A true friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good ...
Dressed comfortably in a pair of black leggings and an oversized cashmere top, Gabrielle flitted throughout her little flat as she prepared for her guest. Since meeting Mira at Corner Records a few years ago, the two women had cultivated a friendship. She made an effort to meet with the brunette for drinks and other such things whenever she was in London.
It was nice having a girlfriend, she’d decided. Growing up, she’d had friends but none that were truly considered a ‘best’ friend. Fleur was her sister, and Gabrielle loved her, but her sister had other things to deal with -- things such as a husband who was out of the country at least once a month, leaving Fleur with three children under the age of six. Mira had been an unexpected surprise, but Gabrielle treasured her friendship.
Summoning the bottle of macarons she’d procured from Laudrée, she pulled the bottle of brachetto d’acqui she’d brought back from Milan out of the icebox and set it on the counter. Sweets, wine, and a night with a girlfriend. It sounded like a perfect evening.
Mira knocked on Gabrielle’s door two minutes before she was expected to arrive.
She’d thought about snagging a bottle of wine, but had thought better at the last minute. Gabrielle knew more about wines than she did anyway; when they went out the blonde chose their refreshments, and when they stayed in she always had something exotic and delicious to share. Mira didn’t know enough about wine to select a suitable one anyway.
She was excited to see her friend. Their first meeting had been serendipitous and their friendship hadn’t seemed likely to grow given their schedules and vastly different interests. But it did work, and their friendship did grow. Mira suspected it had much to do with her twin getting married. Despite having more acquaintances than all her sisters combined, she’d never developed any close relationships outside her family. Mira hadn’t felt the desire. She’d had her twin, after all. When Cassie had gotten engaged and then married, pregnant shortly thereafter, however, Mira had been forced out of her comfort zone. She could either mope, or move forward.
She’d never been one to mope.
And so she’d moved into a tiny flat to live on her own in London and was studying hard to finish her degree. Instead of inflicting her presence on her twin and her new, tiny family incessantly, Mira kept herself busy with her studies and she spent more time with friends, Gabrielle in particular the last year or so. She’d just finished with midterms and spending her week off from school in Paris with Alexa, so it’d been longer than usual since she’d last caught up with her friend. She was looking forward to hearing the latest.
When the door swung open, she grinned at the taller blonde. “Salut, friend person,” she greeted.
“Salut, Mirabelle,” Gabrielle replied with a matching grin, the nickname she’d coined for the brunette rolling off her tongue as she leaned in to brush twin kisses over Mira’s cheeks. “Eet ‘as been far too long, but we are both to blame, non?” She ushered her friend into her flat with a wave of her hand.
“Midterms for me and probably preoccupation in the form of a handsome man for you,” Mira confirmed as she followed the willowy blonde into her home. “Someone obviously needs to sort out her priorities.”
Gabrielle’s nose crinkled. “Oui, bien sûr, I am seeing no need for these... midterms.” She giggled at the look on her friend’s face, sinking down onto the sofa and summoning two empty wine glasses. “These are priorities needing sorting out, non?”
“If you mean that wine should come before everything else, then yes, you’re quite right. And very wise,” she added sagely. She watched the blonde pour with interest. “You know, I never much cared for wine before, but I’ve found it suits me just fine since meeting you.”
The blonde nodded sagely. “Eet ees an acquired taste for many Eenglish, I ‘ave seen. Eef you are not growing up with eet at the table, eet can be strong and unpleasant. But there ees a wine for every palate, I ‘ave found.” She handed a glass of the light red bubbly wine to her friend. “This is braccheto d’aqui. Eet ees an Italian wine. They do not do wine as well as the French, bien sûr, but eet ees still quite nice.”
“I trust whatever you give me will taste good. Nothing I pick up for myself is ever half as tasty,” Mira said, grin impish as she accepted the glass given her. She sampled the drink and enjoyed the palette of flavors. She hummed her appreciation as she settled more comfortably into the cushions of Gabrielle’s sofa.
“So tell me about what you’ve been up to. What you’ve been up to with your handsome lawyer?” she asked, brows waggling.
The other woman’s lips curled in a satisfied little smile. “Oh, we ‘ave been ‘up’ to many things. And down, too. Other places also.” She winked at Mira and took a sip of her own wine. It had taken time for Neil to move their relationship to a physical level, but looking back, she could see his reasoning. They had been making up for lost time ever since. “Tonight, I am telling ‘im ‘e must do something on ‘is own, donc. Per’aps visit ‘is brother or something -- I am ‘aving time to spend with Mira.”
