My third look hits the runway and I can hear it again, that intake of breath from the crowd. The director wasn’t lying. The models they put in my looks move like they were grown in a lab for this.
“Final two,” the coordinator says at my shoulder. “You’re killing it, by the way.”
“I might throw up,” I say.
She pats my arm. “Do it after the finale.”
“Okay,” is all I can say, torn between being glad my work is finally out there and my heart sinking with each second. Because he’s. Not. Here.
The penultimate look goes. The music shifts again, building. My closer is the tux I’ve been fussing over. It took blood, sweat, and tears to finish, and even though I made it for Dominic, I’m just happy real people will see it.
And they pulled a celebrity for it, apparently.
Somewhere off in the opposite wing, there’s movement. I catch glimpses in reflections and gaps between racks: a broad back in my jacket in a strip of mirror,just for a second, before someone steps in front of my line of sight.
“Closer in thirty,” the caller says into her headset.
“Who is it?” I ask the coordinator, a last desperate try. “Come on. Give me a hint. Initials. Instagram handle.”
She just smiles, her eyes on the runway.
“Please?” I try again.
“You’re about to find out.”
The second-to-last model comes off the runway, high on adrenaline.
“Final look to doors,” the caller says. “And… go.”
I look up at the monitor.
A figure steps into the mouth of the runway. At first, my brain goes clinical on me, like I’m critiquing someone else’s show. The tux fits like it was pinned directly on the body, not adjusted after. The shoulders fill the jacket perfectly, the waist nips in where I drafted the pattern to hug. The trousers fall in a clean line over polished shoes, no pooling, no break.
Good walk, I think numbly. Strong presence. Whoever he is, he wears it perfectly.
Then the camera angle shifts and the light catches his face. My heart drops to my feet. I feel like I’m freefalling off a skyscraper.
That’s not “whoever.”
That’s Dom.
For a second, the world genuinely loses sound. The clatter backstage, the bass, the voices in headsets—everything gets sucked out of the room like someone opened a door to space.
It’s him.
Dominic Moreal walking down a fashion runway in my tuxedo. My tuxedo that I made for him. My knees actually go weak. I grab a fistful of curtain before I humiliate myself and hit the floor.
He looks unreal. Six-feet-seven of sin in black and red, moving with that contained, coiled power he always carries. Chin up, jaw set, eyes locked ahead. He’s not trying to model. He’s just existing, and the clothes rise to meet him.
The room reacts before I can. The crowd noise spikes, sharp and bright. Phones shoot up like a synchronized flock. Even through the monitor’stiny speakers, I can hear the pitch of the applause change—higher and stunned.
My heart is in my throat, my chest, my fingertips. Every inch of him on that screen is familiar and completely foreign at the same time. That’s the body I’ve had pinned under, the mouth that’s been on my skin, the hands that touch me everywhere.
He’s here.
He keeps walking, unbothered by the chaos he’s causing. Each step is steady, heavy with purpose. The tux moves like it was built to follow his muscles, swallowing the runway with him.
I feel sick. I feel euphoric.
