Adrienette Love Story

Chapter 16

"Are you alright?" Marinette whispered.

MH frowned. "She should be the last person throwing around accusations of theft."

Without Lila hampering him, Adrien floated around, looking at what everyone was working on. "Tell me what you've been working on, Sylvie."

Her manager beamed. Clearly, she knew he was coming, which is why she let them work with the pressure off. "Today, I've had everyone taking one of the more basic selections of our past lines. An exercise really to get everyone thinking about their ideas for their design submissions."

"The idea being how to make old feel new?"

"Exactly."

"Let's take a look."

Marinette breathed a little easier since he headed the other way. She kept eyeing the door, wondering if she could quietly sneak out to the bathroom without running into Lila along the way.

He wove through the other dresses, making comments here and there.

Adrien had been lovely, but Kagami could get into major trouble if his observation skills were as good as they appeared from across the room.

She had made a solid effort on her assigned piece: it was a pretty basic little black dress with a classic A-line skirt. Subtle pops of color would go a long way, but it was not overdone. She'd added a bit of tulle with a lace edge to the base and a wide metallic belt to give the form some more defined shape.

She had been debating on playing with a bit of lace near the top, but considering the dress she had worn last night, she was relieved she hadn't made the look resemble it. As he moved around the room, she gathered the lace, making it an impromptu rosette. It wouldn't hold for long, but she could pull it through the belt to make it more of an accessory in a pinch.

"That's a striking color," Adrien spoke thoughtfully once her time had arrived.

She bowed her head, focusing on fluffing the skirt to swing with the best effect.

Mostly so he didn't see her face up close.

"I wasn't able to do too much with the timing, sewing the skirt without having it look added took some time and care."

"You would never know it," he murmured with approval. "But I don't think I spotted the rosette before." He beamed. "It's a nice matching touch."

"Thank you," she grinned in spite of herself. That was now twice in less than 24 hours he had praised her work.

Better yet, Lila had come in with his notes sometime during his compliments and looked positively irritated by his attention not being on her.

That alone called for celebration.

When Alya mentioned the girls were getting together and going out after work, Marinette hadn't hesitated.

She hadn't asked who was coming either.

Sitting a few tables back, Marinette nursed a drink, watching the band tune up on the main stage to the side of the noisy room. Service was slow, so Alya had just gone up to the bar to get one of her own.

Marinette warily watched as Kagami shouted and cat-called her boyfriend on stage.

She'd made it her personal mission to make her longtime boyfriend blush, on stage. Whenever possible.

Much to Kagami's delight, she was clearly winning.

Marinette sighed, taking another long sip. During the brief period she had dated Luka as a young teen, she had learned that his father was a famous artist, but he had been very careful not to take anything more from him than an instrument when he had been old enough.