“Aww,” Mira drawled, blue eyes merry. “You love me enough to interrupt your healthy sex life. That’s more than my own sisters have done in the past.”
Men, Mira found, were time sucks. She liked Cassie’s husband, and she got on well with Gabrielle’s beau too. As much she approved of them, however, didn’t negate the fact that they were thieves. They stole away her sisters and friends. But even then she couldn’t find it in herself to get into a proper strop the way her twin would. The women she loved and cared about most were happy, and that was really all that mattered.
Gabrielle giggled. “Oui, and Neil is interrupting ‘is brother’s sex life.” The idea of that was enough to make her laugh again. “But you are ‘aving a niece now, non? ‘Ow ees she... Elle s’appelle Madeline, oui?” If her math was correct, Mira’s niece was only a few months older than Marianne.
Mira couldn't help but snicker along with Gabrielle. She'd shared a house with Graham Pritchard, and while he'd been a few years older than her, she remembered him well, both because he'd been such a shameless flirt and because he and his loud Hufflepuff shadow had always been causing scenes. From what she'd learned from Gabrielle, not much had changed save for the fact the two were now married.
She nodded at her friend's inquiries as her giggles dissipated. "Yes, they named her Madeline, though Stephen and Cass have already taken to calling her 'Maddy'. And I suppose she's as well as a baby her age is expected to be?" Mira said with a slight shrug of slim shoulders. "I know how to read and speak dead languages, but babies are still a mystery to me."
“Bah, eet ees easier when they are talking. Babies... they are good to look at until they cry, but not much else.” It was said with affection; Gabrielle loved her nieces and nephew dearly, but she was also glad they were not her own children. She was young, and it was hard to imagine her life right at that moment with babies attached to her hips. “Paige -- Neil’s niece -- she ees four and ees already asking eef we are to getting married.”
“Oh yeah?” Mira’s brows rose and the tiniest of smirks curled her lips. She knew Gabrielle and Neil’s relationship was fairly new, insofar as the seriousness of it, but they’d been dating a long time. After watching Stephen and Cassie go about it in a similar way, Mira wouldn’t be that surprised if they did end up married sooner than later. “And what did Mr. Handsome Barrister say to that?”
“Monsieur ‘andome Barrister did not ‘ear Paige. I do not know what ‘e would think if ‘e ‘ad ‘eard that.”
“So what did you think?” she pressed. The answer her friend had given her was deliberately vague. Mira wasn’t the type to beat around the bush herself, not when she was unearthing answers to her questions.
“I think that eet ees too early to be thinking such thoughts.” Gabrielle was only twenty-three. Her sister had married at nineteen, but it was hard to think of such a thing happening for herself -- never mind that she was past the age Fleur had been when she’d married, but she was still young. “Mais donc...”
Still, she had to admit that the idea of marriage in general -- and specifically, marriage to Neil -- wasn’t as off putting as it once might have been. She had feelings for Neil, feelings she didn’t know how to describe. They were new and strange and slightly funny, but in a good way.
“Mira,” she said, glancing up at her friend, “‘ave you ever been een love?”
Mira shook her head. “Not even a little bit. I haven’t even had a serious boyfriend yet,” she admitted with a rueful smile. She’d dated a little bit in school and had gone on a few dates in uni, but no one interested her enough to be more appealing than what she was already doing. “But I watched my twin sister fall in love. I thought she was too young to get married, to be honest,” she confessed. “Definitely too young to have children. I can’t even imagine being with someone and wanting to settle down, let alone have children of my own.”
Her expression was considering, thoughtful, as she paused to sip her wine, savored the bold flavors. “Cass didn’t think about any of that either though. She liked to have a little taste of a lot of handsome men. But then she met Stephen and fell in love, and everything changed. It doesn’t make any sense how fast it changes. I don’t know what it feels like to be in love like that, but from what I’ve observed of the one person I know as well as myself, it’s powerful and turns you upside down and inside out, and makes you rethink everything you thought you wanted.” Her lips twitched. “It doesn’t seem like something you can prepare for, which means I’m definitely bound to handle it poorly.”
“Bah.” Snagging one of the brightly colored macarons from the box, Gabrielle slumped back against the fluffy pillows lining her sofa. “That ees ‘elping not at all. Why are these things so, so... compliqué” She took a bite of the pink cookie, savoring the subtle burst of rose that danced across her tongue.
