Epilogue

One Year Later

Maeve

I shouldn't have checked my phone. Not today of all days. But we're due to hear back from SAFE about signing with us and considering it's close to the start of business hours over on the West Coast there's a chance they've made a decision. I quickly scroll past countless notifications from countless apps and open my inbox. I ignore the first few emails at the top of my inbox and then I pause. It's there.

I hold my breath as I open the email. This is a big deal. I've only been working as talent and brand management for six months and while it's been going well, I've been yet to secure a brand of this size and a campaign of this budget. Getting other influencers to sign on with me wasn't difficult – the one advantage of working with a less-than-perfect agent for the last six years means I know what works and what doesn't when it comes to offering brand deals – but getting international brands to work with me in this new capacity has been much more challenging.

Sure, I've been able to secure smaller Irish companies and even a few in the States and UK as well as some in Europe, but the campaigns have been short-term and even smaller budgets. This campaign will launch my new career in a way that will make other people – influencers and brands alike – sit up and take notice. And best of all, I like SAFE. They took my feedback about how dire Jim Harlow was on board, hired a Diversity high heels made from a material featuring a swirling pattern of four very distinct colors – purple, gray, black and white. The colors of the asexual flag.

My smile stretches beyond what I thought was possible.

And then she's there, standing right in front of me and my eyes struggle to take everything in. How her hair has been styled to pull back from her face slightly, not hiding a single centimeter from me. How her make-up is minimal so I can see that mole below her left eye. How her apple and autumn smell engulfs me and I want to inhale deeply. So I do. I inhale Maeve. I inhale this moment and hope that it stays with me forever.

And then I feel hands on mine and I finally drop my eyes from her face. She's got both my hands in hers.

"You alright?" she asks, her olive-green eyes big and wide and oh so beautiful. "You look like you're about to shit yourself."

I have to bite back an outburst of laughter and instead just shake my head at her. "I'm grand, as you would say."

"You sure you want to do this?" she asks in another whisper as the quartet continues to play. I will forgive her that moment of doubt only because I want to ask her the same thing.

"Are you?"

"Honest Answers Only?"

"Honest Answers Only."

"Fuck, yeah!" She leans in to whisper, "So I read today that Venus has just moved into Pisces which apparently signals a time when soulmates typically find each other and start making beautiful things together, maybe, like, you know, a life."

"And you believe that bollocks?" I I wink at her.

"Nah," she says. "But I believe in you. I believe in us."

"You're my one guiding star," I whisper in her ear before we pull back and turn our heads to the registrar, and the rest of our lives together.

THE END