I suggested we eat before doing any shopping, since I wanted to talk about some things Emmy and Angela might not have considered. Since none of us had eaten yet that day, it was easy enough to convince Emmy and Angela that food first was a good idea.

I’d never been in the Armani store before, but Emmy led us right past the crazy free-floating staircase and to the elevators to take us up to the third floor restaurant. As far as I knew Emmy hadn't been here since we got together, so I figured her familiarity must have come from shopping trips with her mom.

The maitre d’ had us seated immediately, even without reservations- one of the perks of being rich and famous. Angela looked a little intimidated by the obviously high-dollar restaurant, but I caught her hand and gave it a little squeeze, which seemed to help.

We were seated near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Fifth Avenue, which, unsurprisingly, meant that pretty much all the other diners could see us. This was, of course, one of the drawbacks of being ‘beautiful people’- the maitre d’ wanted the rest of the diners to know that Emmy Lascaux, the world’s sexiest woman (according to more than one magazine) dines at Armani Ristorante.

I was used to this, but I could tell it was still a bit of culture shock for Angela.

“Everybody’s staring at us,” she whispered once the waiter had taken our order, which, of course, Emmy ordered in Italian.

“Yeah, that happens,” I said. “It happens everywhere, all the time. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed it before.”

“Why is everybody staring?”

“It’s because of Emmy,” I explained, my voice low, too. “Everybody has seen her picture, or seen her videos or on TV, but nobody really believes she looks the way she does until they see her in person.”

“The salesman at Cartier didn’t stare,” Angela objected.

“He was too much of a pro to react in any visible way. The three of us could have walked in naked, covered in blue paint, and he wouldn’t have batted an eye. I guarantee you, though, when he gets home tonight he’s going to tell his boyfriend that he met Emmy De Lascaux today.”

“You think he was gay?” Angela asked, focusing on the wrong part of what I’d just said. “I thought he was really handsome.”

“That’s how you can tell he’s gay,” I said. “He was too well dressed, manicured and groomed to be straight.”

“Leah, you said you wished to talk?” Emmy asked. She’d been listening to our conversation, but made no comments about what I’d said, and this was an obvious ploy to change the topic.

I sat up a little straighter, and in a more normal conversational voice, but still quiet enough that our talk was private, I said, “Yeah, about shopping for clothes for Angela.”

Angela started to say something, maybe to object to what she thought I was getting at, but I continued on. “Angela is a model, Em. She makes her living by selling clothes with her social media influencing, right? These two clothing companies that sponsor her, they pay her to appear in their outfits, right, Ange?”

“Um, yeah, one’s a fashion brand and the other swimwear, so there’s no real conflict…” she replied, unsure what I was getting at.

“No conflict between the two lines, you mean?” I asked for clarification.

“That’s right,” she said. “I can’t pick up another swimwear line without losing the one I’ve got, for example, but I could, say, pick up an outdoor wear brand, like, um, Patagonia or something and there wouldn’t be any conflict.”

“Right,” I said. “And even if you aren’t repping another brand, you can’t post pictures of you wearing another company’s bikini, because of your contracts, can you?”

“Well…” Angela said, thinking about it. “It isn’t against my contract, but they wouldn’t like it.”

“Now, say Emmy takes you downstairs and spends a ton of money on Armani clothes for you- which I know she is just dying to do. She’s hoping you’ll be her real-life dress-up doll, and she can pick out outfits for you from all her favorite designers. Isn’t that true, Em?” I asked.

“Am I that transparent?” Emmy asked, looking sheepish.

“I know you pretty well by now, babe. You did it with me, too, don’t forget.”

“And what is wrong with that?” Emmy asked.

“Nothing, in most ways. You have incredible fashion sense, and if Angela likes shopping with you, I’d say go ahead and shop ’til you drop. But here’s the thing. Ange needs to wear her Fashion Flash stuff when spotted in public. If the paparazzi shoot pictures of her wearing Armani, Dior, whatever, but her socials are pictures of her in the clothes she’s supposed to model, word will get out and there’ll be a disconnect.”

