Chapter 15: The Call Back
The frantic rhythm shattered into stillness. Y/n pulled out, the sudden separation feeling colder than it should have, and rolled onto her back. The ceiling was smooth, white, featureless. A blank screen for every stupid thought now racing through her head. Calvin Klein. Model. A test shoot. Each word landed in her gut like a stone.
The mattress dipped as Margot turned toward her. For a long minute, there was only the sound of their breathing slowly returning to normal. Then, Margot’s fingers found the hard plane of Y/n’s abdomen, tracing the lines of muscle there, following the trail of dark hair that led downward. Her touch was light, grounding.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Margot said, her voice scraped raw. “You don’t have to decide at all.”
Y/n stared upward, her throat tight. She caught Margot’s wandering hand, brought it to her mouth, and pressed a kiss into the center of her palm. The skin smelled like salt and them.
“I know,” Y/n said, her voice low. “But I want to. With you.”
It was the clearest thing in the room. The offer was a grenade, but Margot was the one who’d handed it to her. She needed to know where they stood before she could even look at the thing.
The silence stretched, but it was different now. It had shape. It was the space where a decision had to grow.
Outside, the city was fully awake. A siren wound its way through the canyons of buildings, distant and mournful. The scent of jasmine from some hidden diffuser was suddenly cloying. Y/n focused on the weight of Margot’s hand in hers.
“If I do this…” Y/n began, the words forming slowly, like she was pulling them from deep water. “I can’t… I won’t be some puppet they trot out for diversity points. I’ve spent my whole life building myself out of real things. Concrete. Rebar. Sweat. This…” She gestured vaguely at the air, at the invisible world of offers and images. “This feels like smoke.”
Margot was quiet, listening. She didn’t jump in with a pep talk. She just waited, her blue eyes fixed on Y/n’s profile.
Y/n turned her head to look at her. “If I do this, I need you there. Not as my… handler. Not as the famous actress showing the new girl the ropes.” She swallowed. “As my person. The one who reminds me what real things smell like when all I can breathe is flashbulbs and bullshit.”
Margot’s breath hitched. Her eyes shimmered, welling up instantly. She blinked, and a single tear tracked through the faint freckles on her temple, disappearing into her hairline. She didn’t brush it away.
She nodded, a sharp, definitive movement. “Yes.” It wasn’t a whisper. It was a vow.
Then she was moving, surging up and pulling Y/n into her, arms wrapping around her shoulders, holding on so tight it was almost painful. Y/n buried her face in the crook of Margot’s neck, inhaling the sweat and sweetness there, the only truth that mattered in this moment. Margot’s body shook against hers, a silent sob of relief or fear or something too big to name.
The morning light, now a hard, clear gold, spilled across the tangled duvet, over the curves of their bodies locked together. It illuminated the dust motes dancing in the air, the forgotten whiskey glass, the ghost of their fingerprints on the window. For a single, suspended heartbeat, the future didn’t feel like an abyss or a trap. It felt like a faint, distant path they could maybe walk together, if they held on tight enough.
Margot finally loosened her grip, pulling back just enough to look at Y/n. Her cheeks were wet, but her mouth was set in a wobbly, determined line. “So what’s step one, tough stuff?”
A laugh, rough and unexpected, escaped Y/n’s chest. “Step one is I need coffee. The kind that tastes like it could strip paint.”
“I can do that.” Margot brushed her thumb under Y/n’s eye. “And step two?”
Y/n looked toward the nightstand, where Margot’s phone lay dark and silent. “Step two is you call Leo back. Tell him I’ll hear their pitch. But they come here. To my city. I’m not going to them.”
A slow, proud smile spread across Margot’s face. “Hell yeah, you aren’t.”
She didn’t get up to make the call. Not yet. She slid back down, fitting herself against Y/n’s side, head on her shoulder, leg thrown over hers. They lay there as the sun climbed, listening to the building come alive around them—the faint thump of a stereo somewhere below, the distant whir of an elevator. The grenade was still in the room, but for now, they were just two women in a bed, building a temporary fortress out of silence and skin, gathering strength for whatever came through the door next.