot light of the office. “Oh,” she breathed out before she could think better of it. “Oh, that’s beautiful.”
A corner of Miranda’s lips twitched. “It is,” she agreed. “It’s also rather specific, don’t you think?”
Andy nodded. The necklace, with its red stones (rubies? garnets?) set in gold looked like something taken right out of some gothic romance, with vampires living in castles, or with queens falling for their knights. Held under the light, it cast reflections against Miranda’s hands, vibrant red and white; Andy’s eyes snagged on them and refused to move despite knowing how obvious she was being.
Miranda’s gaze wasn’t focused on the stones as she hummed, but rather on Andy’s face, where it burned against the skin of her cheeks, making her uncomfortably self-conscious. “Turn around.”
Andy did so, closing her eyes; Miranda wouldn’t see it. It was fine. Normal work stuff. Miranda simply wanted to see the red against Andy’s hair. Didn’t one of Runway’s typical models have the same exact shade?
But there were Miranda’s hands in front of Andy’s body. Not just comparing the colour, but putting the necklace on her, the metal icy-cold against her overheating skin. Which didn’t make any sense, except that it did, kind of. Miranda wanted to see how it presented itself on a person before following with the photo shoot. It was all professional. All fine. Normal.
“Hair up.” Miranda’s voice came out strained, soft. “You have so much of it.”
Andy’s hands shook as she obeyed, moving the strands to the side to allow Miranda access. So much hair, yes, but also frizzy, and her bottom layers were probably starting to curl. It was a miracle Miranda didn’t comment on them again.
The touch, when it came, sent sparks down Andy’s body. Miranda’s fingers grazed the nape of her neck as she fumbled with the clasp; Andy forced herself to breathe through it, in and out, normal breaths, long breaths, deep ones. She was calm. The touch didn’t mean anything. Miranda was using her as a canvas to see the necklace on, nothing else. Andy was invisible for her. Wasn’t Miranda’s original choice Emily, changed to Andy only after Emily couldn’t come?
It didn’t mean anything.
Miranda closed the clasp, stepping back not a second later. Andy took one last breath before opening her eyes and turning around to face Miranda back again, the rubies sitting heavy in the hollow of her throat, the gold no longer cool.
Miranda’s only reaction was a soft exhale. No words, no pursed lips, no harsh comments or critique; just her chest moving as she breathed. Andy’s heart was pounding in her chest—when she glanced down for a moment, her heartbeat was visible under necklace’s centre stone, if one paid enough attention to it.
Miranda was looking right where it rested against Andy’s skin.
“Do you—” Andy started when breaking the silence became less uncomfortable than letting it grow further. “I mean. The necklace. Is it okay?”
Miranda hummed, dragging her eyes from the necklace to rest on Andy’s face instead. “It’s good,” she said, voice muffled. “Looks good.”
Andy’s mouth was dry. Her lips were dry, too; she licked them, but that did nothing to help. “That’s good,” she heard herself say. “That it’s good, I mean. It’s—it’s nice. I like it.”
She wanted to take it off, actually. It was as if the metal was burning her skin with reminding her about everything she couldn’t have, about being allowed proximity but not belonging, wearing beauty but not being seen as beautiful, being in fashion without being fashionable herself, not in the way Miranda was, or Emily, or any of the Runway’s workers. “I should—” she muttered, her fingers flying to the clasp on the necklace. It slipped between her sweaty fingers, too small to grab properly. “Shit.”
“Andrea—”
“No, it’s—you saw how it looks, it looks great, amazing even, but I should take it off and get back to work, there’s a lot of things that need to be done, so let me just—” Her fingers slipped again, uncoordinated, and she barely suppressed the urge to swear for the second time. Miranda was looking at her in silence, her right hand flexing, jaw set tight. “Just a moment more and I’ll have it off—”
“Or you could leave it,” Miranda interrupted her, with softness in her voice belying the tight expression she was wearing. Andy snorted under her breath. She rotated the collier on her neck, so that the clasp would sit in front of her neck, trying again with renewed vigour. She was so going to get it off.
“It’s Runway’s property, Miranda.”
“It’s a gift,” Miranda corrected. Andy nodded, not stopping her ministrations. She almost had it unclasped, just a bit more, just—and then it slipped again.
“A gift,” she confirmed. At least her voice was steady, even if her hands weren’t. “Sure, it’s a gift, who do you want me to send it to?”
In the silence that fell Emily, still on a phone in the other room, was audible. Andy slowly raised her head, looking straight into Miranda’s cold, displeased, maybe even a bit hurt, eyes.
“Oh,” she breathed out, realisation dawning. “God, don’t tell me—”
“What I want,” Miranda started, very slowly, “is for you to keep this necklace. As a gift for you. You look,” she swallowed, her gaze dipping lower to take in the jewels, “good in it. And I would like you to wear it, and not try to take it off and keep away, like you did with everything before. Not this time, Andrea.”
“But you can’t!” Andy protested, voice high with barely contained panic. “You weren’t—”
Miranda exhaled. She was standing so close to Andy, maybe three feet at most, but that distance had never felt greater.
“I was trying to express my interest, Andrea.” Miranda pressed fingers to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes for a moment. “The—the gifts. The attention. And you pushed all of that away, happy with yourself. Proud, even, with how you bought the dress in zero. I had Emily go back for it when it became clear you wouldn’t do it yourself. In four. And six. It was waiting for the right moment with you.”
The heart in Andy’s chest was pounding hard enough to make the room spinning, weird and dizzying, on par with the unsteady ground under her feet. “Miranda—”
“You were always so attuned. So perfect when it came to reading me, to predicting me, and yet, when I started being obvious, you couldn’t see a thing.”
“Because I couldn’t let myself hope you’d want me! The stupid little assistant, mistaking Miranda’s professional attention for personal interest. I’d have been a tale for years to come, don’t you see this?”
Miranda hummed. “So instead you did nothing.”
“So instead I bit my tongue and hoped you’d make the first move, except you didn’t, just started being more and more frustrated with me!” Andy tore her fingers from the necklace at last. Taking it off was impossible in this state.
Miranda’s eyes searched Andy’s face, her throat working. “Okay, then,” she said. Inhaled slowly; it shook slightly. “As clear as I can manage. I want to take you out on a date, Andrea. Anywhere you want. Are you willing?”
Andy closed her eyes, hiding from Miranda’s impossible blue to gather her thoughts. Her heartbeat was no longer frantic; just excitement left, akin the one she always felt at the top of a roller coaster, just before the dizzying, beautifully controlled fall.
And with Miranda communicating properly, Andy wasn’t opposed to falling. Not at all.
“Well, then,” she mused, meeting Miranda’s gaze squarely back. “Are you open to Chinese?”