“I understand,” Emmy said, nodding her head. “She is a public figure for her brand, and to be seen as unfaithful to it would be problematic.”

Angela had a sort of stricken look on her face, like she hadn’t thought about what I’d brought up, and now that she was thinking about it, she didn’t like the ramifications. “Fashion Flash paid me over seventy-five thousand dollars last year,” she said, thinking about it. “Now that I have over two million followers, it’ll be even more this year.”

“So how would Fashion Flash feel about you appearing in the tabloids wearing a Chanel dress?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “There’s nothing in my contract about wearing other brands when I’m not posting…”

“There is the other possibility,” Emmy suggested. “If you are seen wearing Prada as often as you wear Fashion Flash, will that elevate Fashion Flash to a higher level in your followers’ opinion? After all, if you could wear the high-end designers, but choose to wear your sponsor’s clothes, would that not mean that your sponsor makes very desirable clothing?”

Instead of clearing things up for Angela, Emmy’s conjecture seemed to confuse matters even more.

“Ange,” I said, resting my hand on hers on the tabletop. “I don’t want you to stop working. I want you to continue doing what you enjoy, and to have your own thing. Look- Emmy and I are rich by anyone’s measure, and if you never worked another day in your life we would be fine with that. But I don’t think you’d feel right about that, and I don’t want you to feel like- well, I mean, we’ve had this conversation,” I said as the waiter brought our spinach salads.

As we ate, Angela spent more time on her phone than with a fork in her hand. At Emmy’s questioning look, she said, “I’m sending an email to my inside rep. I told her I want to splurge on myself and buy some designer clothes, and asked how the brand would feel if I posted a selfie with Armani shopping bags.”

“I think that is a very good idea,” Emmy said.

“Oh, and look,” Angela said, holding her phone out so we could see her Instagram post featuring her in front of the Cartier store, her new watch on her wrist, and exiting the store showing the watch with the store front as a backdrop. “Look how many likes and comments I’ve already gotten,” she said. “It’s on fire. In my email, I told Sandra to look at that post and notice that I’m wearing Fashion Flash and a Cartier watch.”

“Let me guess- the reason you wanted a watch that wasn’t too expensive was so that you could tell your followers that you’d bought it for yourself, and it’d be believable?” I asked.

Looking guilty, Angela turned red and nodded, embarrassed to have been caught.

“I do not mind that at all,” Emmy said. “In truth, that is a very good idea.”

We switched to lighter topics after that, and left the subject of clothes alone while we worked on our main courses. Angela and I had both ordered the chicken and Emmy had opted for the filet, of which she only ate half. While the three of us were splitting a single order of hazelnut chocolate mousse, Angela’s phone buzzed with a reply email from her sales rep.

“We had a talk,” she read aloud. “We’re O.K. with you wearing high fashion brands in your posts, but the old rules about our competitors still apply. Let’s review in a month and see how this affects clicks, and we can revisit the subject then,” she read.

“This means that I can take you downstairs and dress you up like my real-life paper doll!” Emmy said, pleased at the outcome.

“Um, O.K.,” Angela said, a bit taken aback at Emmy’s joy at the prospect.

In all honesty, I thought Angela’s outfit was at least as stylish as most of the things we’d seen on the mannequins we passed on our way to the restaurant- but then, from what I’d seen, the big fashion houses tended to have two separate and mutually exclusive product lines. The ‘pop fashion’ stuff with big, garish logos, and the classy, understated elegant stuff for big money.

The fast fashion clothing I’d seen Angela get from her sponsor was, to my mind, better than the oversized T shirts with “A/X” splattered all over, or anything like that. I’ve always had a real hate-on for that kind of thing. Seriously, why would I pay money to advertise someone else’s product on my body? The clothes that Angela wore carried no obvious logos and seemed to be well-cut, so what was there to complain about?

