Before You, He Had Me

Nineteen

"What is your opinion here, Megan?" Hillary asks as they look over some stitching on costumes for a movie.

"I think this stitch needs pulled and redone." Meg says candidly, pointing out the rough seam that wanders rather than run straight.

"I agree, I expect perfection in my studio and this is far from perfect. If you want to be successful, high end, respected in this line of work, you have to be the best. Instead of sending this back to the seamstress who messed it up, would you fix it over on my machine there? I trust you with fixing it without destroying the piece."

"Of course." Meg grins, taking the costume from Hillary to examine it further, finding two other seams that need redone as well. Setting to work at the sewing machine in the corner as Hillary answers emails and does other work at her desk.

"Okay, I think I have them fixed properly." Meg smiles, snipping the last of the threads and moving across the room to show Hillary her fixes on the piece. Standing quietly as Hillary inspects each part of the costume for multiple minutes, getting slightly uneasy as it takes her longer to go over than Megan was expecting.

"Alright." Hillary finally looks up, "You have proven again why out of 50,000 applications from all over the world I picked the woman from a small town outside Sydney. Thank you, Megan. I have an important conference call for the next couple hours that you cannot sit in on. Please enjoy a long lunch while I am in my meeting and we can go over some costume designs I want input on once I am done."

"Thank you." Megan grins, grabbing her bag and excusing herself from the office.

Wondering what she should do with the next couple hours as she heads for the front doors of the building, she startles when someone grabs her arm.

"Whoa, sorry." Bella laughs, "Wasn't trying to scare you. Cindy and I were thinking about heading to lunch, you want to come?"

"Sure." Meg smiles, glad to have a ride away from the studio for a few minutes, "I have a long lunch though since Hillary is in meetings."

"Well join us for ours and then decide what you want to do after that." Bella shrugs.

"Good plan. Where were you guys thinking for lunch?"

"Cindy wants to go to this cute Thai place across town, that work for you?"

"I love Thai." Meg nods, following Bella as she leads her towards the employee parking lot.

"Megan!" Cindy grins as the two girls walk out, already leaning against her red Prius.

"Mind if I crash your lunch date?" Meg asks with a chuckle.

"The more the merrier. Please come with us." Cindy nods, motioning for everyone to get in, Megan taking the back seat.

Conversation is light as the drive across town, laughing and chatting about some of their other coworkers. But Meg can't shake Michael's comments on Bella from her mind, knowing she is in the car with both girls who had been with her that night at the club. Cindy she didn't blame at all, she'd been off dancing with a normal nice guy when Bella and her had seen Calum come in. But Bella did let her go to the bathroom alone without even offering to come with, isn't it in the girl code to always escort your drunk friends to the bathroom..?

Sighing softly to herself, she shakes her head trying to clear the confusion. Does she actually feel that way or does Michael, and she is thinking it because of what he said... she'd have to discuss that with her therapist next time she goes in.

"Megan," She blinks quickly meeting Cindy's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Sorry, zoned for a second." She laughs.