flashes ✦ julian draxler

vingt-six : the party

| paris, france

"STELLA! COME HERE!" Bella waved them over after a few seconds of being in the room. The venue was already filling, and people talked amongst themselves. Stella could see that Giovanni was in some talks with Rafferty Law, Brandon Thomas Lee and Will Peltz.

"I've missed you guys! How are you?" Stella whined with a pout, slipping her fingers from Julian's so she could hug Bella, Hailey and Rose, "Rose, I haven't seen you for months!"

"I know!" she agreed, "Gregory says hi, by the way."

"Speaking of boyfriends," Hailey swerved the conversation and looked Julian up and down as if to assess him, "You must be Stella's! Hi, i'm Hailey."

"Julian," he smiled politely, shortly hugging her, and Bella before retreating back to Stella's side and resting his arm around her waist.

Bella squealed, "Honestly, you guys are such a cute couple. You're giving all the model couples a run for their money aren't you? Brandon and Pyper, Anwar and Nicola-"

"Julian and Stella," Stella finished off with a wink, giggling as he kissed the side of her head, "I'll see you three later. We have to socialise and all."

They left for a different circle of people; this time, the PSG boys and Carol. Laura was home with Tommy so she was unable to come.

"Bonjour!" she exclaimed excitedly, hugging them all, "Thanks for coming!"

"No problem. You know we'd never miss out on a Greaves party," Marcos winked, with Presnel agreeing avidly beside him, "What are we thinking tonight? Lap dancers? Strippers?" Carol scowled playfully and whacked him on the arm.

"Iz said that she's sorry she couldn't come," Kevin told her, "Something about work keeping her in."

They conversed for a while more, until Stella decided to move onto the next group in order to get greetings over as quickly as possible. Julian was left behind since he was most comfortable with his teammates.

"And there's the birthday boy," she hugged her cousin, before greeting Brandon, Rafferty and Will, "How are you guys?"

"Still jet lagged from New York where I flew from," Rafferty shrugged, "But i'm so excited for this party. You always host the best ones."

"Oh you know I do," she purred, "Queen of bashes."

"Nah, you've gone soft," Giovanni accused, "Ever since you stopped partying so much to get your career back on track."

"Well, that was the right move," Brandon re-assured, "You're an icon now, Stella."

She talked with them for a while; she loved them since they were like the younger brothers she never had, with the exception of Will, who was older. The young modelling community, especially them who were known as 'social-media models' received a lot of backlash for being just that. Times were changing, and so they had to be to an extent, social media figures. The stick they got, they could usually deal with, but they were all each other's safety blanket. Stella felt herself relate to a lot of these young models, with most of them sons and daughters of famous people too. For example, Brandon Thomas Lee was Pamela Anderson's son, Rafferty Law was Jude Law's son, Kaia and Preseley Gerber were Cindy Crawford's children, Hailey's dad was Stephen Baldwin, Gigi was the daughter of Yolanda Hadid and so on. She always felt accepted and loved around them.

Presley had pulled her away from them after a while, giving her a tight squeeze, "How are you Stel?"

She looked at him for a moment, and examined his expression and tone. He was serious, and it wasn't one of those customary 'how are you doing?' things.