Kindled Hearts

14 // Ankara decisions

Nicole looked as though something had been stuffed inside the balls of her cheeks. She was angry, her eyes an inflated pair of a diminishing brown.
"No. I will not do this," Nicole said, a failed tweak to her voice. She intended a certain taut to it, that of a dog's bark, but instead she crumpled to the sounds of a drowning duck.

Wayne Bajuu held a lazy brow. "Try to understand please, I'd have asked Linda but we both know she is not a fit candidate."

"Try calling her again, What was her name again? Right, Sara. She is probably just stuck in traffic."

Wayne, Nicole realized, was not in his best spirits either, he wore sourness like one defeated soldier, his face a tensed paper that she noted the weary knolls on his skin and the confident three day stubble that required a shave. They were backstage, all secretive, in a secured changing room, some few distance away from the chirps of an eager audience. Nicole could still smell the splendor in the atmosphere. She could get used to this.

"Sara called me and said she is not feeling well. All my other models are out there ready to hit the runway. Without her being here, there is an imbalance and the fourth piece in our ankara collection will not receive light. This type of hitch will not go well with the press," Wayne argued.

"Still not doing it." His press card wouldn't work on her, no way would it crack the stones in her mind nor slick her heart.

Wayne slumped against the wall, his hand running down his face. "Okay."

Nicole quirked her brows, eyeing Wayne from where she held a tall stool captive, one leg atop the other. "Okay?"

"Yeah it's okay."

Nicole expected more from Wayne, he didn't look the type to back down from any ring. He was a wiry man after all. The retreat in his stance now, was a surprise.
"Just okay?"

"Well damn it Nicole, what do you want me to tell you? Want to hear how great the night is turning out to be? Maybe you could join me in tossing to the heavens and watch lightning strike my bones. Must be pleasing for you." Wayne stared up at Nicole, his eyes a piercing ache.

Nicole quaked. "I didn't mean_"

The door to the changing room suddenly cried open, a thin faced man coming into view. "Mr. Wayne what do we do? We are expected to be in the runway in the next three minutes." Nicole noted bags of anxiousness cradling the man's eyes. He looked old in an indigo suit yet Nicole could tell he wasn't that far apart. Probably two years older than her. His eyes fleeted to Nicole then to Mr. Wayne, then back to Nicole. He gave her a once over as a cat does to a bowl of soup.

"She won't budge," Wayne was quick to disagree. He moved from the wall and started to turn towards the door. Nicole stood to stop him, her hand against the cold edge of his elbow. "I'll do it," she breathed, watching her words lax his visage, a subtle reprieve curling at the wick of his lips. Wayne's brows quirked in question.

"Get me the ankara piece before I change my mind." Nicole threatened, a smile to her lips. Why did she agree to help out? The answer was pretty bare to Nicole but she imagined it had something to do with Wayne's disposition, drunk shoulder blades and the jade in his eyes. This was new to Nicole and there was nothing pleasing about watching a distraught raven pricking its own wings.

Wayne Bajuu turned to the man at the door. "Felix, do bring the team."

With a child-like nod to his face, Felix disappeared, closing the door behind him.

Silence grazed the room and Nicole remembered that her hand still laid limply on Wayne's elbow. Her cheeks flushed as she struggled her hand free, but then he stopped her, his hand knuckling around hers. "Thank you," Wayne said, his warm breath against Nicole's heart shaped face. "Do you know how to walk down the runway?"

"I think I can pretty much walk down on anything with a good pair of heels. It's always about the shoes."

Wayne tugged a smile. "Then it's a good thing our shoes aren't no run-of-the-mill."

Close -up, Wayne was a shade lighter, the colour of dried umber leaf or that of dampened sand. His eyes, a chasm of night, gleamed as light from the bulb mounted on the wall hit the quivering specks of his eyes, producing forth a rare brown that Nicole thought a painter would marvel in sight.

Nicole watched Wayne use his other hand to clasp her loose braid from the crown of her head and slip it behind her ear. This was intimate, an action so chaste yet a vile to her nerves that she heard a wild tremble hewn her pulse to a throb. She swallowed as his hand lingered to her skin. Time appeared to stand still when Nicole's gaze escaped to Wayne's lips, then back to his eyes and as she inched her face closer, she felt her world cave in.