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Amari feels like she’s falling for him. It’s completely silly and makes no sense - they’ve only been together for a few months; it’s too early to be getting carried away with these feelings. But still, it seems to be happening. She would never have believed before that she’d go on a date with a bespectacled guy who doesn’t know how to dress and is even shorter than she is on heels, and yet… He turned out to be sweet and kind; he looked at her as if the sun rose and set on her; he hugged her as if he were holding the most precious treasure. And he’s so handsome, too! And maybe the fact that he doesn’t realize how attractive he is makes him even more handsome - though that would seem impossible. He’s unexpectedly muscular, has a bit of sexy stubble, and the most beautiful hazel eyes. Oh God. . . She really is in love with him.
Of course, she won’t be the first to tell him - she still has a shred of pride left, and yet… Does she actually miss him?
This is absurd! They woke up in the same bed just a couple of hours ago; she’s not some clingy girl who can’t go a few hours without her boyfriend!
And yet she’s scrolling through her phone, looking at their messages from yesterday.
“Sorry, I’m afraid I’ll be stuck at work and won’t make it to dinner 😪” she wrote when Miranda organized yet another impromptu meeting at 7 p.m.
“Don’t worry! How do you feel about takeout? I can get a salad from that Italian restaurant you liked last week?”
“That would be great”
She didn’t get home until just after 9 p.m.; she’d had an extremely rough day and just wanted to take a quick shower and go to bed. She had almost forgotten that Henry was waiting for her at home. But he met her with a smile, as if seeing her exhausted and worn out from work was the best thing that could have happened to him tonight. He hugged her the way he always did, wrapping his muscular arms around her shoulders and letting her burrow into him. He put that same Italian salad on a plate, ran her a warm bath, and then simply lay down on his side of the bed (yes, he already had his side of the bed), starting to read some article in his insanely sexy round glasses.
She lay down next to him, resting her head on his chest, and Henry left a chaste kiss on her temple and turned off the light so as not to disturb her sleep. Perhaps it was that night that she fell in love with him. Or perhaps it happened much earlier, because an evening like this… It wasn’t anything unusual; it was Henry.
Sweet, kind Henry, with whom she had fallen head over heels in love.
Her phone vibrates, and Amari immediately checks the incoming message:
“It turns out I have a meeting with a sponsor in the building right next to your office this afternoon - would you like to grab lunch together?”
She can’t help but smile. He misses her too.
“Sure, why not. I have a meeting until 1 p.m., and then I’ll have half an hour for lunch.”
One of the many perks of her promotion is that she now has a full half hour for lunch, which she’ll spend meeting with the most handsome and sexy man in this city.
***
Henry is absolutely happy. He woke up in the arms of a wonderful woman, and now he’s taking her out to lunch. Of course, it’s not the perfect date he planned yesterday before she had to stay late at work, but he’ll see her this afternoon and then again tonight, which means it’s a wonderful day. Maybe he fibbed a little when he said that his meeting was right next to her office - but what’s a half-hour commute if it means he gets to spend time with her?
He walks into the Runway office. Henry has been here a few times before, so he heads for the elevators as soon as the security guard confirms that Miss Amari Mari has issued him a temporary pass.
The elevator doors are almost closed when he jumps up and stops them with his hand so he can rush in. Inside the elevator stands a woman in a fur coat and sunglasses, looking at him as if he’d just killed someone. Henry shrinks a little under her gaze, but still manages to force a smile. He wants to select the right floor, but sees that the button has already been pressed.
“Oh, are you going to "Runway" too?” he asks, trying to be friendly.
The woman lowers her sunglasses slightly and sizes him up from head to toe. Henry cringes. He knows he probably doesn’t fit in well with the “Runway” crowd in his wrinkled plaid shirt, but this is the first time a woman has made him feel uncomfortable about it.
“If you’re here to get something fixed, you need to go downstairs,” she says dismissively, putting her glasses back on.
“Oh, no, no,” Henry smiles, “my girlfriend works here; we’re going to lunch.”
And he can’t help but smile as he says “my girlfriend.” Because Amari Mari, the most beautiful woman on the planet, really is his girlfriend.
The woman gives him an even more critical look, as if she were appraising a cut of meat at a butcher shop.
“Your girlfriend? Does she work here?”
“Amari Mari,” Henry continues to smile and adds proudly, “She’s an assistant editor.”
“I don’t know her,” the woman replies, and the elevator doors finally open on the right floor.
A chubby guy in glasses immediately runs up to the woman and starts talking to her rapidly, and Henry watches them go, shrugging his shoulders. There was something extremely frightening about this woman.
***
Amari finishes her meeting, but as soon as she steps out of the office, Nigel calls out to her.
“Amari, come in for a moment, please.”
“Yes, of course,” she says with a brief, professional smile and walks into the office, where Miranda is sitting alongside Nigel.
“Miranda,” she greets her politely, but Miranda merely makes an ambiguous gesture with her hand - one that could be interpreted either as a greeting or as a request to skip the greetings and get straight to business.
“We’ll need to replace the jackets for the shoot this Friday,” Nigel says. “It turns out Dior is having some issues with their designer, and they’ll pull the ad spread this month if we feature his work in our issue.”
Amari sighs heavily. This is bad. This is very bad. Not only were the jackets really worth it, but finding something new and shooting them in the week left before the magazine goes to press will be extremely problematic.
“Maybe we could try to negotiate an ad spread with someone else?” she asks. “Dior isn’t threatening to pull the contract entirely, is it?”
“It’s unlikely we’ll find someone for the same money and shoot an entire ad campaign with them,” Nigel shakes his head.
