Chapter 1
Avery
I had waited my whole life to live in this moment. I had been invited to show at New York Fashion Week in June and I was about to sign a contract with Nordstrom for an exclusive line. My stuff was right where I wanted it to be, hip, mind-expanding, and socially conscious at a price point people could afford. I was in it! I thought nothing in the world was going to feel better than this until I watched my ex-roommate and best friend Kylie and her little son walk into the fundraiser with her dashing husband Alec the Billionaire. At least that’s what I liked to call him. I loved throwing that name around whenever I was with him because he hated it so much. Haha, payback for stealing our girl out from under us. Madison and I, the two roomies left standing in our Manhattan loft, often missed our beautiful former supermodel third Musketeer.
It was nice to see Kylie happy, but her happiness only reminded me that while I had a budding fashion brand and was finally getting noticed, it wasn’t much fun without someone to share it. Of course, I had a pile of friends, but they didn’t go home with me at night, well most didn’t, I had made a few mistakes. I wasn’t promiscuous, but I’d dabbled in a dashing guy here and there. We’d meet, become fast friends, eventually end up in bed and blah... that was it. Yeah, I finally learned my lesson when my ‘friend’ with benefits started taking liberties, like never going home, never doing the dishes when he loitered around our kitchen and drinking beer all day in his boxers. It was like we’d skipped the romance, wedding, honeymoon, and nesting, and went straight for the ‘I hate you, but I’m stuck with you phase.’ After I kicked my friend with benefits out the door I decided to give up on having sex with buddies.
I didn’t have much time for online dating, but when I did it was also hit or miss, mostly misses and the hits... well it was almost as hard to score a decent man as it was a good apartment on the Lower East Side. If he had all the perks and things you’d want in a human, non-battery powered date, you’d have to get in line with a hundred other maybes the guy would never choose. I had my fashion line and that was fun, but a lover who I could share my success with seemed to be avoiding me like I was a virus. So, when I saw Kylie waltz in wearing baby Elijah in a sling I had designed for her, I was both enamored and enraged, but I’d never let her know.
The evening’s event was one of our many fundraising functions for Every Dream, a foundation we’d created to help foster and homeless youth get off the streets and into a safe living space. We also set them up with mentors and dream makers who could help them accomplish the goals they wanted to achieve. We’d been up and running for over a year and the foundation was a success. Many of those we served were getting their lives together and some even found homes and families. It was rewarding work. The foundation had always been paired with my fashion brand, Flower Street. Some of the kids were models, others helped design the fashions; it was a great collaboration and the only time I got to see Kylie. This particular event was all mine. I was the one who had decided to hold it and orchestrate it to launch with my new Summer Collection. The color pallet was a mix of different greens and so everyone at the event was in some variation of green, as per the request on their invitation.
Kylie had practically ditched me and didn’t help much with the event, but I couldn’t fault her. She had just gotten married and only recently came back from her honeymoon. I was just happy to see her show up with her family all wearing green. I missed her. Madison, my roommate who worked on Wall Street as a trader was equally as busy, so she didn’t come. At least I lived with her, so we had our weekend routine. The St. Patrick’s Day party at Bar Dome was poppin’. Everyone who was anyone was there, including the Prince of Ireland, which made me laugh. Since when did Ireland have a prince? Maralis Gutierrez, Kylie’s former manager and our business partner, had arranged that he came to the event. Apparently, he and a posse of people were there as were several other notables and I gave myself a high five proud for pulling the party off.
“Ave!” Kylie yelled from across the room, shaking her arms. “Sorry we’re late,” she apologized with both Alec and Elijah glued to her as always; Alec on her arm and Elijah in his baby sling. “Elijah barfed all over me just as we got here, had to go back to the car and change.”
Her arms spread wide and we had a big hug that sandwiched the peacefully sleeping Elijah between us.
“Poor lil’ guy, hope he feels better.” I smoothed my hand over the baby’s head of soft fine hair.
“He’s fine, just eating too fast, little stinker. For a little fella who didn’t like to eat at first, he’s pretty greedy now,” she giggled.
“I’ll say,” Alec chimed in with an adoring gaze.
She was my best friend, so I didn’t want to feel sick with their gross display of domestic perfectness, but honestly... I totally wanted to barf.
“He’s getting so big; he was such a little nugget before.” Elijah had grown a lot since being born prematurely. “He’s grown like six feet since Wednesday.” I knew Kylie loved talking about the baby, so I almost always mentioned him first; that usually eased her into talking about other things.
“Haha, not that much, but I bet he’s gonna be as tall and handsome as his father one day,” she flashed a fawning glance at Alec and my stomach rolled again.
She wasn’t always so cheesy or in love, in fact, she had crafted this party girl facade for the media and was, for a minute, the most famous person in the world... almost. Then she got married last month and was slowly dropping out of the scene. She’d stopped modeling and focused all her energy on her family and our foundation. I’d watched her grow up right before my eyes. We’d known each other since Jr. High School and while she had become a wife, mother, and business maverick, I was still me, edgily opinionated, quick to laughter, quicker to temper. I’d taken a DNA test and found out I was an eighth Irish, so I started blaming my temper on my Irish roots. In fact, the reason why I was holding the charity event at Bar Dome in the Four Seasons Hotel on St. Patrick’s Day was to honor the patron saint of the Isles of my birth.
