"Welcome! How can I help you today?"
"I am here to pick up," Etienne says.
He delivers the sentence with the calm efficiency of a man who has done this before, who placed an order and confirmed a delivery date and showed up at the exact time he said he would because Etienne Laurent does not operate on approximations.
The associate's expression shifts from polite to excited.
"Ah! You must be the one for the limited edition product, yes?"
He nods.
Limited edition.
I blink, the phrase registering with a delayed confusion because we just left a store where those two words were attached to a charm bracelet and now they are being deployed again ina completely different context and I am starting to suspect that Etienne Laurent's definition of a casual Friday date operates on a financial frequency I cannot tune to.
"Limited edition what?" I ask, turning to him with narrowed eyes.
He does not answer.
The associate disappears into a back room, and the brief silence that follows is charged with my mounting suspicion and his deliberate refusal to meet my gaze, his attention conveniently fixed on a display case of accessories as if he has suddenly developed a passionate interest in leather watch straps.
She returns carrying a box.
A sleek, branded, matte-finish box with the kind of packaging that exists solely to make the unboxing experience feel ceremonial. She sets it on the counter with the reverence of someone handling a museum artifact and lifts the lid with practiced precision.
"Yes! The limited edition phone. It has been out of stock for months. All the celebrities are using this particular model because of the colorway. It is pink and extremely rare." She pauses for emphasis, leaning forward conspiratorially. "Think of it like those pink Rimowa suitcases that sell out within hours and never restock. Same energy. Same exclusivity. The waitlist alone is hundreds of names long."
She angles the box toward me.
I stop breathing.
Nestled inside the packaging, cradled in custom-molded foam, is a phone. Pink. Not the aggressive, bubblegum pink that screams for attention, but a soft, muted rose gold pink that whispers luxury with every angle of light that catches its surface. The finish is satin, almost pearlescent, shifting between blush and champagne depending on the tilt. It is the kind of phone Ihave only ever seen in the hands of K-pop idols during unboxing videos that rack up millions of views, the kind of technology that lives behind velvet ropes in flagship stores while regular people press their faces against the glass and daydream.
I have seen this phone on social media. Every single platform. Influencers posing with it against marble countertops. Idols flashing it during live streams. The internet losing its collective mind every time a restock was rumored and then immediately devastated when the rumor proved false.
I never paid much attention to technology. My relationship with phones has always been utilitarian, a tool for communication and navigation and the occasional doom scroll through social media when the loneliness gets too loud. But this phone broke through my indifference by sheer force of cultural saturation. Everyone and their aunt was talking about it.
And it is sitting in front of me in a box with Etienne's name on the pickup order.
"Perfect," Etienne says to the associate, his tone carrying the same unbothered ease he used at the jewelry counter. "Can you put a screen protector on it? She will choose a case."
She.
My eyes bug out of my skull.
The English language exits my brain through a fire escape, and what comes out instead is rapid, breathless French that I do not consciously choose to speak.
"Tu viens de m'acheter ça?" I grab his arm, my voice climbing octaves. "He did not tap a card! I did not see a card! When did you pay for this? How did you pay for this? This phone does not exist in stores, Etienne! It is a myth! A legend! A unicorn of consumer electronics! You cannot just produce it from a back room like a magic trick!"
He laughs.
Full and warm and thoroughly entertained by my spiral into multilingual hysteria.
"I had to order it," he explains, his composure infuriatingly intact. "I have some connections through the investment circles. Tech companies send early access and limited drops to certain clients as a courtesy. I told them my girl needed the phone for her sanity."
My girl.
The possessive lands in my stomach like a lit match dropped into gasoline.
