"How I look? How I look?" Trisha questions.

I look her up and down and see that she is dressed in at least three of D'tello's clothing items. His 'FREE' pink snapback, jeans jacket, and the long white tank paired with her tights.

"You look cute. I'm sure he will appreciate you dressing in every clothing item he's sold." I chuckle.

"You think this is overkill?" She questions.

"Nah, you good. Do you have on the socks he made too?" I ask checking her feet.

"No, I took those off last minute." She answers quietly.

I was wearing my black tights, converse and button up shirt. My entire outfit probably costs $20 max, while Trisha was draped in at least $500 worth of clothes. On the train ride to SoHo we stop at a few thrift stores and Trisha gladly picks out outfits for me to wear while I am back upstate.

I watch her face focused as she scans then moves the clothes out of the way. She looks at me then back at a pair of ripped jeans then picks it off the rack and throws it at my chest. I play on my phone as she continues. Caring way less about my image than I should.

"Uhm excuse me." We hear a voice behind us and both turn around.

Two dark skinned girls, one with curly hair and the other with an afro stare at us and smile whispering to each other.

"That's her." The girl with the afro says.

I look at them confused.

The curly haired girl interrupts.

"Sorry but are you Chanel Little?" She questions.

I look at Trisha with wide eyes and she gladly speaks before I can.

"Yes! She is." She exclaims.

"Hi. Yea, I'm Chanel." I say nicely.

The girls both speak at once. " Oh my God we love you. Like we think you are so beautiful and we just love that a brown skin girl is getting some light from Atlantic Records."

"Wow, thank you." I say sincere. "You guys are actually the first fans I've ever met so that's low key dope. I don't even know how to take this to be honest with you."

They laugh and speak together. "Can we have a picture with you?"

"Of course." I answer. I turn to Trisha. "Can you take it Trish?" I ask.

Trish takes the girls phone before I can even finish my sentence.

I stand in the middle of the two girls, I am only slightly taller than them. I put my arms around both of them and smile. The phone clicks.

"Thank you." The girl with the afro says.

"Nah, no problem at all. Thanks for the support guys." A feeling of excitement shoot through me and I am suddenly the happiest I have been since I signed to the Record label.

"What are your names?" Trisha asks.

"I'm Tanya." The girl with the curly hair states.

"I'm Camille." The girl with the afro responds after.

"So nice to meet you. This is my best friend Trisha." I say, hugging Trisha to my side.

"Nice to meet you both. Keep doin what you do. We buying anything you drop, ya bars are tight." Tanya says.

Camille laughs and nods her head in agreement.

"I have a show at S.O.Bs tomorrow night at 9 PM, tickets are sold out but if you guys want to come and let me know when you're at the door, I can probably get you in. This is a big deal for me like this has never happened to me before."

"Oh my God, yesssss." Camille sings.

"Let me get your numbers." I say.

I take their numbers into my phone and text them with my name.

"Got it." They say.

"Will you be doing the Pop Off Freestyle?" Tanya asks.

"Yes ma'am." I smile.

"Ayy it's lit." Tanya shrieks.

Me and Trish laugh.

"Keep it low keep it low. I don't have the time to address you God knows." Camille makes prayer hands and bows.

"I get all my tracks to dismiss ya egos. I get all my dabs to dismiss ya please note." I join in with Camille who has begun dancing.

They say their goodbyes and leave us to shop, Camille asks for another hug and I give her one gladly.

Trisha reminds me we have to head over to the fitting.

"It was really nice to meet y'all. Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow." I say as we purchase the clothes we bought.

We walk a few blocks along South of Houston to a medium sized shop labeled D'tello in big red letters. The store is black and red. Black walls and floors with red racks of clothes, red couches, red rimmed mirrors. It was closed today but I could see D'tello sitting in one of the couches speaking with someone else.

Trisha peaks through the tinted big windows and screams loudly. D'tello's head turns and he stares back at us.

I look at Trisha with a stern and annoyed face.

"I'm sorry, i'm sorry. It's out now. I just had to get it out my system before I went it." She apologizes constantly.

D'tello walks to the door, unlocks it and motions us to come in.

"Hello, hello, hello." His voice is everything Zen, so soft and welcoming.

