Bespoke Read online

  Table of Contents

  Bespoke

  Book Details

  Dedication

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Several months later

  About the Authors

  bespoke

  val prozorova + megan mcferren

  Vance is having a terrible day, and the crowning insult is his lost luggage, which contained all the suits he needed for the conference he's attending. An unbending perfectionist, he refuses to settle for some cheap, shoddy substitute.

  He is directed to Ethan Adler, a supposedly brilliant tailor who proves to be too brash, proud, presumptuous, and handsome to possibly be any good at his job. When he completely ignores everything Vance says, set on his own design, Vance is determined to teach him a lesson—but it's a lesson that may cost him far more than a perfect suit.

  Bespoke

  By Val Prozorova and Megan McFerren

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Emilia Vane

  Cover designed by J. Ang

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition June 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Val Prozorova and Megan McFerren

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620048177

  Pamela F and Nic W, for being our support, our sounding boards, and our inspiration for many a story.

  chapter one

  It is rare that conventions out of town last as long as this one. It is even rarer that Vance is sartorially unprepared when one does.

  Sixteen speakers over four weeks, and now a helpful young man tells him, with great sincerity, that he is exceptionally sorry, sir, but your luggage was left behind in Heathrow, some mistake with the paperwork, sir, we are making it our top priority. And of course Vance has to find out after he gets off an eight-hour flight, with only the two suits he insisted upon carrying on board and no chance to seek another from home.

  The entire endeavor already looks bleak.

  It's shocking that he would be in this situation. Almost unheard of. Vance Hayes is not a man to be thrown a curveball; those who have done so have found themselves catching a grenade in thanks.

  Lifting a hand to flag over the sleek and shining black town car with his name on the window placard, Vance considers his options. No ready-made monstrosity will find its way onto Vance's form. That is a certainty. None would fit properly; none would complement his design for any chosen evening. And it is unbecoming, entirely, to wear one of his two suits twice for one convention. People would notice. Worse still, he would.

  Unspeakable.

  Vance spends the entire car ride to the hotel nursing a headache and forlornly tapping on his phone to seek a tailor anywhere near the part of the city where he is staying. It would hardly do to go out of his way to some back-alley horror to have his form mangled by cheap fabric and awkward hemming.

  The thought alone is unfair. He's done nothing to deserve such cruelty.

  A generous tip sees the driver off as Vance takes his meager belongings with him into the conference hotel. His clothes feel just as tired as he; he is certain that he will never again not smell of recycled air. He levels a rueful look at the banner in the lobby, proclaiming this the site of this year's international neurosurgery conference. There's an artistic interpretation of a brain beneath the very-somber lettering.

  Tasteless, really.

  "Checking in," he murmurs, producing a card to set on the counter. It's taken with a smile from the stout man behind the desk, whose brow furrows with every click of keys.

  "Dr. Hayes," the concierge begins, and Vance scarcely suppresses the groan—or perhaps a growl—tightening his throat. "Your room won't be ready for another two hours, I'm afraid."

  Vance swallows instead, keeping his practiced composure before turning his eyes to the man before him again. He knows it isn't his fault. He also knows that he genuinely does not care. He's exhausted, he is without but the basics, he needs a shower and rest and to find a place that will sell clothes he can actually wear.

  He does not need to be told that he has to wait two hours.

  He will not just—

  "Wait two hours," he says, bringing up his watch to check the time. "I suppose I can find a way to entertain myself until the room is free."

  "We have an excellent restaurant on the premises, with a full-service bar inside, or I'd be happy to make any recommendations you might need. Have you been to New York before?"

  Vance hums. "More than once," he answers, but he lifts a brow. It's worth asking, at any rate, and perhaps a more reliable resource than unsavory reviews left in moments of vengeance on the internet. "Do you happen to know a tailor, by chance?"

  "Of course," the concierge answers. "What sort of service are you looking for?"

  "The capable kind," Vance says, managing a wan smile. "Bespoke suits."

  The man returns his smile and taps out a few keystrokes. He writes down his recommendation upon a slip of letterhead and slides it to Vance. "Should I keep your bag for you while you're out? I can have it brought to your room once it's ready."

  "Please."

  Vance takes the paper from him and turns back to seek another cab. E. ADLER SUITS reads the missive, in block capitals. Beneath it is an address in the Lower East Side. Not at all convenient, but better than being recommended Barney's or Bloomingdale's.

  He resigns himself to a day of disappointments, but with two hours to kill before he has any hope of a hot shower and a comfortable bed, Vance would prefer to spend it doing something productive, rather than drinking insultingly over-priced coffee in a cafe with the highest Yelp reviews.

  The cab sets out for the address Vance dictates, joining the bumper-to-bumper traffic with the blat of his horn. Vance rests his head back with a hum, displeased and genuinely exhausted by everything that has already happened to him today.

  They circle the block twice until Vance sits forward and raps his knuckles lightly against the bulletproof barrier between them.

  "There," he says.

  "Can't stop here."

  "To let me exit?"

  "It says no standing."

