Blue Plaid

Crushed

In which Stella gets butterflies of an entirely different kind.

//

I was running late, which contrary to the carefree persona I tried to emanate, was very unlike me. Generally speaking, people not being punctual annoyed me greatly, so the fact that I was about to walk into a meeting half an hour late was stressing me out. Getting a reputation as a diva who didn't value other people's time was no way build a career.

It seemed I hadn't quite found my groove without Tyson. He had been gone for about three weeks and I was still getting used to not having him around. Not wanting to constantly leave Cooper with a babysitter or hire a nanny, I was taking him pretty much everywhere, and since everyone I worked with was aware of my situation, it hadn't been a problem so far.

Until this morning, when Cooper finally got fed up with my subpar cooking and refused to eat his lunch, forcing me to buy him McDonald's chicken nuggets on the way to my meeting, which in turn resulted in me feeling extremely guilty and extremely flustered as I pushed open the glass door of the conference with one hand and hiked up Cooper against my side with the other.

"Hi, I'm here, I'm so sorry I'm late," I said, a bit out of breath as my gaze scanned the room.

"No worries," a voice floated towards me from the back of the room and it took me a few moments to figure out that it belonged to the young guy with a wide smile and a head full of thick red curls. "It's not like you were an integral part of this meeting or anything."

Despite his sarcasm, his tone was light and filled with humor, leaving me confused as to why someone I didn't know was teasing me. His confidence and ease with me despite knowing me for all of two minutes left me a bit unsettled, or at least, that was the rationale I gave to the fluttering in the pit of my stomach.

"Well, I'm sorry anyways?" I raised an eyebrow, pulling out the nearest empty chair to sit down and holding Cooper firmly in my lap. "Let's do this."

The meeting was to discuss my interview and cover photoshoot for the next issue of Vogue, which meant there were a lot of details to hammer out, starting with scheduling the interview itself and deciding on a theme before discussing when I would come in to do the photoshoot.

"We actually thought it might be amazing if Tyson was in it," the redhead, who had introduced himself as Steven, the assistant to the photographer, said as we discussed the theme. "Maybe a focus on how you balance family life and modeling?"

Eyes wide, I stared at him for a few moments, before responding, pulling Cooper closer to my chest. I wasn't sure why my heart rate had picked up when he started speaking or why I couldn't seem to form coherent sentences, but I was completely mortified.

This had never happened to me before. I wasn't usually the blushing and stuttering type. Even with Tyson, I was generally able to keep my composure, but twenty minutes with a complete stranger had me reverting to middle school behavior and I had no idea how to put an end to it because I didn't know why it was happening in the first place.

Sure, the guy was attractive, but I was very much in love with Tyson. Plus, whatever was happening was completely one sided, seeing as Steven had just mentioned Tyson, which meant he knew I had a boyfriend and was in no way trying to make me flustered, a fact which honestly made the situation so much worse.

"Tyson," I managed to whisper, shaking my head as saying my boyfriend's name jolted me back to reality. "No, he can't be in the photoshoot." I quickly realized from all of the raised eyebrows in the room that sounded like I didn't want him there and began to clarify. "I mean, he's out of the country. And I don't feel comfortable with having Cooper in the photoshoot. We can talk about family, but can we leave him out of it?"