Darn Knit All (All Access #3)

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

THEO

Theo

Do you know if there’s an app for only fans?

Mai

As in the app literally called ‘OnlyFans’??

Theo

No, I mean for hand fans. As in an app that celebrates the subtle skill of those who wield a hand fan

Mai

You’ve been watching Bridgerton again without me

Theo

I renounce your slanderous language! Good day, sir!

Mai

YOUR ACCOUNT SAYS YOU’VE ALREADY WATCHED THE WHOLE SEASON!!!!

Theo

I SAID, GOOD DAY!

Mai

This betrayal will not go unpunished

W aking up beside Mai had become a unique pleasure. I normally lived to sleep in, snuggled in the blankets, desperate to catch as many minutes as possible.

Not these days. These days, I woke early and just lay beside her, listening to her snore. Oh, the girl snored like a lumberjack. When we got home, I was totally enrolling her in a sleep study, it really couldn’t be healthy.

But damn if it wasn’t reassuring as fuck to hear.

In sleep, all the tension left her face, smoothing the little frown that had begun to carve out space between her eyebrows.

Slowly coming awake, I could feel that at some point during the night Mai had thrown a leg over my hip and snuggled into my chest. She’d migrated across the unwritten divide between our sides of the bed to cuddle into me.

And judging by how hard my cock felt right now, it appeared I didn’t mind one bit.

She sighed, shifting in the bed as her mouth curved into a cute little smile. Her lashes fluttered, then settled, her soft snores resuming their reassuring rhythm. Unable to resist, I brushed hair away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.

Holding her like this felt like an intimacy that should be reserved for her lover.

Which I am not.

I sighed internally.

I wanted to deny that we were more than friends… but the reality was, Mai had begun to sneak her way out of the friendzone years ago.

I wanted to blame our kiss, or the kinky glass, or last night’s confessional, but the truth was much harder to admit.

If I was brutally honest—which I always was in the few minutes before she woke—she may have been a large contributing factor in my dating downfall.

My dating history had a familiar pattern to it—meet person and charm them into a date, go on said date, and proceed to regale them with stories of Mai before pretending to be disappointed when they a) disappeared mid-meal, b) offered to be friends, or c) never called me again.

Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

If Mai turned to me tomorrow and asked me out, I’d be all in. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when our friendship had grown to mean more to me, it simply had become so. But I needed to respect the relationship boundaries we’d established, and making shit awkward when she’d shown exactly zero sign of encouragement wasn’t my style.

I’d had years of learning how to tuck my feelings away. Then we’d come here, where there was only one bed and the lines had become blurred. Not to mention that she’d begun showing a few signs of maybe beginning to see me as something other than a friend.

I just couldn’t fucking tell if that was a result of the show or her growing to care for me.

Which led me back to the quiet of the mornings when I could torture myself with the fantasy that this fake relationship had become real.

Don’t worry, I fucking hated myself for it.

As if hearing my thoughts, Mai stirred, her snoring cutting off as she yawned and snuggled closer into me, murmuring something nonsensical.

I grinned, watching her slowly blink awake.

“What time is it?” she asked, still mostly asleep.

“Nearly seven. We’ve got time.”

She nodded, snuggling back into her pillow. “How’s the leg?”

I shrugged. “I’ll stretch it out today and try to be less active. It’ll be fine.”

She seemed to take me at face value, nodding once before her eyes grew heavy again. She shuffled—right into my erection.

I could tell the exact second she realized by the way she stiffened. Considering she’d taken up the whole bed, pushing me to the very edge, I couldn’t exactly shuffle away. So I waited for her to react, curious if she’d pull away or shuffle closer.

“Theo?”

“Mm?”

She cleared her throat. “Are you?—?”

“Of course.” I chuckled. “I woke holding a gorgeous woman in my arms, Mai. What did you think would happen?”

She spluttered, her head tilting back to stare up at me. “But we’re friends.”

Her words plunged a deep wound in my chest.

Just friends.

I stuffed my feelings back into the little box I’d been storing them in for years.

“I know,” I said, gently running my knuckles over her face. “Ignore him, he’s got a horny mind of his own.”