Pausing for a moment, she weighed her words carefully. “I ‘ave never been een love. Neil... ‘e ees the first man I ‘ave been with for longer than a few months. And ‘e ees nothing like other men I ‘ave been with.” It was part of the reason she was so drawn from him; he was leaps and bounds away from the men that inhabited Gabrielle’s world of high fashion. “But I ‘ave this wiggling feeling in my stomach, and I cannot sleep eef we are not talking before bed. Even eef I am ‘alfway around the world and I wake ‘im up. ‘E does not mind.”
At least, he’d never told her he minded. Of course, she wondered if he remembered -- sometimes he’d been dead to the world when she called. His hair did the funniest things when he was asleep.
“And...bah. I am not knowing anything, and I ‘ate eet.” She ate the second bite of her macaron sullenly, washing it down with a sip of her wine.
Mira snickered at her friend. She didn't find the other woman's frustrations amusing, but her mannerisms and reactions to her own confusion tickled Mira's funny bone. Perhaps because of the heavily accented delivery. Perhaps the dramatic flair. Probably both.
"I hate not knowing things as well, especially about myself. Which is why I said I would probably handle real romantic love poorly given my lack of familiarity with it and how impactful it seems to be on a person." She gave Gabrielle a pointed look. "You know, kind of like how you're feeling right now. Fumbling a bit in unknown emotional territory, but enjoying it more than anything else." She snatched a macaron for herself. "I wouldn't say that's love, per say, at least not yet, but my observations and analysis leads me to believe that you are probably falling in love, and given more time and similar feelings from Neil, that in the not so distant future you actually will be in love."
Mira's grinned. "I'll probably be clueless about my own feelings of love when the time comes as observation leads me to believe that is most often the case at the beginning, and I'm aware enough of myself to accept I'm slow on the uptake for those kinds of things anyway, but I'd like to think I'm objective enough to see it more clearly in others. Or at least recognize what is the most likely case given all the matched variables."
Gabrielle groaned and let her head fall back against the sofa. “But I am not knowing eef Neil is ‘aving similar feelings. Eet took ‘im forever to want to fuck me, and I ‘ave no idea eef ‘e ‘as these sorts of thoughts. Feelings. Et tout le reste.”
"Ain't love grand?" Mira giggled at the mild glare tossed her way.
"But seriously, if he wasn't holding off on you physically because he's gay, then it's actually a pretty good sign," Mira said when her laughter dissipated. "I mean, most men just want to have sex, not commitment. Neil made sure he wanted to be with you for more than a night or two before he slept with you. At the very least he respects you, and at best the respect he's shown you as a woman is fertile ground for deeper emotions. In fact, I'd say it's likely, even. He's older than us. He's probably sown his wilder oats already. That he made sure he could see more potential with you than a bed partner says a lot about what he's open to happening, up to and including love."
She grinned. "And you could, you know, ask him sometime what he thinks. You've every right to know if it's all a passing fancy, or not. Make sure you both are on the same page about your expectations. I hear relationships are all about communication, after all," she said, blue eyes bright with her mirth.
“Talking ees overrated, je pense. I am much preferring to do the other things instead.” Gabrielle managed a small smirk; a twist to her lips that was light despite the heavy thoughts that were weighing on her mind. “But I will think on eet. Per’aps you are right.”
Love. It wasn’t something she’d ever really thought about -- at least, not in any serious way. It’d always been in the abstract. ‘Fall in love someday’. Every woman wanted that. Her initial attraction to Neil had been purely physical, but his (obvious) good looks had only been the surface. She’d found a person she looked forward to spending time with, underneath the chiseled cheekbones and beautiful blue eyes. Someone she couldn’t imagine being without anymore.
Blue eyes found Mira’s, and this time her smile was teasing. “I am ‘aving many friends that I work with eef you are looking for a bit of fun. Male friends, they are liking the women.” She did work with plenty of gay men, but there were a few straight male models as well.
Mira laughed.
She could take a hint. She’d given the blonde a lot to think about. And really, she was more than willing to talk about pretty men. “I think if men don’t already like other men, they are definitely liking the women,” Mira agreed. “And I suppose I should be looking for a bit of fun given I’m supposedly young and fabulous, but I don’t really know that having my very own male model would be conducive to me passing my upcoming exams.”
Gabrielle waved her hand negligently. “After the exams, then. You will come with me to Switzerland, I am shooting the winter portfolio for my sister. There will be many mens there too,” she winked at Mira conspiratorially, “‘ave a bit of fun with. As a reward, bien sûr, for doing so well at the exams.”
Mira couldn’t help it. She laughed again. “How can I say no to international travel and chiseled pectorals?”
It was nice having a girlfriend, she’d decided. Growing up, she’d had friends but none that were truly considered a ‘best’ friend. Fleur was her sister, and Gabrielle loved her, but her sister had other things to deal with -- things such as a husband who was out of the country at least once a month, leaving Fleur with three children under the age of six. Mira had been an unexpected surprise, but Gabrielle treasured her friendship.
Summoning the bottle of macarons she’d procured from Laudrée, she pulled the bottle of brachetto d’acqui she’d brought back from Milan out of the icebox and set it on the counter. Sweets, wine, and a night with a girlfriend. It sounded like a perfect evening.
Mira knocked on Gabrielle’s door two minutes before she was expected to arrive.
She’d thought about snagging a bottle of wine, but had thought better at the last minute. Gabrielle knew more about wines than she did anyway; when they went out the blonde chose their refreshments, and when they stayed in she always had something exotic and delicious to share. Mira didn’t know enough about wine to select a suitable one anyway.
She was excited to see her friend. Their first meeting had been serendipitous and their friendship hadn’t seemed likely to grow given their schedules and vastly different interests. But it did work, and their friendship did grow. Mira suspected it had much to do with her twin getting married. Despite having more acquaintances than all her sisters combined, she’d never developed any close relationships outside her family. Mira hadn’t felt the desire. She’d had her twin, after all. When Cassie had gotten engaged and then married, pregnant shortly thereafter, however, Mira had been forced out of her comfort zone. She could either mope, or move forward.
She’d never been one to mope.
And so she’d moved into a tiny flat to live on her own in London and was studying hard to finish her degree. Instead of inflicting her presence on her twin and her new, tiny family incessantly, Mira kept herself busy with her studies and she spent more time with friends, Gabrielle in particular the last year or so. She’d just finished with midterms and spending her week off from school in Paris with Alexa, so it’d been longer than usual since she’d last caught up with her friend. She was looking forward to hearing the latest.
When the door swung open, she grinned at the taller blonde. “Salut, friend person,” she greeted.
“Salut, Mirabelle,” Gabrielle replied with a matching grin, the nickname she’d coined for the brunette rolling off her tongue as she leaned in to brush twin kisses over Mira’s cheeks. “Eet ‘as been far too long, but we are both to blame, non?” She ushered her friend into her flat with a wave of her hand.
“Midterms for me and probably preoccupation in the form of a handsome man for you,” Mira confirmed as she followed the willowy blonde into her home. “Someone obviously needs to sort out her priorities.”
Gabrielle’s nose crinkled. “Oui, bien sûr, I am seeing no need for these... midterms.” She giggled at the look on her friend’s face, sinking down onto the sofa and summoning two empty wine glasses. “These are priorities needing sorting out, non?”
“If you mean that wine should come before everything else, then yes, you’re quite right. And very wise,” she added sagely. She watched the blonde pour with interest. “You know, I never much cared for wine before, but I’ve found it suits me just fine since meeting you.”
The blonde nodded sagely. “Eet ees an acquired taste for many Eenglish, I ‘ave seen. Eef you are not growing up with eet at the table, eet can be strong and unpleasant. But there ees a wine for every palate, I ‘ave found.” She handed a glass of the light red bubbly wine to her friend. “This is braccheto d’aqui. Eet ees an Italian wine. They do not do wine as well as the French, bien sûr, but eet ees still quite nice.”
“I trust whatever you give me will taste good. Nothing I pick up for myself is ever half as tasty,” Mira said, grin impish as she accepted the glass given her. She sampled the drink and enjoyed the palette of flavors. She hummed her appreciation as she settled more comfortably into the cushions of Gabrielle’s sofa.
“So tell me about what you’ve been up to. What you’ve been up to with your handsome lawyer?” she asked, brows waggling.
The other woman’s lips curled in a satisfied little smile. “Oh, we ‘ave been ‘up’ to many things. And down, too. Other places also.” She winked at Mira and took a sip of her own wine. It had taken time for Neil to move their relationship to a physical level, but looking back, she could see his reasoning. They had been making up for lost time ever since. “Tonight, I am telling ‘im ‘e must do something on ‘is own, donc. Per’aps visit ‘is brother or something -- I am ‘aving time to spend with Mira.”
“Aww,” Mira drawled, blue eyes merry. “You love me enough to interrupt your healthy sex life. That’s more than my own sisters have done in the past.”