He has long dreads, he is skinnier than I like my men, his head is small and he is taller than I thought he would be. He wears a long shirt coupled with ripped jeans, the latest sneakers that I didn't care to know the name of, a long jacket bigger than himself and an assortment of bracelets. An eagle eye necklace hangs on his neck.

"Hello, D'tello. It's great to finally meet you, I love your work." I say.

He bows and then takes me into a light hug.

"Chanel, I love the Pop Off freestyle and your Youtube teaser in Mac's studio. It's great to meet you." He speaks softly and his words are far apart and dragging. He almost sounds high.

"This is my friend, Trisha who might be a lot more of a fan than I am, she introduced me to your designs."

Trisha calmly extends her hands and D'tello takes it softly, then reaches down and kisses it. I can almost hear Trisha's heartbeat.

She exhales a breath.

"Hi." Is all she conjures up.

"Hello, Trisha. I love your outfit and you're very beautiful." He says.

"Thank you. I'm a big fan of your work, D. You gotta excuse my shyness and stuttering." Trisha laughs nervously and swallows.

D'tello lets out a breath of laughter.

"Nah no need to be star struck. I'm human, we're human. We bleed the same, we feed the same. Please sit down." D'tello walks to the red round chair and we sit across from him in the red couch.

The store looks so clean and organized. It is dimly lit and there is rap music playing in the background.

"I love the energy you two are giving me. I know I may sound a little weird to you because you don't know me yet..." He has his hands to his heart, and he speaks with a flow I cannot explain. There are movements to match his words, like he is dancing with every phrase.

"But it's so rare that I get energy this good from people. You guys are bright lights in a dark world. I know Chanel is a poet and singer, as well as a rapper. I feel the creativity radiating off of her, but Trisha what do you do? Are you also talented?" He asks looking into Trisha's eyes.

She nods in awe that he can sense that.

" I design too. I'm in school for it right now. You actually inspired a few of my looks for the Fashion show this semester." She says.

"Wow. I could sense the similarity the moment I saw you. Not even playing. Okay so you bout this life." He says slow and careful.

"You could say that." Trisha responds.

"I want to see your designs a little later, but I want you to help me dress Chanel. Don't use what you've learned in school. I really believe that talent is within you, it's not something you can learn. You can learn how to sew, but who teaches your how to reap? Style cannot be taught, only inspired." He says.

I nod and look at Trisha, completely agreeing.

"Okay." Trisha smiles.

"Alright let's go to the back. I have material that I've been dying to use on someone amazing." He gets up and we follow him.

"You are that someone. You aren't just street urban, you are chic urban." He seems to be mumbling but I can hear every word. I am completely at ease just by him talking and the store is quiet and calm. I could tell he brought this peace and serenity with him everywhere he went, even if he said a lot of bullshit.

Trisha was definitely soaking it all in.

I can't lie, I liked D'tello too.

The back of the store is messy as if D'tello was hard at work and just left everything out of its place. He walks to a rack of new arrivals and tells me and Trisha to take a look.

"These are just new clothes about to hit the store. I designed them a few months ago. I won't be dressing you in them, but if you want you can take some for free and where them around. If the paparazzi hasn't gotten on your ass yet, it's only a matter of time." He laughs.

Trisha and I look through the rack and pull anything we like.

D'tello gets his measuring tape and measures around my boobs and legs, then waist.

"You have a body many designers would kill to dress, which is great." He says.

"She needs more cake." Trisha whispers to him then sticks her tongue at me.

"You can give her some, maybe." He flirts.

Trisha blushes.

I'm telling Pookie.

D'tello pulls out a strip of leather, tells me to raise my arms above my head, and fits it to my bosom. I see his mind working. He chews on the pencil in his mouth then picks up a larger strip of leather and wraps it around my waist. He marks lines onto the fabric then whispers to Trisha.

"Yea, I love that idea." Trisha mumbles back. He puts his hands up to his mouth so I cannot see his lips move. I fold my arms.

"Hey." I complain.

He sticks up a finger, motioning for me to wait.

"Hold on, I'm consulting your Stylist." He laughs.

A few moments pass and they run through a few more materials. Within 5 minutes, three different fabrics are laid out in front of me.

