“I’m ready for you,” I hear Chase tell Kenan.
I’m glad one of us is.
JP has averted the crisis with the silk shipment and looks like a pleasant, reasonable man again. We’re talking through a few things we’ll probably work on when we get back to the office when Kenan walks in.
I chose well. The cool green pops against his skin. He’s the portrait of rugged, beautiful masculinity, but once the shoot actually starts, it looks like we caught him in the middle of a root canal. None of the coaxing, coaching, and cajoling Chase typically uses to get the best out of a subject is working on Kenan.
I roll my hips to the heavy beat pouring through the speakers and wonder if this will be a waste of time because the compelling force of Kenan’s personality doesn’t translate.
The beat.
It’s “Bad and Bouje” by Migos.
Mumble, mumble, mumble.
“Hey, JP,” I whisper. “What do you think?”
“It’s not . . . working,” he says, panic in his voice. “And I need to know we have someone locked down for this. He’s much stiffer than I thought he would be, but I still love those arms.”
“Mind if I try something that might help him relax a little?”
“Is it sex?” He widens his eyes and squeezes my hand reassuringly. “I’ll make everyone leave the room if you need privacy.”
“No, it’s not sex,” I say, trying to sound appropriately outraged instead of hella turned on. “Let me try something.”
“It can’t hurt,” JP says, watching as Kenan looks pained going through the poses and expressions Chase requests. I tiptoe over to the sound system and flip through what’s available until I find a song that might work.
At the first notes of “PYT,” the tension leaves Kenan’s shoulders. The longer the song goes, the better he looks, the easier it seems to come to him.
“You’re a miracle worker,” JP says, delight all over his face as he watches Kenan. “He looks great, doesn’t he?”
I hazard a glance at our subject, only to find him already watching me and smiling. I don’t read lips, so it takes me a little bit to decipher the message he mouths to me, but I finally get it.
“Thanks, PYT.”
8
Kenan
So this is an atelier.
I step off the elevator and into the small entrance of JPL Maison. Just past the lobby, I enter a beehive. Women—a dozen shapes, sizes, colors—swarm through an open space stuffed with sewing machines and tables sporting large blades. Some cut fabric with surgical precision. The space, with its sterile white walls and neutral floors, is punctuated with vibrant pops of color from fabric in all kinds of patterns and textures. A forest of those headless, armless mannequin things huddles at the far end of the room. Tall bolts of fabric are propped up against the walls and fill the corners. Shelves suspended overhead are crammed with containers of buttons, zippers, hooks, and all kinds of things I’ve never needed to know the names for.
It’s a beehive, and I’m looking for the queen.
“Kenan!” JP calls down from the floor above. “Up here!”
Found him.
The seamstresses’ stares make me feel like the last male on the planet, but I ignore the curious looks and take the stairs to the next floor where JP waits with a welcoming smile. His lips are coming at me, but I put up a hand.
“I don’t do air kisses, JP.”
“Oui, oui.” He laughs and waves me into a glass-walled conference room. “Come see the watches I have for you.”
Another man, I think the CEO, if I remember correctly, sits at the long slate table. He and the redhead from the party, Billie, have their heads together and are deep in what looks to be an intense conversation.
“Paul,” JP says, his eyes speculative on the couple. I assume they’re a couple. There’s something intimate about their interaction, but when Paul puts his hand forth to shake mine, I notice his wedding band. Billie’s not wearing one. He and Bridget might have a lot in common. A flush rises on Billie’s cheeks, and I remember seeing her with Lotus. They seemed friendly that night.