If this is all I’d ever experience, then I had to be satisfied. I couldn’t push Mai to feel something for me if it wasn’t there. She was far too precious a friend for me to fuck this up by making her feel guilty or obliged to try something with me based solely on my inability to keep my feelings to myself.

I began to withdraw, shifting to untwine myself from her when Mai’s arms and legs tightened around me.

“Wait,” she said, her dark eyes searching my face. “Maybe we could… cuddle? Just for a little longer?”

A shot of something that felt a lot like hope hit my bloodstream. I pulled her into my chest, holding her against me.

“Your heart is racing,” she murmured into the quiet of the room.

I made a sound of agreement, unable to find the words needed to explain exactly why my chest thundered like a freight train.

I’m in love with my best friend.

She cleared her throat, then cleared it again. “You sure your leg is okay?”

“It’s good.” I flexed the muscles, wincing slightly at the remaining tightness. “But I’ll take my crutch to set today, just to be sure.”

“That’s a good idea.”

We fell into companionable silence, our breathing beginning to match.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to admit how much I wanted to kiss her. It might change our friendship, but to hell with it—I wanted out of this purgatory.

“Mai, would you ever?—”

Her alarm interrupted me.

With a sigh, I let her go, watching her roll over to tap on her screen.

“Would I ever?” she prompted, sitting up in bed.

“Never mind. Let’s get ready for another day of competition.”

Dressed and with stomachs full of hotel fare, we made our way down to the giant conference room once more.

There was something in the air today, a kind of brimming nervous energy that set my senses on edge.

“A double elimination,” Michelle announced cheerfully as she outlined our next task. “This is a two-day challenge, and at the end of today, the team with the least creative vision, as decided by Erike, will be eliminated.”

I exchanged a wide-eyed look with Mai.

“Yes,” Michelle confirmed before anyone could ask. “We’re looking for bold designs—meek and mild has no place in this competition.”

Geeze, not even a chance to finish the design. Tough break.

“Tomorrow you’ll present your final product for judging. At which time, our judges will choose the top three teams to progress to the grand finale.”

I glanced at Mai, raising an eyebrow. “I thought this gig was meant to go for six weeks.”

She frowned. “So did I.”

“Your challenge today is something a little different,” Michelle said, a twinkle in her eye. “Today we’re off to the Royal Gala. You may choose any of the themes from the long and vivid history of the event—and we can’t wait to see which one you bring to life.”

She turned to the clock. “Competitors, your time starts….” She paused dramatically. “Now!”

Mai and I took off for the textile area, my mind racing as I tried to remember themes from previous years.

Surprisingly, I did remember one.

“Wasn’t there a year about Gods?”

“Heavenly bodies,” Mai confirmed, her gaze sweeping over the multitudes of fabrics at our fingertips. “That was the year Robbie Huynh and his wife, Astrid, were crowned best in show.”

“Wait, it’s a competition? What do they win? Rich people yachts?”

Mai chuckled. “Not quite. They did look incredible though.”

I glanced around, noting that the other contestants had already finished with their selections.

“What theme are we going for?”

Mai hesitated, then reached out to touch a bolt that seemed to be made of millions of sparkling tear drops.

“We’re going to do Awakening Beauties,” she said decisively. “I want a ballgown and the symbolism of the poisoned apple. We need to go with the romanticism and fantasy, the beauty and the drama.”

I nodded. “Can we add the mice into this?”

“What?”

“You know.” I held my hands up in front of my face, pretending to be a mouse. “Pumpkins and carriages, mice into horses.”

“That’s Cinderella.”

“Shit.” I held my arms out to accept the bolts of fabric she began to pull from the wall. “Which one has the bookstore?”

Mai snorted. “It’s a library, and that’s Beauty and the Beast.”

“We’re doing what one?”

“Sleeping Beauty.”

I wracked my brains trying to remember which was which. “With the wicked stepmother?”

“I think the majority of them have wicked stepmothers.”

I chuckled. “Is that a reference to our conversation last night?”

She offered me a wide-eyed look that failed in any way to look innocent.

“Gotcha.” I thought about the many versions of fairy tales I had read over the years. “What if we did something different?”