Amari thinks it over. Well, if Dior is still on board, we need to change the jackets… Ideas for spreads that were rejected at the first planning meetings immediately flash through her mind. Maybe there was something worthwhile in there that could be brought back? Nigel seems to be thinking the same thing, because he immediately starts recalling the accessories they’d wanted to shoot in a grunge style but had rejected. Amari sighs. Why couldn’t Dior have dropped this on them in an hour ? Is she asking for too much? Just a quick lunch with Henry, who’s already waiting for her at the office entrance. Does she really have to text him again and cancel everything at the last minute? She wonders how much patience he has left? He’s being sweet and understanding today, but even the sweetest, most understanding person will run out of patience sooner or later… Maybe she could slip out of her office for a couple of minutes to at least tell him about this in person? And maybe kiss him before she leaves… God, she needs to do something about her feelings urgently, this is getting out of hand.
“What do you think, Amari?” Nigel asks, bringing her back to reality.
“I think I can arrange it,” she nods. “I’ll make a couple of calls right now and keep you posted.”
“That can wait,” Miranda says quietly, and Amari and Nigel immediately turn to look at her in confusion.
“What? Do you think we should do something else? We had contacts with the designer who made those white dresses…”
“No, no, you have a lunch break, and then you’ll work on the accessories.”
"But…" Amari was so shocked by her words that she didn’t even know how to respond. Miranda Priestly? Letting her go for lunch? In the middle of a serious work crisis? Maybe a meteorite had fallen on the city while she was in a meeting?
"If I’m not mistaken, a certain gentleman is waiting for you?"
"Henry? How did you…?"
"You need to remember that I know absolutely everything that goes on in this office," Miranda says without looking up from the page of the magazine she’s reading. "You have twenty-five minutes left, and I think the whole city will be grateful if you spend them buying him a new shirt."
Amari can’t help but smile.
“Thank you! And I’ll take care of the accessories as soon as I get back!”
Miranda makes another vague wave of her hand, which Amari interprets as “get out before I change my mind,” and happily follows that advice.
She walks toward the elevators, where she spots Henry. He’s standing in front of a black-and-white photo of a model, studying it intently.
“Henry?” she calls out. He turns around, and his face immediately lights up with a broad smile. “Sorry, I got held up a bit.”
“No problem,” he says, stepping closer. "I’m glad to see you.
“Tell me,” Amari says as he comes right up close and she adjusts his glasses - not that they’re crooked, she just really wants to touch him, and she doesn’t want to be too obvious about it. “How does Miranda Priestly know you?”
“Miranda Priestly?” His face is a blank. “Your boss, right? I don’t know, what did she say about me?”
“She let me go to lunch even though we had a pretty serious problem come up, and said a certain gentleman was waiting for me.” “And she suggested you buy a new shirt,” she adds, and suddenly a look of realization spreads across Henry’s face.
“Black glasses, short white hair? That scary woman I rode the elevator with - is she your Miranda?”
“You rode the elevator with her?” Amari realizes that genuine horror is in her voice, but she knows she can hardly control it.
"Yeah… why not?" Henry asks, sliding his hand around her waist to pull her into a half-embrace.
"Tell me exactly what she said!"
"Okay," Henry doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on at all, but he answers honestly. "She looked at me, asked if I’d come to fix something, and if so, I needed to go downstairs, and I said I’d come to see my girlfriend, who works at Runway. She didn’t seem to believe me, so I said your name is Amari Mari and you’re the editor. And for some reason, she said she didn’t know you…" he stumbles slightly on the last sentence, but Amari soothingly runs her hand over his collar.
“Don’t worry about it. Miranda knows absolutely everyone who’s ever worked at Runway; she just doesn’t show it.”
Henry raises his eyebrows in confusion.
“I think she has some pretty strange ideas about a healthy work environment,” He says, and she stifles a smile. “What would you like for lunch? I haven’t had time to think of anything - maybe we could go to the coffee shop across from your office? What do you think? Unless, of course, you’d rather spend your lunch break helping me change my shirt?” He adds jokingly. "What’s wrong with it anyway?"
Amari looks at him, at his rumpled plaid shirt, at his round glasses, and she likes the way he looks - she really does - she wouldn’t want him to look any other way.
She knows perfectly well that his meeting wasn’t in the building next door at all, and that he came because he wanted to see her, and during his conversation with one of the most influential women in the world, he couldn’t hold out for even thirty seconds without calling her his girlfriend.
“I love you,” she blurts out, not immediately realizing she’s saying it out loud.
Once the words are out, there’s no taking them back, and Amari holds her breath for a moment, though not a single muscle in her face betrays the fact that a real panic is unfolding inside her. She doesn’t immediately notice that she’s fiddling with her green Tiffany bracelet on her wrist until Henry takes her hand and smiles one of his most tender smiles.
“I love you too.”
“Really?” she asks, hating herself for how uncertain it sounds.
“And for a very long time,” Henry smiles and finally — finally — kisses her on the lips.
Amari wraps her arms around his neck, passionately returning the kiss, but suddenly breaks away and steps back slightly to ask.
“A very long time? How long is that?”
Henry laughs out loud, making no attempt to hide the sheer happiness on his face, and after stealing another quick kiss, replies:
“Remember a few months ago when you were directing a photo shoot at my museum? And you came up to me and said I needed to move the Tyrannosaurus skeleton right away?”
His eyes twinkle with amusement, and she can’t help but smile back; she’s always loved reminiscing about their first meeting.
“Yeah, I seem to recall something like that,” she replies mischievously.
“That’s exactly when I fell in love with you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Probably,” Henry replies, “because you’re braver than I am.”
And he pulls her into a passionate kiss again, and Amari responds, thinking to herself that he’s probably right — after all, she works with Miranda Priestly every day; you have to be brave here.