Turn 5 of 11

Answer for Sasha, telling theo that both you and Sasha are really enjoying it and making some great money, especially from the lingerie shoot from a week ago, where you both got a chance to show off your hot, sexy, curvy, busty, wide-hipped, bodies. With that, you imply that you and Sasha are slowly falling for each other, your love and lust growing each shoot

"Oh, she's loving it," you say, before Sasha can open her mouth. You feel her stiffen in the doorway — a quick, sharp tension that runs through her frame like a current.

"We both are. The money's incredible, honestly. We did a campaign last week — editorial, really upscale stuff — and the paycheque alone was more than I made in a month at Nelson & Crane."

You're talking faster now, filling the space before Sasha can interrupt, before the silence can swallow the story whole. The room shifts again — the garment bag on the door multiplies, becomes two. A second comp card appears on the desk, face down, and you don't need to see the face to know whose it is. The campaign poster on the wall reshuffles, gains a second figure, two women shot in high contrast against concrete, wearing something architectural and sharp.

"We've been doing a lot of the shoots together, which is nice," you continue, and your voice is doing that thing now — that warm, glossy thing, the voice of someone who gives interviews, someone who is always having a wonderful time. "It's been really good for us. Closer than ever, honestly. We've always been close but this is... I don't know. Different."

From the doorway, Sasha makes a sound. It's not a word. It's the sound a person makes when they're watching a door close on them from the wrong side — a small, involuntary noise, caught between horror and the strangeness of watching your own life rewrite itself in real time. Her hair is longer now. You can see it happening, or you think you can — the subtle weight of it settling against her shoulders, the way it frames a face that is becoming, minute by minute, less the face of the girl who was texting you stop-sign emojis ten minutes ago and more the face of someone who belongs on a comp card.

Theo leans forward on the screen, his expression warm, genuinely pleased.

"That's really wonderful," he says, and he means it, or the version of him that lives inside this conversation means it. "It sounds like you've found your people. Both of you."

His cursor hovers. You can see it in the corner of the screen — that patient, waiting arrow, resting near the search bar, ready to look up whatever you say next. And the question is already forming on his face, mild and curious and unhurried, the expression of a man who has all night and every intention of using it.

"So tell me about the campaign," he says. "What was the shoot like? Who was the photographer?"

Your phone buzzes once more. Sasha, still standing in the doorway, hasn't moved — but her hand is in her pocket, and the buzz is her text, not yours. You glance down. Two words: *I can't.*