By the time he stepped out onto the street, Desmond was already typing a reply.
“Greenwich is right across the river from me. Do you get a lunch break? I can meet you there.”
A second text came through right after the first.
“If that’s not breaking our weekend only rule.”
Javier smiled so widely that the people walking on the sidewalk around him probably thought he was high.
“I think we can dispense with rules in this case,” he typed back. “I’ll probably get a lunch break around noon. I’ll text you the address.”
As he did just that, he felt marginally better. There was no way he was going to follow Maisy’s repeated suggestion by asking Desmond for money, and he wasn’t going to dump the entire emotional burden of his failing dream on the man either, but it would do him a world of good to sit across some café table from the man he secretly loved on more than just Saturdays and Sundays, if only for a handful of minutes.
It didn’t take him long to get to the nearest train station, and from there to navigate to the right Thameslink line to get him to Greenwich. He’d just sat down on the train when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Grinning, he pulled it out, expecting to hear Desmond’s voice asking him some question or another. Instead, the name Ryan Hawthorne stared back at him from the screen.
“Hello?” he answered, wondering why on earth his designer friend would be calling him on a Friday morning.
“Hey, Javier,” Ryan greeted him. The tight, almost hesitant note in his friend’s voice did nothing to put Javier at ease. “Can you talk?”
“I’m on a train heading to Greenwich, but I guess so,” he said.
“Okay.” Ryan blew out a breath. “I wasn’t even sure I should call you about this, but I just heard something that I wanted to pass along.”
Dread filled Javier’s stomach, and he braced himself as if the train was about to crash. “I hope what you’ve heard is that you and a collective of international design superstars want to hire talent from my agency for an upcoming show,” he said, trying to joke, even though he was deadly serious.
“I wish,” Ryan said. Javier winced even before he went on with, “I wanted to let you know that there are rumors making the rounds about your agency.”
“What kind of rumors?” Javier asked, feeling sick.
“That your mission of non-exploitation is a cover for some pretty shady dealings. That you’re pocketing more money than you’re reporting or paying your talent. That models are leaving because you’re harassing them.”
Javier pressed a hand to his mouth, possibly because he might throw up, but also to tamp down the gut reaction to burst into tears that ripped through him.
“Ryan. You know me well enough to know none of those things are true,” he said.
“Of course I do,” Ryan said with enough energy to prove to Javier that he meant it. “I’ve told everyone who’s spread that shit my way that it’s all lies. You’re creating something special and unique in our industry, and you should be celebrated for it, not subjected to this kind of rubbish.”
“Everyone? As in you’re getting this from more places than just one?” Javier asked.
He just barely heard Ryan sigh over the rattle of the train as it neared the stop for Greenwich. “There’s a lot of shit out there.”
It was beyond Javier’s worst nightmare. He’d fought so hard to build a name and a reputation for himself in the fashion world. As far as he knew, he’d never crossed anyone or given anyone reason to turn against him. But at the same time, he knew his world, like most of the rest of the world at large, ran on a steady diet of gossip and drama. If someone somewhere was determined to stir the pot, the pot would be stirred.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said dejectedly as he stepped off the train and followed the herd to the exit.
“I’ll keep telling everyone I come across that this whole thing is nonsense and that you have more integrity than the rest of this business put together,” Ryan said as Javier made his way out of the station and toward the building where the industrial film was shooting. “And if I hear anything about how these rumors got started, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, mate,” Javier said, added a few goodbyes, then ended the call.
As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he shook his head. His dream business was crumbling, and now someone out there had it in for him. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the Universe was against him.
Except that same Universe had given him Desmond.
It was a small but powerful thing to hold onto, and Javier was determined to appreciate that small miracle as much as he could for as long as possible.
ten
. . .