  Vance's lips part slack and his eyes narrow. He slips a twenty through one of the air holes to the front. "Then slow down," he murmurs, "and I'll make a rolling leap."

  This finally yields a squeal of brakes and a Bengali curse, but Vance is allowed his exit. He's familiar enough with the city to know to tread carefully, and his instincts serve him well when he narrowly avoids a spilled slurry of take-out noodles. The neighborhood has become a convergent zone, as art galleries and boutique restaurants subduct synagogues and bodegas. And before him, wedged between two narrow tenements, is a small painted sign hung in a curtained window.

  E. ADLER SUITS

  Vance draws a breath to brace himself, stepping over the gutter to grasp the door with a jingling of the bell inside.

  There is hardly light enough to work by, though Vance does appreciate that there is no terrible smell from the street in here. Just the familiar aroma of heavy paper and hard soap, the warm dusty smell of frequently used sewing machines and dark coffee. It's no Savile Row, but it is the only thing to not disappoint him today. Thus far.

  Vance will take his blessings where he can get them.

  He steps further in, no sign of anyone within but for the hum of a machine going in one of the back rooms. There are t
hree large mirrors, standing in the shape of one half of a hexagon with a low stool before them, reflected in all three panes. There are couches, worn from a good long life of heavy use, rather than lack of care by their owner. Vance considers them a moment, too, before lifting his head and clearing his throat in hopes that someone will hear and come to him.

  Surely someone who is so acclaimed would have an assistant to man the desk.

  With a sigh he brings a hand to rub his eyes, reminding himself that he need only be here the one time, that once his luggage gets here within a few days, he will have no need for this service at all.

  He clears his throat again but scarcely begins to force the sound before it's cut short.

  "Be with you in a second."

  A clipped tone, if Vance is to be generous. A curt one, if he wishes to feel more insulted by the day's conspiracy against him. There is an unmistakable slur to the male voice, one that Vance knows to indicate pins held between lips. The sewing machine strikes its stiff staccato for a minute more before there is a scrape of wood against wood.

  The man who emerges from beneath tied-up drapes is younger than Vance expects but older than his years. Dark rosewood hair loosely curled stands every which way; behind thick glasses flash deep-set eyes of viridian spring. Lines of worry crease his brow and draw valleys alongside his mouth, cheeks dusted in soft stubble. It is troubling that he is not wearing a suit, but instead a simple flannel shirt and khaki trousers.

  "Can I help you?"

  Vance blinks. The question is simple enough, and the man is hardly being rude, yet there is something about the way the words are turned, that a different question lies beneath. Perhaps Vance is just too tired. Overthinking. Dismayed. He concentrates, instead, on the fact that the man's accent is not from New York.

  Vance watches an eyebrow rise into the curls over the man's forehead and sighs. "You came highly recommended. I've had a mishap and require a bespoke suit, urgently. Have you the time?"

  A long sigh presses past pursed lips as the tailor sets a hand to his hip. On his wrist is a little pincushion in the shape of a tomato. Vance raises his eyes again as the man shakes his head.

  "The whole thing, huh?"

  "Three pieces," Vance answers. "Ideally."

  "Well, we'll see." The man snorts and steps closer. He folds his arms, unfolds them when the pincushion twists, places his hands on his hips again. "How soon?"

  "As soon as possible."

  The man's nose wrinkles, and he finally settles his fidgeting with his hands behind his head. He doesn't meet Vance's eyes, this man who is presumably E. Adler or at least a relation of him. No, instead those eyes dart across the lines of the suit Vance wears now, following each stitch and seam with intense scrutiny.

  "That one's not bad." He shrugs.

  Both of Vance's brows rise now as he regards the man. Vance's hope of reprieve from the day's disappointment vanishes immediately. He should go. With traffic he will make it to the hotel just as his room becomes available. He should go, forget this upstart and look elsewhere.

  "It's a Desmond Merrion," Vance points out.

  The other hums, nods slowly as though considering the words, and lets his arms drop to his sides, one hand going directly to his hip again.

  "Sure," presumably E. Adler says. "It's well-made, but you bought a name rather than a product."

  "Excuse me?"

  "It's ordinary." The man shrugs. "Dime a dozen. Or, as it happens to be, nearing seventy thousand dollars, if the going rate is the same, for one."

  Vance stares, stunned.

  "Just because someone brags about their lack of machinery doesn't mean anything except that they're a fucking Luddite," the man continues. He steps nearer and Vance's spine straightens when the man grasps his collar, squinting close.

  "There is something to be said," Vance says, cutting each word a little short, "for paying personal attention to one's work."

  "Machines were created for a reason. You think the stitches won't be more accurately placed with a machine than with an overworked hand in the wee hours of the morning?"

  With eminent restraint, Vance lifts a hand to sweep against the one grasping his collar. He's met with wide eyes that narrow slightly, an unmistakable amusement in their softly wrinkled corners. He steps back, and then again, and motions to the step-stool set before the mirrors.

  "No one would trust a carpenter who insisted on building their house using only hand tools," the man says. "Ethan Adler. Pleasure."

