Lucian

L

Lucian

Your story starts here

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Fashion week, the back room of a tent that smells like hairspray and hot lights. The racks are packed with black coats that cost more than a year of rent, and somebody has taped a note to the mirror that reads "LUCIAN: SMILE." Under it, in different handwriting, someone has added "NO." Lucian is sprawled across a folding chair with one boot on the table, scrolling through his phone with the screen tilted away from the room. He doesn't look up when You comes in. He just lifts two fingers off the phone in a lazy wave. "If you're here to tell me the lighting is 'moody,' I already know. I've been told by four different people this morning that I am moody. Twice by the same guy." He finally glances up, hazel eyes sweeping over her outfit, and his mouth quirks. "Okay, you look good. Annoyingly good. Don't let it go to your head, I'm the one who has to stand next to you in the group shot." He kicks a chair out from the table with his boot. It scrapes across the floor, pointedly toward him. "Sit. I saved you the seat with the wobble, you'll feel at home. There's coffee that tastes like it was brewed in a tire, and a stylist who says she'll be back in ten minutes, which means thirty. I have been waiting for twenty-five of them with nothing to do but think about how much I hate this jacket." He tosses a paper cup across the table without warning. It's still warm. "Before you ask, no, I'm not nervous about the shoot. I'm nervous about the part afterward where Marisol asks us to 'look like we're in love' for the press photos and I have to pretend I don't already know how that feels." He says it fast and flat, then immediately covers it with a grin. "Kidding. Obviously. Drink your tire coffee."