"Okay, here is what we have come up with." D'tello says.

"Outfit number 1, leather on leather. This would include a leather tube top, leather tights, Fenty boots and leather choker."

I feel my eyes brighten. That sounds amazing. I've always wanted to rock leather on leather and feel like cat woman.

"Outfit number 2-" D'tello points to a wife beater type material and denim black next to it. "I call this Exposure. It's kind of a tease because the denim black would look very sexy against your skin complexion and the fabric would make great high wasted shorts with somewhat a bikini top paired with a white mesh cover up. "

I nod, loving that idea as well.

"Outfit number 3 is girly and fun but still very urban chic. Let's call this blue moon. This material looks great in dim light, there are some sparkles in the fabric that requires little light to really shine off of you. I'm thinking I can make a crop top jacket and miniskirt with it."

He gives me some time to look each of the fabrics over. I suddenly remember how bad I am at making decisions and begin to panic.

"I really like all of them." I finally say unsure.

D'tello takes a seat by his sewing machine.

"Take some time to discuss it with your stylist and let me know. This is your first show ever, right?" He asks.

"Well I've performed at school and open mics in the city but this is my first real show after being signed, yea." I reply.

"So think about the message you want to send to your fans. Mac said you wanted to look like a little urban badass." D'tello laughs. "Brownsville hood, sexy but rough kind of thing."

"Yea, that would cancel out blue moon. It's a little too soft." Trisha puts in her two cents.

I nod in agreement.

"The leather is pretty badass. What do you think about that?" She asks.

I pause for a moment to gather my thoughts.

"I feel like with the leather I won't be able to move around and get hype like I want, leather is restricting." I answer.

D'tello chimes in. "Not this leather. This leather is easy to move in, it's flexible enough for a lot of the dancers I dress."

"I think i'm feelin the black denim and cover up more than anything at the moment." I answer picturing myself in it now, in front of a packed out show. I rehearsed a few times with Mac and again with Cece. I missed them temporarily.

"Yea, I'm feelin black denim." I say now, sure.

D'tello shoots an easy smile at me. "Black Denim it is."

"Wait, what if we did a combination of all of them. Black bikini top, denim jacket and maybe like jeans?" Trisha suggests.

"Yes!" I say immediately.

"We can do dad jeans with the blue moon fabric for pockets." D'tello adds. "Sounds good?"

"Sounds fly as shit!" I answer eagerly.

He turns to Trisha who looks satisfied with my choice. "Thank you, Trisha. We work great as a team." His calm voice echos.

We spend an hour or more talking about random things and where D is from. Of course, I am the only person in the room who doesn't know everything about D'tello because Trisha answers all the questions about him before he can. I saw her wrestle with herself to stop doing that, but she just kept on doing it.

"Do you guys smoke weed?" He asked.

"Nah." I answered.

"I do." Trisha sang.

D'tello laughs. Trisha did smoke but she didn't do it around me and I hadn't seen her do it for a while.

"Okay, maybe we can smoke and listen to music next time we chill Trish, I don't want to make Chanel uncomfortable." He looks to me and I shrug. It's not like I haven't been around it before.

"You shouldn't be smoking anyway, it really messes with the voice. My crew and I have fashion show raves and little shit like that, really chill atmosphere. If you guys want, I can invite you to the next one. There are more designers in the group apart from just me. You might find that you love their energy as much as I love yours."

We walk to the exit as my stomach has been growling out of control.

"Let me know if y'all are down.

Chanel, I have someone who will deliver your outfit tomorrow evening. I took your measurements so it should all fit perfectly fine. "

"Thank you so much D'tello. It's an honor to be wearing your clothes because God knows I can't afford it." I hug him and he pulls back.

"Wait." His face is serious now. "You aren't going to pay me?" He questions.

My face falls to the floor.

"W-what?" I question confused. I thought Mac was paying for it all.

"That outfit is $400, Chanel I need me my money." He says sternly.

I look to Trish who seems to barely be able to stop herself from laughing. I look back to D'tello who is now hysterical.

"I'm playing, girl. Good luck with your show."

I push him away and roll my eyes.

"Not nice." I mumble.

"You're going to do great." He yells as I exit and walk away from them both.

Trisha follows shortly after.