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Celeste stood in the ladies room of Truncheon's event hall, hastily touching up her makeup, wearing a dark red fitted office dress, she'd just purchased, hoping the rain that had now dotted the hem of her dress would dry off soon. Same went for her hair that was litter fuzzier than she would've liked. She'd hurried in, having needed to pee, only waving at Jess in passing, who'd been on the phone, when she entered.

"Hey," Jess kissed her as she emerged, looking her over from head to toe. "You look great, but why are you all wet?" Jess asked, raising his eyebrow.

"I couldn't get an Uber… we'll I did but the guy looked really creepy and despite trying to cancel it then the damn app wouldn't allow me to order another one straight away with the guy waiting up front, refusing to leave. So I just took the F-train," Celeste explained, feeling grateful it was entirely acceptable for her to no longer wear high heels to these events, having made her hasty walk to the station a lot quicker.

"You should've called, I would've picked you up," Jess said, slightly scoldingly.

"It would've taken too long. I'm fine," she replied, dismissing his concern, as she adjusted his blazer collar.

She was right of course, but he was a little protective of his girls these days.

"Now, is the author here yet?" Celeste asked, glancing at the time. She'd seen a picture, read the book and all the promotional materials, but she'd never met her before. There was still half an hour to go before the guest started to arrive, but it was good to be prepared.

"She's the one in our coffee nook. She's a first timer," Jess gestured towards the woman in her early forties, her golden-brown curly hair pulled up into a low bun.

"She looks even more nervous than I feel," Celeste replied, noting the way she was fidgeting with her purse strap.

"You have nothing to worry about, her… just a little," Jess replied, tilting his head to the side a little - he was simply being realistic. "I didn't even have a launch event for my first book, I just hand-delivered it myself from store to store," he laughed, at a time when book publishing while perhaps more stressful, the launches were not - at least not in Truncheon.

"Times have changed," Celeste noted, heading over to the entrance to instruct the caterers, brushing Jess' palm with her fingers as she passed him.

It took her perhaps five minutes to have the catering crew know the drill, it came especially handy that it was the same crew that would be doing the following event in three days as well.

"Celeste Martin," she offered her hand to the author, who was just drinking a glass of water, adding "lovely to meet you, Maria. I've heard great things."

"Hi, you're the organizer here, right? Jess mentioned you," Maria replied, rising from her seat.

"If you feel up to it, we can go through the event," Celeste suggested, leading her towards the event hall. "I like your dress," she added, feeling like Maria could use all the compliments at this point, and she wasn't lying - the vintage puffy-sleeved dark blue midi looked great on her.

She showed her the 'stage', if the 6 by 6 ft designated area with a single microphone, a bouquet of flowers and bar stool, could be called that, and began answering her questions and going through the programme.

"...and then you read the excerpt you agreed with Jess, people will have some time for questions, a round of thank you's and then it's time to mingle. Half an hour later we go on to book signing, but if you don't mind you could already sign a few in advance for those who don't want to wait in a line to stick around," