Page 80 of Tempest

Remember who you are.

Who am I?

I’m motherfucking Odette Quinn. Stylist to the most A-listers of all A-listers. I’ve dressed wives of presidents and prime ministers. I’ve had dinner with literal princesses on private yachts in the French Riviera. I’ve been to the Oscars, the Grammys, the Emmys. I’ve hobnobbed with the most rich and most famous and never felt like I was less than any of them.

I’m a woman who doesn’t take shit, who doesn’t cower. Who doesn’t run away from a fire that she can put out herself.

I’m not the girl in her mother’s flower bed crying over a broken heart. Not anymore.

Setting my shoulders back and my head high, I take the few steps down to my seat with the wives and girlfriends. Where I fucking belong.

“Mom,” Tori says to Caroline, getting her attention. “Odette is back.”

“Oh, sorry,” Caroline says, turning to me. “I just came up to say hi. It’s good seeing you, Odette.”

Is it? Or is it as strange for her as it is for me?

“It’s nice to see you, too, Caroline.” Not a lie, not the truth, either. I haven’t seen her since she wed the boy I loved. But that’s not who we are anymore. Now she’s the woman that raised an exceptional young woman I’ve come to care for. It’s a fine line that I stand on with Caroline.

“I’ll see you for breakfast, sweetheart,” she says to her daughter before waving and walking off.

Had I expected her appearance tonight, my reaction may not have been so visceral that I needed my friends to bolster my backbone. But I didn’t expect, there was no time to fasten my armor tightly. Did Gavin know she’d be here?

Did he hope that we wouldn’t run into each other?

“Sorry,” Tori says quietly. “She didn’t mean to make anything uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine, you’re here, her friends are here. Of course, she’d want to come say hello.”

“You’re the wag now, though,” she says. “Dad wants you here with the team family.”

I cling to her words. Gavin wants me. If he’d known Caroline would be here, he would have told me. My insecurities need to take a back seat to what I know.

The game starts back up and my nerves settle as I watch Gavin skate around, handling the puck like he was born to do. I rarely pull my eyes away from him, even when he’s nowhere near the puck. If he’s on the bench, I watch the bench. I watch him as he watches the play in front of him.

The second period passes without me really seeing the game. Just him.

When the third period starts, I try to stay engaged in the game that is now tied two to two. All the women around me, as well as Damian, who arrived late in the first period, are feeling the intensity, knowing how much our players want this win.

Quickly, we score another goal. Cillian slapped the puck into the opposing net, assisted by Zander. The arena erupts in noise, the enthusiasm so contagious even my prim friend Vanessa is on her feet, hands raised in the air with both Britton and I smiling at how she’s living in the moment.

With only a few minutes left in the game, Gavin scores a goal, making it much harder for the other team to catch up. Not impossible, Sadie is quick to say, but difficult.

My phone starts buzzing in my handbag again.

Fallon:

I’m so sorry. But yes, emergency. Call when you can.

What absolute shit timing.

Josephine Marcus is about as diva as they come. A singer with a voice to rival the likes of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. The attitude of a demon spawn. Why I have not dumped her from my client list by now, I still question. She’s an awful person, but she pays a premium for us to put up with her.

She’s a great reminder of why I wanted to step back from my business. I don’t miss the late night or early morning calls because a client is fretting over what to wear to a party that might result in a single photograph of them hitting the press.

I still want to make people feel beautiful in what they wear, but my perspective has changed.

As the last second ticks off, a player on the other team slams into Gavin, knocking him flat on his back, his head bouncing off the ice.

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