  Vance remains motionless, still struck asunder by the audacity of the young man who claims, now, to be the owner and name of this apparently renowned establishment. More and more he wonders if he has stumbled into a bad dream. Surely no one can have such bad luck as this, not in one day.

  Vance resists the urge to mutter is it? before stepping towards the stool. The least he can do is allow the man to take his measurements and pretend to act busy before Vance takes a cab back to the hotel and forgets this ever happened. Perhaps there is a service that will courier suits internationally, he could have his assistant look into sending him more.

  All thoughts enough to distract him from this gratuitously tedious day before hands set to his hips and shift him in a way that is surely not appropriate for a tailor.

  "You're not standing straight," Ethan points out with a hum. "I'll end up with a crooked line, and you, a crooked suit. Can't have that."

  Vance takes a long breath through his nose and releases it with a hum, lifting his eyes to look just above the mirrors so he doesn't have to meet Ethan Adler's eyes in them.

  From one pocket, Ethan produces a tape measure, so well-used its numbers are faded to pale grey. From the other, a little pad with a tiny pencil stuck through the rings, which he sets between his lips, notebook tossed to the floor. He unspools the tape with a flick of his wrist and snares it in his fingers, following the long line of Vance's arm, shoulder to wrist.

  He says something, muffled against his pencil, and Vance shakes his head.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "I said that you're not from here," Ethan repeats, freeing his mouth to take down the notation before continuing on.

  "No," Vance says, "and neither are you."

  "England?"

  "London. And you––"

  "Louisiana. Explains the Savile Row."

  Vance's eyes widen but he holds his arms wide and thinks of Christ in His martyrdom. "Louisiana?"

  "No, London."

  Their eyes meet for an instant in the mirror, Ethan beneath Vance's arm, with another subtle smile across his features, like the welcome shadow cast when a cloud crosses summer sun. Vance's breath cuts sharply inward, to fill lungs through which his pulse beats too quickly. It is only when Ethan's measuring tape circles his leg that he must force himself to recall, rather than remember regardless of desire, how unfortunate his day has been.

  When Ethan's fingers spread against his inner thigh, it feels anything but.

  "I grew up with the best," Vance points out, something to take his mind off the fact that Ethan's fingers are surprisingly cool, even through the fabric of his pants.

  "You grew up with the known," Ethan points out, adding another measurement to his list and slipping the pencil behind his ear as he takes a knee before Vance and measures the inseam of his leg. "Being told day in and day out that Savile Row is the place to go for a 'good' suit, and so you believe it."

  In truth, Ethan is not touching inappropriately, he is not groping or dropping whatever shadow of professionalism still clings to him, but Vance can think of little but the pulse in his ears as Ethan moves to measure the other inseam and add both to the notebook near his knee. His palm rests against Vance's leg, fingertips just high enough that Vance must remind himself to breathe.

  "They are timeless," Vance tries and finds a gentle snort his only answer as Ethan stands once more, pencil back between his teeth as he wraps the tape around Vance's waist. His expression is skeptical as his gaze lifts to meet Vance's own, s
preading the tape flat. He pins it beneath his fingers, softly touching Vance's stomach, and removes the pencil from his mouth.

  "Are you?" Ethan asks. "The same man who would have visited that street thirty years ago, fifty, a century?"

  "There are strictures of form that defy fleeting fashion."

  "And there are adherences to rigidity that shouldn't fucking matter to someone willing to pay for his clothes to fit him in more ways than just his body," Ethan says. "If you want a suit that fits you well, I can give you the name of a seamstress in Chinatown who will tailor one up for far less money. That isn't why you went to Savile Row, and it isn't why you came here."

  Vance watches him, eyes narrowing in confusion, head muddled with lack of sleep and being in another time zone. He wants to get down from the stool and walk away, he wants to tell Ethan he is incredibly rude, that Vance is surprised he has any business at all with the way he treats his customers. Vance wants to show the authority hiding behind the bespoke suits he so adores, but he finds himself unable.

  He can just as simply not pick the suit up, should the man even bother to make it.

  He could seek out the Chinese seamstress and pay less money and suffer less conversation.

  "I want a suit that's perfect," Vance tells him.

  It is the first time he's seen Ethan truly smile since he arrived. A wide grin, all big-toothed and bright. Ethan steps back with a turn of his wrist to bid Vance to step down, as he takes up his notepad again and marks the last measurements. His tape hangs across his arm, dragging behind him as he paces across crooked wood flooring no doubt as old as the rest of the building.

  "That," Ethan finally says, "is something I can do." He puts his notepad down on the little table Vance had not noticed before, atop which sits not a computer but an actual cash register.

  Vance has entirely too many questions and entirely too little patience, drawing in a breath that holds as Ethan speaks again.

  "Powder—no, Tiffany Blue. Three pieces, single-breast, with an ivory check. The shirt––shit." He sighs. "I can do that too. The same cream-color as the stripes. It has to match or you'll look like you fucking dressed in the dark. You'll need a red tie. Bright red, Christmas red, nothing dark or demure. Do you have one?"