Everything You Never Had

Surprise

The morning sun peaking thru your apartment window causes you to wake up. You take a stretch and lay still, looking at the ceiling, a smile on your face. The comfort of waking up in your own bed does you good. The last few months you've spend mostly abroad, working on your own little photography project, which turned out to be grander then you'd have ever imagined.

You're a succesful photographer in your early thirties. Despite your young age, you have a broad experience. Being known as an all around photographer, people have hired you to shoot nature, architecture, animals, pretty much everything. Your favorite thing to capture however, are people. You love to connect with people and you have quite the talent for it. Making them feel at ease and knowing just the right things to say comes naturally for you.

You get up, put on your workout clothes and get out the door for a quick morning run thru London. For some a torment, but for you the perfect start of any day. The cool morning breeze always had it's way of waking you up.

Once home, you take a shower, get ready for the day, and sit down for breakfast. After you've fueled your body with some toast, it's time to get to work.
Working according to a tight scedule has never been your thing. That's where your organized assistent, who also happens to be your best friend, comes to the rescue. Noah and you have known each other since college. You both took the same art major. It's really sappy but, you once borrowed a pencil from Noah, and the rest is history.

With your eyes focused on your laptop, you go through the many pictures that you've already shot of different celebrities. You're attempting to sort them all out and eventually make a final selection as to which shots end up being shown at the art gallery in a few weeks.
You come across the faces of Will Smith, Emma Stone, Laura Dern, Robert De Niro, Akwafina and Samuel L. Jackson. What a list that is. You still cannot believe that all of those people wanted to work with you.

Carefully selecting all the right pictures and dragging them to another file, puts you in a trance-like state. The sound of your ringtone brings you back to reality. It's your best friend/assistent.

"Morning Noah."

"Hey, quick question, you mind if I come over? I've got a surprise." The tone of his voice matches his enthousiastic words.

"Definitely. But make sure to-" Before you can finish your sentence you hear the doorbell. "Hold on Noah. Somebody's at the door."

You stand up from your seat and step out of your office into your spacious apartment. You make your way across the entrance hall and open the door.
Before you stands a handsome young man with a radiant caramel brown complection.

"Noah?!" You blurt out.

"I'm sorry, couldn't wait."

You let him in and wonder what possibly could excite him this much.

"I haven't had breakfast yet."

You smile at his indirect request. "Kitchen's all yours."

Once you're both seated at the kitchen table, and Noah has a bowl of oatmeal in front of him, your anticipation begins to rise.

"So..." you begin. "What's this big surprise that couldn't wait."

"I'll tell you when I finish my food."

"Seriously?"

"I like to watch you suffer." he says with a sly grin.

"Can't say I'm surprised." You try to act tough, but a smile crosses over your face.

People have always assumed Noah and you are a couple. You've never felt that kind of attraction towards him, and you know he has never felt that about you, too. The love you feel for each other is on a completely innocent friendship level. You two could conquer the world tho. Having been through a lot together, in good times as well as dark times, you know each other thru and thru. You can count on him for about anything as he can count on you.

Watching him eat extra slow, just for the sake of his enjoyment, irritates you. You stare him dead in his deep brown, earthy eyes, which matches the shade of the curly locks on top of his head. When he finally takes his last bite, your curiosity has reached it's peak.

"Alright." He speaks calmly. "I'm full."

"Took you long enough." Your tone is agitated.

You see the excitement that is starting to form in his face. "The project isn't done yet." He says.

"Yeah, tell me something new. I'm almost done with choosing the final selection."

"No, not like that." He chuckles at your unknowingness. "I mean you're not done shooting."

"You have to make some sense here Noah. You said Akwafina was the last one."

"I've set you up for just one more shoot." His facial expression is getting more ecstatic by the second.

"Because you want to grant us some more jetlag?" You say sarcasticly. At this point, you really don't know if you're all that excited anymore.

"Because I just couldn't miss out on this opportunity. And f.y.i., this one's close by. And even if she would give us jetlag, trust me, you'd still thank me."

"I'd thank you even more if you could just tell me, for the love of God, who she is." Your tone sounds direct and annoyed.

"Alright, hold your horses." He lays both his hand palms down on the flat surface of the table.

"You're going to work..." He takes a deep breath. "with Cate Blanchett!"

A shock of disbelief rushes over you. You stare at Noah for some time, eyes wide open.

This can't be.

You've never underestimated Noah's talent, but this is too much.

This can't be.

The woman you've admired for years on end.

This. Just. Can't. Be.

"Y/N, you there?" Noah waves his hands before your eyes, trying to get you back to reality.

____________________

After Noah has given you some time to catch your breath, you both move over to the couch.

"Please, clarify this for me." You begin to say. "How did you ever manage to get this done?"

"Well..." Noah begins to explain. "At the start of the project, when I've called just about every Hollywood agent to see which celebrities were available, I also happened to call to Cate's agent."

You deliberatly listen to every word he's saying, not wanting to miss a thing.

"At the time, she wasn't available." He continues. "But when Cate's scedule cleared up a bit, her agent informed her about my call, about you wanting to work with her." Noah takes pride in the words he's saying. "Apparently she's familiar with your work and she's down to work with you."

"She knows who I am?!" You shout out, absolutely flustered.

"Don't act so surprised. You've worked your ass off for a decade. People know your work, Y/N. Your name is known."

Still, your head cannot rap around all the things that have just been said. "This is just all one big joke. You're lying."

"I am not! This is actually going to happen Y/N, so you better prepare, because we'll meet her tomorrow."

"What?!"

A/N

This is my very first story on this app! Please let me know what you think. I'd love to get some feedback to see if you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.