Time Is Money
Alex
I was supposed to be pissed about my client being damn near an hour late.
Instead, I was watching Roe.
I’d come in two hours ahead of schedule to set up the shoot for Cherry Harris, a spoiled little something who wanted me to capture her for her Luxe Life Baddie-themed senior pictures.
A little cliché if you asked me, but she was young.
A lot of these girls were obsessed with the lifestyles they saw on social media. Everybody wanted to look rich, booked and unbothered. Project some version of themselves that didn’t really exist.
Whatever.
Her money spent the same.
I leaned against a concrete pillar and watched Roe move around the loft.
She didn’t just set a stage.
She curated it.
While I’d been pacing the perimeter, checking my watch and watching the sad-ass rain turn the city gray, Roe had been a silent whirlwind of silk, cashmere and fur.
She draped a cream-colored throw over the edge of a mid-century modern chair and let it spill naturally onto the polished concrete floor. Shifted it once. Stepped back. Shifted it again.
Then left it alone.
She knew exactly where the little bit of natural light that survived the storm would hit the textures.
I’d told her I wanted the set to feel expensive but effortless.
Roe responded by making the damn air in the loft feel like an investment.
That was her, though.
Quiet.
Intentional.
Everything about her seemed considered without looking rehearsed.
Fitted slacks. Lightweight tops. Earth tones. Minimal jewelry. Nothing loud.
She didn’t need loud.
Some days she wore her hair in a little top bun like she couldn’t be bothered. Other days, bone-straight layers fell past her shoulders and framed a face entirely too composed for somebody whose résumé had randomly landed in my inbox through ZipRecruiter.
Because that was the thing about Roe.
She looked like money.
Not flashy, look at me money.
Old money.
Educated money.
The kind that knew exactly where it was going and didn’t need to announce the destination.
Her résumé had made me curious before I ever met her.
Overqualified didn’t begin to cover it.
A woman like Roe clearly didn’t need this job.
Which only made me wonder why she’d applied for it.
Then she’d speak.
Lord.
Roe was well-spoken in a way that made you suddenly aware of your own mouth.
Made you enunciate.
Sit a little straighter.
Reconsider the lazy-ass sentence you were about to let come out.
Polished.
Precise.
Controlled.
Maybe that was what intrigued me most.
The control.
Because every now and then, I’d catch something underneath it.
Something warmer.
Softer.
Something she’d tucked underneath the pressed slacks, neat hair, measured words and that unbothered little stare.
I wanted to know what it took to make Roe forget herself for a while.
Not break her.
Nah.
Relax her.
See what happened when she stopped holding every piece of herself so damn carefully.
I had a feeling there was another woman underneath all that restraint.
And judging by those eyes?
She’d been keeping her hidden for a very long time.
She’s a Virgo.
Had to be.
Grounded. Precise. Particular.
And somehow luxurious without even trying.
Roe was the kind of woman who made you wonder what she’d be like if she ever gave herself permission to stop holding everything together.