Anyhow, I tried to bow out of the shopping, but Emmy wasn’t having it. “We want to spend time with you while you are here,” she said, tugging at my hand to get me moving. “You need new clothes as well, and this area has a great number of designer boutiques to chose from. We only have a few hours before our tour, so we cannot take too long.”

Sighing, I let Emmy and Angela drag me downstairs and into the realm of high-priced fashion.

We actually didn’t spend much time at the Armani boutique after all, quickly heading down the block to the Bergdorf Goodman department store instead. True to her word, Emmy really did pick out any amount of things for Angela to try on, eventually buying her at least a half-dozen complete outfits. Of course, I didn’t escape unscathed, but hey- I did need some new work outfits, anyway.

I didn’t even want to look at the total when Emmy paid for everything. Sure, I was going to see the charge when I looked over our bills later on, but whatever. If Emmy wanted to spend the money this way, I was fine with it.

Angela had seemed a bit uncomfortable at first, but Emmy’s infectious laugh and upbeat attitude soon had her enjoying the whole experience, and when we walked out the door carrying four shopping bags each her smile was as big as Emmy’s.

Wally pulled up the moment we stepped outside, and he helped us load the many bags into the car before we got in.

He dropped us off at the special entrance on 33rd Street for our tour before heading back to the townhouse to unload our purchases. I have to say, having attentive personal staff really rocks, and Wally was proving to be worth every penny we paid him. The guy was utterly professional and reliable- we really couldn’t ask for more.

The Empire State Building tour was a lot of fun. Of course we saw all the typical parts of the building, the displays that showed how the skyscraper was built and all that, as well as the 86th floor open-air observatory and the enclosed observatory on the 102nd floor. The best part, though, was that we got to ride in the private elevators and didn’t have to deal with the long lines that everybody else had to suffer through. Our tour guide, dressed like a classic doorman in his burgundy uniform with black cuffs and hat, explained all the sights and waited patiently while we oohed and ahhed at the views.

The Empire State building hasn’t been the world’s tallest in a long time, but it’s still pretty damned tall and the views are truly incredible. Everybody should make the visit at least once- a visit to New York City just wouldn’t be complete without it.

Dinner later that night was a lot like the time we’d taken Luisa to Per Se. The main difference, I guess, was that Angela had already experienced a dinner like that back in Chicago, so she wasn’t quite as awed as Luisa had been.

Angela was impressed that the chef came out and visited our table, and that we (well, Emmy) was on a first-name basis with the guy, but the attentive staff was otherwise just par for the course, so to speak.

The food was excellent and the wine pairings were spot-on, as expected, and the meal was as good as I’ve ever had.

Angela agreed that it was hard to say whether the place in Chicago was better or not, since both were so amazing. “It’s a tie, as far as I can tell,” she said. “I really don’t know enough to be able to say which one was better.”

When we got back to the house, we found Jen, Lee, Jackson and some girl I’d never seen before hanging out in the parlor, talking and drinking.

Jackson introduced his new girlfriend as Maddie, and said they’d met at the club last night. She seemed awestruck to meet Emmy, even though she must have known that Jackson and Lee were her bandmates.

Emmy wanted to socialize, but I begged off, explaining that I had an early flight in the morning. Angela went upstairs with me, and soon enough we were both soaking the day away in the big tub we’d had installed with the remodel.

Angela seemed to be in a quiet mood, so I kept my talking to a minimum. It didn’t seem as if Angela was sad, just… thinking about things. Eventually, she asked, “Can I come back to Los Angeles with you tomorrow?”

“You can do whatever you want, Ange,” I replied, kissing behind her ear. “You don’t ever need to ask my permission.”

“I know, I understand that, but I also know you wanted me here to take care of Emmy, and I feel like I’m going to be letting you down if I don’t do that.”

