Vogue | Tony Stark

SIXTEEN - THE HUDSON RIVER

"Earth to Esté, are you awake yet? Over."

The walkie-talkie on Esté's bedside table crackled with Tony's voice, almost making her jump out of her skin as she read her book in the morning sunlight streaming through her bedroom window.

She picked up the device and held down a button on the side, giggling to herself as she spoke, "I'm awake, you can come in. Over."

It wasn't abnormal for Tony to stay over at the Goldwyn's house on a Saturday night, in fact, it would've been unusual if he didn't. The kids had fallen into a routine of spending Saturday mornings with their families alone, Esté going to ballet class while Tony tinkered with things in his father's workshop that he probably should've have touched, waiting for the afternoon to roll around so he could spend time with his best friend.

That weekend had been no different. The pair had spent Saturday evening making pizzas in the kitchen and watching a horror movie in Esté's room with a huge bowl of popcorn in between them. They said goodnight around one in the morning, Tony retreating down the hall to a guest bedroom that had more of his clothes in the dresser than he did at his own home.

He always slept better at The Goldwyn's house, though never figured out why. Whether it was the white noise of kitchen appliances from the floor below him or something else sending him off into a peaceful sleep, Tony didn't know, but he always woke up feeling refreshed with a smile on his face.

He padded down the hallway in his pyjamas once Esté answered his call, knocking twice on her door before pushing it open to see her the same way she always was, sitting in the middle of her king sized bed with a book in her hands.

"What are we reading this week?"
A thirteen year old Tony asked, closing the door behind him.

She smiled as he walked over to the bed and laid down across it, crossing his legs at his ankles and linking his fingers together behind his head.

"You still want me to read to you?" Esté asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes with her knuckles.

Tony turned his head to look up at her, smiling at her red cheeks and messy hair from a good nights sleep.

"I'll always want you to read to me."

Estélla had said goodnight to Tony at two-thirty in the morning. She'd very nearly caved under his enticing stare and gentle lips, though the bell of rationality that had been silenced for a while started to ring, a shrieking what if stopping her from taking things any further with him, just in case they'd made a mistake.

Tony didn't mind that he was told to go home, in fact, the anticipation of something more with Estélla was perhaps more of a gift than getting it straight away. And so, he left her with a kiss on her doorstep before walking home by himself, a spring in his step and a head full of things to dream about.

Both of them had wondered in the back of their minds whether they would wake up and feel nothing, whether the raptures they'd been bound in the previous day and night had been finite the same way they had been before. It worried them both to the point where they didn't want to fall asleep, but somewhere between panic and daybreak, they both slept like babies.

Esté sat down in a dressing room with a sigh, pulling her feet up onto the leather couch and stretching, yawning loudly with her arms above her head. Her phone rang and she picked it up from the table in front of her, answering the call with her eyes closed while she tried to wake herself up with a cup of coffee.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Tony," Esté's eyes flew open then and her tone lifted, "How are you?"