Mai paused in her collection. “Like what?”

A concept began to take shape—something bold and a little bit left field. “Medusa.”

“Medusa?” she repeated.

“Yeah.” I juggled the bolts, suddenly overcome with enthusiasm for my idea. “She’s beautiful before her curse, but it’s her rage that made her a legend.”

“You know the horror of her story, right?” Mai asked, looking skeptical.

“Yep. Men are trash and the woman just wanted to be left alone. She turned guys to stone for being men. Going out on a limb, gonna say she was the first woman to choose bear over man.”

Mai snorted. “Nah, that’d be Eve. Girl would have chosen a bear every time. Who do you think she was picking the apple for?”

I wiggled in place, practically vibrating with enthusiasm. “Coming back to the topic, her head was cut off, Mai. But what if this whole time she was just sleeping until we could bring her back to exact her final revenge? In dress form,” I hurried to add. “You know, ’cause that’s important.”

Mai tapped one hand against her leg as she stared off into the distance. I could see the cogs in her mind turning over, thinking it through, creating and discarding ideas and designs.

“I… I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I really like it.” She plucked the bolts of fabric from my arms, discarding them in an empty storage bin. “We need something that can start as one thing, then transform into another. We want her to be rising from her slumber—she is the snake in the garden of Eden, bringing Eve knowledge. She is the jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, and Maleficent. She is all the women who have been wronged.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Theo, I am so into this idea. Thank you!”

She wrapped herself around me. She had aimed for my cheek but at the last moment I turned my head, catching her lips by accident.

“Shit, sorry.”

She pulled back, breathless and flushed, her eyes bright. We stared at each other, then she shook her head.

“Right, well.” She cleared her throat. “We should get to work.”

Mai’s concept was daring, bold, and incredibly beautiful. She’d found a marbled silk that shimmered under the light. At first glance when pulled tight against the mannequin it looked like stone, but when loosened it became a shimmering dance of light.

We worked through the morning and into the long afternoon, pinning and folding, cutting and pressing, until a dress began to take shape.

Two hours before the end of the day, Erike began to make his rounds.

My lips curled, wanting to growl at him to go away as he stood over Mai, staring at her design.

“It’s far from unique,” he said dismissively. “A changing dress? Someone attempts it every year.”

“But it’s not just a dress,” Mai protested weakly. “It’s also about the story, which really speaks to?—”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Erike reached for Mai’s pen, plucking it from her fingers to quickly sketch on the pad. “But here is your problem. There’s rush in this dress, frantic stress.” He handed her back the pen. “Breathe and try again.”

Mai nodded mutely, watching him with big eyes as he left.

“Ignore him,” I told her, wincing as I pricked myself once again. “He’s a dick.”

“He’s one of the top designers in the world.”

“My apologies. He’s a fashionable dick.”

She snorted, then bent over her drawing, considering the areas he’d circled. She sucked in a breath. “We’ll just have to keep going until I work out how to give him what he wants.”

What he needs is someone to tell him where to shove it.

I wisely kept that thought to myself.

“Contestants, you have thirty minutes of today’s sew to go!” Michelle yelled from the platform at the front of the room. “And because we’re not going to make this easy for you, we have another surprise.”

Assistants streamed into the room to place boxes on our tables before walking away.

“You may now open your challenge box!”

I looked at Mai who seemed frozen, her fingers clasping a roll of satin.

“You want me to open it?” I asked, my voice low as cameras surged toward us, capturing every reaction.

She nodded, the color draining from her cheeks.

Around us were gasps and laughter, shrieks and sighs as the contestants unpacked their mysterious item.

With a flourish, I whipped open the box, shoving my hand inside to withdraw?—

“Candles?”

“That’s right, contestants!’ Michelle swept across the platform, swirling in her gown. “It wouldn’t be a Royal Gala without a little drama thrown into the mix. It’s up to you to incorporate these items into your look!”

Around the room, each couple received something different. There were plates, napkins, even cutlery.

The candles toppled from my fingers to scatter across the workbench.

“Mai? What are you thinking?”

Silence.

