"Out-Of-Hours Harassment."
Alice and Rio had been walking up the hectic Highstreet for the past half an hour, shivering in the biting cold. Alice was wrapped up in a plaid scarf and hat she’d crocheted herself, whereas Rio was, as usual, underdressed for the weather. She leaned into Alice as they walked, which produced a chuckle from the latter; Rio hated contact until she was freezing, then she’d practically attach herself to the closest heat source.
“You cold?” Alice says, wrapping an arm around Rio, who didn't answer. It was quite obvious the woman was nigh on frozen. “Are we nearly at this cafe?” She adds. “I hate this bit of the city, it’s quite snobby, don't you think?” Alice frowned as she peered into shop windows, each displaying overpriced handbags, or delicately made pastries, or extravagant cloth bound books, or freaky looking mannequins in extortionate outfits. It felt soulless.
“The dresses you make are way better than those” Alice says softly, gesturing to a particularly frilly pink monstrosity. She could tell Rio wasn't in much of a talking mood but was happy to fill the silence, determined to ensure Rio had a nice day off, especially considering the barrage of texts she’d from her the past week, all of which were some form of complaint about work.
“Oh wow, that's a... that's a choice.” Alice laughs as a familiar purple sportscar speeds up the road infront of them. The black tinted windows were cracked open a tad, allowing a steady stream of obnoxiously loud music to spill out into the street.
Rio scoffed
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Agatha had dropped Nicky off at his fancy private school that morning. Thank God he’d been in a good mood, and they’d actually got there on time, since usually she had to practically drag him out of bed in the morning. She pulled up outside the gate and let him out of the car, waving him off.
Nicky didn't even turn around as he dashed into the building, thrilled to be back at school, though he did sort of wish he could go to work with his Mama again. It was fun causing a bit of chaos
When Agatha finally got to her office, she was met with the dismal reminder that Rio wasn't in today. Not that she enjoyed the blasted younger woman’s presence or anything. She’d just grown used to it. Billy had fetched her coffee this morning, and left it sat on her desk for goodness knows how long. Aside from the fact it was frightfully cold, and came from the completely wrong shop, it was decaf. Now she could forgive any other mishaps, but to refuse her morning dose of caffeine?!
Agatha had never felt so insulted in her life. Sitting down at her desk, which was still semi-disorganised following her son’s rampage the day before, she began drafting an email to Rio regarding her designs. Last night, Agatha had come to the conclusion that the brand was desperate for new blood, as much as she hated to admit it, and it would be way easier to leach some innovative designs from her PA than outsource them. In retrospect, perhaps the email was a little too harsh, but she attributed it to the lack of good coffee and went about with her day.
It did feel a little odd without Rio’s awkward presence. Agatha found herself making little quips or comments aloud, before remembering that Vidal wasn't there to hear them.
“Pull yourself together woman!”
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Alice and Rio finally reached Calderu Coffee at around 11, stepping in through the glass double doors, their senses immediately overwhelmed with the scent of roasting coffee beans and the warmth of the fireplace in the corner. Rio let out a breath she didn't know she was holding at the sight of the familiar environment.
Jen was behind the counter as usual, dressed in her usual heaps of jewellery and navy corduroy apron, organising cakes and cookies on the display mantel. She was looking thoroughly bored, and it was evidently a quiet morning for the shop.
“Hey Girl, where’ve you been? Her ladyship needs her morning cup of twenty shots of coffee, right? How ever, will she function without them?” Jen laments dramatically, quirking a perfectly shaped eyebrow at Rio
“Nope, it's my day off” The latter declared, unable to stop the slight triumphant smile that graced her sharp features. “Two coffees. Maybe I can have loyalty discount? Or I can use one of Harkness’s credit cards” Rio mumbled flatly, fishing in her handbag that she’d sewn together a few months ago when she was supposed to be tidying up her room...
“I’ll get them Rio, don't stress” Alice says softly, tapping her card against the machine
“Woah, Ri, you never told me you had pretty friends!” Jen held her hand out to Alice, who hesitantly shook it, the colour high on her cheeks.