Men, Mira found, were time sucks. She liked Cassie’s husband, and she got on well with Gabrielle’s beau too. As much she approved of them, however, didn’t negate the fact that they were thieves. They stole away her sisters and friends. But even then she couldn’t find it in herself to get into a proper strop the way her twin would. The women she loved and cared about most were happy, and that was really all that mattered.
Gabrielle giggled. “Oui, and Neil is interrupting ‘is brother’s sex life.” The idea of that was enough to make her laugh again. “But you are ‘aving a niece now, non? ‘Ow ees she... Elle s’appelle Madeline, oui?” If her math was correct, Mira’s niece was only a few months older than Marianne.
Mira couldn't help but snicker along with Gabrielle. She'd shared a house with Graham Pritchard, and while he'd been a few years older than her, she remembered him well, both because he'd been such a shameless flirt and because he and his loud Hufflepuff shadow had always been causing scenes. From what she'd learned from Gabrielle, not much had changed save for the fact the two were now married.
She nodded at her friend's inquiries as her giggles dissipated. "Yes, they named her Madeline, though Stephen and Cass have already taken to calling her 'Maddy'. And I suppose she's as well as a baby her age is expected to be?" Mira said with a slight shrug of slim shoulders. "I know how to read and speak dead languages, but babies are still a mystery to me."
“Bah, eet ees easier when they are talking. Babies... they are good to look at until they cry, but not much else.” It was said with affection; Gabrielle loved her nieces and nephew dearly, but she was also glad they were not her own children. She was young, and it was hard to imagine her life right at that moment with babies attached to her hips. “Paige -- Neil’s niece -- she ees four and ees already asking eef we are to getting married.”
“Oh yeah?” Mira’s brows rose and the tiniest of smirks curled her lips. She knew Gabrielle and Neil’s relationship was fairly new, insofar as the seriousness of it, but they’d been dating a long time. After watching Stephen and Cassie go about it in a similar way, Mira wouldn’t be that surprised if they did end up married sooner than later. “And what did Mr. Handsome Barrister say to that?”
“Monsieur ‘andome Barrister did not ‘ear Paige. I do not know what ‘e would think if ‘e ‘ad ‘eard that.”
“So what did you think?” she pressed. The answer her friend had given her was deliberately vague. Mira wasn’t the type to beat around the bush herself, not when she was unearthing answers to her questions.
“I think that eet ees too early to be thinking such thoughts.” Gabrielle was only twenty-three. Her sister had married at nineteen, but it was hard to think of such a thing happening for herself -- never mind that she was past the age Fleur had been when she’d married, but she was still young. “Mais donc...”
Still, she had to admit that the idea of marriage in general -- and specifically, marriage to Neil -- wasn’t as off putting as it once might have been. She had feelings for Neil, feelings she didn’t know how to describe. They were new and strange and slightly funny, but in a good way.
“Mira,” she said, glancing up at her friend, “‘ave you ever been een love?”
Mira shook her head. “Not even a little bit. I haven’t even had a serious boyfriend yet,” she admitted with a rueful smile. She’d dated a little bit in school and had gone on a few dates in uni, but no one interested her enough to be more appealing than what she was already doing. “But I watched my twin sister fall in love. I thought she was too young to get married, to be honest,” she confessed. “Definitely too young to have children. I can’t even imagine being with someone and wanting to settle down, let alone have children of my own.”
Her expression was considering, thoughtful, as she paused to sip her wine, savored the bold flavors. “Cass didn’t think about any of that either though. She liked to have a little taste of a lot of handsome men. But then she met Stephen and fell in love, and everything changed. It doesn’t make any sense how fast it changes. I don’t know what it feels like to be in love like that, but from what I’ve observed of the one person I know as well as myself, it’s powerful and turns you upside down and inside out, and makes you rethink everything you thought you wanted.” Her lips twitched. “It doesn’t seem like something you can prepare for, which means I’m definitely bound to handle it poorly.”
“Bah.” Snagging one of the brightly colored macarons from the box, Gabrielle slumped back against the fluffy pillows lining her sofa. “That ees ‘elping not at all. Why are these things so, so... compliqué” She took a bite of the pink cookie, savoring the subtle burst of rose that danced across her tongue.