“Who knows?” I was already sick of the baby talk. “So, we’ve got this all underway. The fashion show starts in an hour, all green beer is on the house and the corned beef and hash dinner will be served shortly…”
“Wow, you have gone all out Irish for this.” Kylie flashed a big toothy grin, so I knew she was teasing me, but I didn’t care.
“Well you know, since I am Irish, this is sort of my day,” I boasted.
Kylie all out laughed. “Right, that tiny little blip on your DNA test,” she teased.
“Yes, the Irish are my people, my tribe,” I puffed up and boasted. “This is my holiday.”
Alec gave me one of his sexy but sinister glares. “You cannot be an eighth Irish and claim the country and its traditions for yourself.” He seemed to scold. “It’s called cultural appropriation. You must at least visit a country before you can claim it.” He laughed.
Alec and I had a love/hate kinda thing going on. I mostly loved him for Kylie’s sake. He had his moments where I really couldn’t deal with his big dominant personality, though. I was fiery and he set me ablaze on occasion. Since he was now kind of a brother-in-law, we had friendly banter that only seemed like we hated each other.
“No, I can be Irish and not visit the country. Hello... blood is thicker than jet fuel.” I glared at him.
“Come on you two, stand down.” Kylie waved an arm like a white flag while bouncing little Elijah gingerly in his sling.
“Well, Kylie, your husband obviously doesn’t know anything about being Irish. You guys wanna Green Guinness? They’re on the house,” I asked knowing Kylie would say no.
“I’m still breastfeeding. Honey?” She looked over at Alec.
“I’ll get something at the bar. You two probably want some time to catch up,” he said and walked away.
This made me smile. It was a rare treat to have a few minutes with her all to myself. Whenever we were in the office together it was all about work, so I dove right in.
“So how was the honeymoon?”
“It was amazing. Bali is so beautiful, and the people are lovely. I highly recommend it.” Her expression showed that her mind had drifted off to a delusionally euphoric place and my temper simmered. She was my bestie and now she was dreaming of exotic lands and most likely endless sex with her hot billionaire husband.
“Did you ever leave the bedroom?” I gave her an ‘are you kidding me’ smirk.
“We did,” she seemed to be defending herself. “Once or twice,” she whispered and giggled so as not to wake baby Elijah.
“Lucky,” I said.
She sensed a hint of envy. “You’ll find your man, I promise. I wasn’t looking when I found Alec, in fact, I was trying everything in my power to not find him. It’ll happen for you too.” She leaned in and gave me a hearty sideways hug. “Where’s Maddy? I don’t see her.”
“Working late,” I grumbled.
“Wow, this will be the first event she’s missed,” Kylie seemed surprised.
But the truth was the Three Musketeers as we used to call ourselves back in the day, we were growing up and growing apart. I had absolutely no desire to grow up ever. I watched as Madison and Kylie became sophisticated women and silently vowed to hold on to my quirky childishness until they laid me in a grave. I didn’t want a high-powered billionaire husband or a workaholic kind of office job. I liked the flexibility I had being a fashion designer. I worked hard, that’s for sure, but I wasn’t cooped up in some stuffy office or chained to a man.
“Yeah, it sucks.”
Just as I was about to pitch myself a pity party, I heard a loud ruckus behind me. A table of five or six men was laughing loudly and raising glasses of Green Guinness to each other. Each was wearing green as requested in the invite, so they were obviously there for the fundraiser, but they weren’t speaking English. Their language sounded Scottish or Irish, which wouldn’t be surprising given the holiday, but I couldn’t make out any of their words.
“Boy, they’re having fun,” Kylie noted.
“I wonder what language that is?” I strained to hear it better through their loud laughter.
“I think it’s Gaelic,” Kylie offered.
“Probably. The Prince of Ireland is here tonight,” I couldn’t help but giggle. “I’ve met him, he’s that older gentleman surrounded by his entourage in the corner. He did donate about one hundred thousand dollars to the event, so who am I to say Ireland doesn’t have a real monarchy?” I laughed a little harder.
“I’m sure they have a very nice little Kingdom there in Ireland,” Kylie teased as well as Alec came back with sparkling water for her and a tall glass of Scotch.
“So, Maralis just informed me that you have an interview in five minutes over by the water fountain.” He lovingly put his hand around her waist, and I did my best to contain my cringing.
“Yeah, it’s for a blurb in Vogue, nothing intrusive, I’ve already given mine,” I confessed forgetting Maralis had set up some publicity coverage for the event.
“No worries. We’ll catch up with you later, Avery.” And with that Alec escorted Kylie toward the cameras and I was left alone.
Actually, I felt alone even when I was with her. I decided I could either wallow in self-pity, drink myself under the table flirting and hobnobbing with people I didn’t know, or I could go out on a limb and approach that table of hot men speaking like aliens. They were already having another round of drinks and they looked fun. This was my party, so why not mingle a little?