Looking up at her, she seemed frozen, her eyes trained on the wax sticks.

“Mai?” I stepped closer, blocking her from the cameras. “You okay?”

She sucked in a deep breath, her head snapping back. “I… I….” She looked at me helplessly, tears glinting on her eyelashes.

Fuck.

I leaned in, covering my microphone with one hand, my lips brushing her ear. “Go. I’ll distract them.”

She nodded frantically, stepping back as the judges began to walk around the tables, drilling the contestants on how they were pivoting their designs.

“Candles!” I boomed, swinging my arms wide and shooting the camera a cocky grin. “Are they expecting us to set the dress alight? That would certainly be memorable.” I grabbed my crutch and powered toward the fabric area, forcing the camera operator to follow me as Mai slipped away.

“Don’t worry, Mai! I’ll check which fabrics aren’t flammable!” I stopped at the fabric rolls, reaching out to finger a piece of flannel. “After all, we want Medusa not cinder -ella.”

Celeste shot me a thumbs-up, her grin large and ecstatic. As predicted, I’d managed to win her over through good cheer, lots of puns, and a shit-ton of coffee hand-delivered to her each morning.

I glanced back at our table, grateful to find that Mai had disappeared and the countdown clock was minutes away from ending our day.

Filling time, I walked around the materials, joking with the camera and generally getting in the way of the other contestants and crew until Michelle blew her whistle, halting the day’s work.

“See you tomorrow, contestants!”

With a long sigh, I switched off my microphone, handing it over to my handler.

“Where’s Mai?” I asked, my voice low.

“Dressing room. She’s….” He shook his head. “Not great.”

“Are they recording her?”

“No.” He glanced around, then leaned in, his voice low. “I told them her microphone had fucked up. They agreed to let her end the day early rather than deal with swapping it out.”

I clasped his shoulder. “Thanks, Greg. I appreciate your discretion.”

“No problem. My brother lives with anxiety. I recognize the signs.” He nodded at someone over my shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

Using my crutch, I made my way to the dressing room, my steps echoing in the empty hallway. Pushing open the door, I found Mai sitting on a stool, her head bowed, hands fidgeting with a loose thread on her pants.

“Hey,” I said softly, leaning against the doorframe. She looked up, her eyes tired.

“Hey,” she replied, a hint of a smile touching her lips.

I walked over and sat beside her, stretching my legs out in front of me and placing my crutch on the floor. Turning, I gave her a comforting squeeze on the shoulder. “You did great today, you know that?”

Mai let out a shaky breath. “I feel like I’m falling apart. This competition is so much harder than I thought.”

“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed,” I reassured her. “But remember why you’re here. You have a gift, and you deserve to showcase it.”

She nodded slowly, but still clearly unsure. “It’s just....” Tears shimmered on her lashes. “I don’t know if I can do this, Theo. Everything is just so intense. Every time I feel like I’m on top of it, they throw something new at us and I become—” She gestured at herself.

“Perfect?”

She shook her head, not even summoning a laugh. “I’m a hot mess.”

I pulled her head against my chest, holding her tight against me. “You’re not.”

“I am.”

“Fine. You are. But so what? Aren’t we all hot messes?”

She tilted her head back to look up at me. “No. You’re completely together.”

“If you believe that then I’m doing a better job at pretending than I anticipated. Feeling your emotions isn’t a bad thing. For a long time post the crash I struggled to feel anything but anger.” I looked down at our clasped hands. “We’re told by society to be meek and mild and gentle. To hold space for our emotions but only show them in private—or at a ball game. We’re judged if we cry too much or not enough. We’re told to not burden people but to admit when we need help. You know what? I’m fucking sick of it.”

I looked down into her stunning brown eyes. “Just be you, Mai. And if the you you need to be right now is a crying, sobbing wreck of a human being, so be it. I don’t care. You’re still going to be one of the best people I know—snotty nose and all.”

She stared at me for a beat. “Theo?”

“Yeah, babe.”

“I’m going to squeeze you right now.”

I pulled her closer. “Squeeze as long as you want.”

And there in the quiet of the dressing room, the little box that had contained my feelings for Mai began to fracture.