“I liked the fact that you were taking care of her, you’re right,” I agreed. “But she’s an adult. She might get really wrapped up in her music and forget what time it is, and maybe her sleep schedule will get all messed up if you aren’t here to make her go to bed and get up at reasonable times,” I said. “But it isn’t as if she can’t take care of herself at all. Like you said, there’s a house full of people here, so she won’t be all alone.”

“Now it sounds like you’re trying to talk me into coming to LA,” Angela joked, leaning her head back on my shoulder.

“I’d love to have you with me there,” I admitted. “But seriously, I’m not really going to be home all that much, what with work every day and school twice a week. You’ll be the one all alone a lot of the time.”

Angela sighed, saying, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Consider your options realistically, and make whatever decision you think is right. Don’t be here for Emmy or be there in LA for me. Be wherever you want, for you.”

Angela sat upright and turned around to face me, scooting close. “I want to be here for Emmy, and I want to be there for you,” she said. “I want you both, for me.”

“It’s a dilemma,” I said with a shrug. “I would love to have you to come home to after work, and I would love to have you to snuggle at night.”

“While Emmy is here in New York?”

“Hey,” I said, giving one of her nipple barbells a tug. “You aren’t a substitute for when I can’t have her. I don’t want you thinking that way.”

“Hey!” she complained, gently slapping my hand away. “I’m starting to think you only love me for my body jewelry!”

“Well, you did use it to hypnotize me,” I laughed.

“Would you ever consider, you know, getting pierced? Or maybe tattooed?” Angela asked as I played a bit more gently with the other barbell.

“It never seemed like something I wanted,” I said. “I love these little things on you, but I don’t think I’m in any hurry to get any, myself.”

“How about tattoos?”

“I dunno, maybe a tattoo, if I got inspired or something, but I’m not gonna rush out and get inked just because it’s the in thing to do,” I replied. “Have you been thinking about getting a tattoo?”

“Maybe a heart with ‘E’ and ‘L’,” Angela joked.

“Don’t do that,” I cautioned. “Everybody knows that the moment you get your girlfriend or boyfriend’s name inked on you, you’ll wind up breaking up immediately.”

“Is this true?” Angela asked.

“It’s a well-known fact,” I said.

“Well, I don’t want that, so no hearts with your initials, then,” Angela declared. “But maybe a charm necklace?”

“That’s fine,” I said. “It’s only tattoos that cause problems.”

Angela scooted up to straddle my lap, resting her arms on my shoulders. She leaned down and kissed me, fierce and demanding.

“I am yours. And Emmy’s. This is like a dream for me- the best dream I’ve ever had. I want this to go on forever.”

The mention of ‘forever’ reminded me that we’d managed to avoid our necessary talk once again that day. Angela needed to know about things, and I didn’t want to have the conversation without Emmy being involved, but it seemed that she did a good job of avoiding the subject.

‘When Em comes to bed, that’s when we’ll talk,’ I told myself, knowing full well that it probably wasn’t going to happen like that.

“I’m coming back to Los Angeles with you tomorrow,” Angela declared after another kiss. “Can we still get plane tickets?”

“Of course we can,” I replied.

“I want you so much,” Angela said holding me tight, smashing my face into her boobs, not getting any complaint from me.

After the bath Angela started the fireplace, saying that she enjoyed the ambience. I didn’t mind at all, so the two of us cuddled on the couch instead of going straight to bed.

Angela and I were still there when Emmy stopped in. “Do you mind if I go up to the studio for a while?” she asked. “I have been thinking about a song all day and I would like to record it while it is fresh in my mind.”

“No, that’s fine,” I said. “We’ll probably be asleep when you get done, though.”

“I will try to not wake you when I come to bed,” Emmy said, leaning down and giving Angela and me kisses.

“If you had told me that a situation like this could ever happen, I would not have believed it,” Angela said when Emmy had gone. “How can I love two people so much? And both of them women?”

Pulling her in a little closer, I gave Angela a slow, tender kiss. “Ange,” I said softly. “It’s just that Emmy and I are so awesome.”

“That must be it,” Angela agreed, a smile lighting up her face.