Pausing for a moment, she weighed her words carefully. “I ‘ave never been een love. Neil... ‘e ees the first man I ‘ave been with for longer than a few months. And ‘e ees nothing like other men I ‘ave been with.” It was part of the reason she was so drawn from him; he was leaps and bounds away from the men that inhabited Gabrielle’s world of high fashion. “But I ‘ave this wiggling feeling in my stomach, and I cannot sleep eef we are not talking before bed. Even eef I am ‘alfway around the world and I wake ‘im up. ‘E does not mind.”
At least, he’d never told her he minded. Of course, she wondered if he remembered -- sometimes he’d been dead to the world when she called. His hair did the funniest things when he was asleep.
“And...bah. I am not knowing anything, and I ‘ate eet.” She ate the second bite of her macaron sullenly, washing it down with a sip of her wine.
Mira snickered at her friend. She didn't find the other woman's frustrations amusing, but her mannerisms and reactions to her own confusion tickled Mira's funny bone. Perhaps because of the heavily accented delivery. Perhaps the dramatic flair. Probably both.
"I hate not knowing things as well, especially about myself. Which is why I said I would probably handle real romantic love poorly given my lack of familiarity with it and how impactful it seems to be on a person." She gave Gabrielle a pointed look. "You know, kind of like how you're feeling right now. Fumbling a bit in unknown emotional territory, but enjoying it more than anything else." She snatched a macaron for herself. "I wouldn't say that's love, per say, at least not yet, but my observations and analysis leads me to believe that you are probably falling in love, and given more time and similar feelings from Neil, that in the not so distant future you actually will be in love."
Mira's grinned. "I'll probably be clueless about my own feelings of love when the time comes as observation leads me to believe that is most often the case at the beginning, and I'm aware enough of myself to accept I'm slow on the uptake for those kinds of things anyway, but I'd like to think I'm objective enough to see it more clearly in others. Or at least recognize what is the most likely case given all the matched variables."
Gabrielle groaned and let her head fall back against the sofa. “But I am not knowing eef Neil is ‘aving similar feelings. Eet took ‘im forever to want to fuck me, and I ‘ave no idea eef ‘e ‘as these sorts of thoughts. Feelings. Et tout le reste.”
"Ain't love grand?" Mira giggled at the mild glare tossed her way.
"But seriously, if he wasn't holding off on you physically because he's gay, then it's actually a pretty good sign," Mira said when her laughter dissipated. "I mean, most men just want to have sex, not commitment. Neil made sure he wanted to be with you for more than a night or two before he slept with you. At the very least he respects you, and at best the respect he's shown you as a woman is fertile ground for deeper emotions. In fact, I'd say it's likely, even. He's older than us. He's probably sown his wilder oats already. That he made sure he could see more potential with you than a bed partner says a lot about what he's open to happening, up to and including love."
She grinned. "And you could, you know, ask him sometime what he thinks. You've every right to know if it's all a passing fancy, or not. Make sure you both are on the same page about your expectations. I hear relationships are all about communication, after all," she said, blue eyes bright with her mirth.
“Talking ees overrated, je pense. I am much preferring to do the other things instead.” Gabrielle managed a small smirk; a twist to her lips that was light despite the heavy thoughts that were weighing on her mind. “But I will think on eet. Per’aps you are right.”
Love. It wasn’t something she’d ever really thought about -- at least, not in any serious way. It’d always been in the abstract. ‘Fall in love someday’. Every woman wanted that. Her initial attraction to Neil had been purely physical, but his (obvious) good looks had only been the surface. She’d found a person she looked forward to spending time with, underneath the chiseled cheekbones and beautiful blue eyes. Someone she couldn’t imagine being without anymore.
Blue eyes found Mira’s, and this time her smile was teasing. “I am ‘aving many friends that I work with eef you are looking for a bit of fun. Male friends, they are liking the women.” She did work with plenty of gay men, but there were a few straight male models as well.
Mira laughed.
She could take a hint. She’d given the blonde a lot to think about. And really, she was more than willing to talk about pretty men. “I think if men don’t already like other men, they are definitely liking the women,” Mira agreed. “And I suppose I should be looking for a bit of fun given I’m supposedly young and fabulous, but I don’t really know that having my very own male model would be conducive to me passing my upcoming exams.”
Gabrielle waved her hand negligently. “After the exams, then. You will come with me to Switzerland, I am shooting the winter portfolio for my sister. There will be many mens there too,” she winked at Mira conspiratorially, “‘ave a bit of fun with. As a reward, bien sûr, for doing so well at the exams.”
Mira couldn’t help it. She laughed again. “How can I say no to international travel and chiseled pectorals?”