“Hey girl” Jen smiled “I love the scarf”
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Alice and Rio ended up sat in a corner booth by the window of the shop, with two coffees and a steady supply of cakes and pastries that Jen suddenly insisted were on the house.
“How’s the band going Ali?” Rio says, boiling liquid scalding her throat a little as she sipped her caramel apple spice.
“Oh, you know! It's going pretty well. We’ve been practising like crazy, and it's sort of coming together now. We got this incredible new drummer and he’s amazing. No offence to your drumming” Alice says with a giggle. Rio was their stand-in drummer and had a tendency to forget what she was meant to be playing, resorting to just banging the loudest one whenever she felt like it.
“None taken,” Rio said, holding her hands up in surrender before Alice cut back in; “But yeah, the music just flows so nicely now, I’m so pleased with it all and its just-”
She stopped herself, realising she was rambling a bit. “Sorry, I get way too excited talking about the band” Alice giggles sheepishly.
“No, it's nice having someone else doing the rambling for once” Rio insisted, before launching into a typically long and convoluted story about what happened yesterday.
“Oh! by the way, I made a new friend yesterday” Rio smiles proudly, before talking Alice through her recent escapades with her boss's son.
“A nine-year-old doesn't count as a friend. No way is a kid replacing me” Alice gasps in mock indignation.
“Watch this space” Rio smirks, before her phone buzzes. That stupid UFO notification noise that she swore she’d change ages ago but hadn't gotten around to doing it. She groaned as she saw the name. Alice leant over the table, peaking over Rio’s battered Minecraft phone case.
“No way do you have push notifications turned on for your boss on your day off!” Alice laughed “I knew you were in love with her” she adds, but Rio was already laser-focused on the contents of the email.
“This is out-of-hours harassment” Rio murmured, her eyes skimming the contents.
“You opened the email!” Alice scoffs before setting about finishing off a slice of carrot cake, the only sound between the pair being the scraping of her fork and the gentle click of Rio’s bitten nails on her cracked phone screen.
“Dearest Rhiannon’’ the email begins, which already elicits an eye roll from the addressee.
“I’d like to see what you could bring to my enterprise. I've come to the realisation that the majority of the designs coming from my team are abysmal, subpar at best. Seeing as none of those talentless hacks can muster up anything worthy of the summer collection; I trust that you can present me with ten concepts tomorrow. That Mermaid dress sketch you put in my desk was surprisingly adequate. More of that ilk please. I know you won’t disappoint. Enjoy the rest of your day off, and I’ve attached my coffee order for tomorrow, seeing as teen has managed to mess it up again today.
With all due scorn,
A. Harkness”
The usual annoyance that stirred in her gut when reading anything composed by Agatha Harkness was swiftly replaced by a deep pit in Rio’s stomach.
Shit. Ten designs? Tomorrow? She let out an involuntary groan, though there was an undeniable flicker of curiosity within her too. Agatha had never asked to see her work before. Hell, she hardly looked at the work of her own team, never mind her useless assistant's. After months of early morning coffee runs and sorting pointless files, she finally had her chance. As Rio stared off into the distance, contemplating the gravity of the situation, Alice prised the phone from her slack grasp, her eyes scanning the email.
“Oh my god. She wants to see your stuff? Rio, this is huge, she’s going to love it!” Alice practically squeals, prompting a grin from Jen, who had taken to blatantly watching the pair from behind the counter in between ferrying them free cakes.
“Wha? Oh, right.,. I mean, she probably just wants to tear my work apart and scrutinise every little detail...” Rio trailed off, her uncertainty building. Hadn't this been what she wanted all this time? Maybe she was better adjusted to the life of a mere office assistant, this was way too much pressure.
“Even still, you’re getting critiqued by the founder of the House of Harkness. People would pay thousands for that! Oh, we need to go back to your place and pick out what you’re gonna show her. This is great!” Alice seemed truly elated for her friend, and admittedly her excitement was beginning to spread to Rio.
“Jen! Jen, can we get the rest of this in a to go box?” Alice says, gesturing to the spattering of half-eaten snacks on the small table. Jen, who had already approached the pair to have a glance whatever was so interesting on Rio’s phone, rolled her dark eyes and nodded, disappearing behind the counter for a minute or two before she promptly threw a cardboard take out box at them. Alice set to work stashing away as much as she could, before pulling on her scarf.
“Nuh uh. No way are we walking all the way back.” Rio says, shivering at the thought.
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They took a taxi through the bustling streets of London, Rio playing some stupid mobile game on her cracked phone to try and push away the growing sense of stress pressing on her chest. They finally made it back to Rio’s street, paying the driver and stepping out onto the sidewalk.
The apartment block was quite a bit older than those surrounding it, the brickwork slightly crumbling, though it was somewhat held together by a myriad of stretching vines and creeping ivy that was quickly engulfing the building. The entrance was a set of narrow stairs up to the red front door, which appeared to be the only thing that actually got repainted and cleaned, standing out against the greying bricks. There was a small, cluttered parking lot out front, mostly filled with motorbikes and colourful bicycles. Though the building itself was somewhat shabby, its surroundings were vibrant and artsy. Large murals and graffiti cover the neighbouring buildings, and street vendors were set up on the street across the road, selling a mix of vintage clothing, handmade trinkets and touristy crap. The rather tumultuous environment suited Rio; she’d always been more comfortable in chaos.
Rio clambered up the four flights, her heavy boots clanking loudly against the metal. The lift had been broken for weeks, but hey, at least she was getting her daily workout on these blasted stairs. Muttering curses under her breath, she finally reached her godawful pastel purple door. The colour had come to remind her of Agatha, and she wasn't quite sure if that made it more or less palatable.
The pair spent the next couple hours flipping through Rio’s wardrobe of handmade garments, and her sketchbook of designs, trying to select the ones that would impress Agatha the most. There were sketches of bold, daring outfits, some with unique silhouettes or eccentric details. Others were more refined, more elegant. Some were completely rogue, others downright awful. Rio burst out laughing at a particular black monstrosity from a few years back, despite Alice’s insistence that it ‘really wasn't that bad’
Time seemed to slip away as they laughed and debated over which route to go down, and they eventually decided on about twenty of their favourites that highlighted the vast scope of Rio’s work and style, while not appearing to be “too much”, as Agatha would kindly put it. Alice gathered the sketches together and slipped them into a folder before placing them carefully into Rio’s portfolio.
“Right” she says, “It’s done now, so don't stress about it anymore, yeah?” Alice attempts, knowing that Rio would get absolutely no sleep until Agatha had reviewed all of her pieces tomorrow afternoon.
Rio just shrugged, already pouring over yet another stack of potential candidates.
“No, Rio, look, we’ve got more than enough, lets focus on something else, yeah? How about we tidy up your apartment a bit, I mean, no offence, but I think that pair of Nikes have been in that exact position on the floor since like, 2019.” Alice says, studying the true extent of the mess. It wasn't unclean per say, just a complete hodge podge of shit that her friend had been hoarding the past few years.
Rio’s wide eyes surveyed her bedroom/sewing room/living room/dining room/storage room and shrugged. Sure, there were scraps of fabric and thread and needles strewn across the floor, along with a growing pile of shoes and clothes that hadn't been put away, and stacks of art supplies and obscure instruments she had a tendency to hyper fixate on and then completely forget about. Okay, maybe Alice had a point.
“Aw, but I know where everything is like this. It’s all organised, promise! Can we just watch a movie or play a video game or something?” Rio pouts, producing the television remote from under an unsuspecting pile of handbags.
“Go on then” Alice smiled softly as Rio put on some dumb sitcom they’d already watched like ten times. As long as her friend wasn't stressing out about tomorrow, Alice was happy. She quietly took one of the takeout boxes from the cafe out of her black backpack, breaking a pain au chocolate in half and offering it to Rio.
It was only then she noticed that Jen had written her phone number on the inside of the box in swirly cursive, with a little ‘Call Me’ scrawled in underneath. She smiled to herself, making sure Rio hadn't noticed and shoved the cardboard back into her bag.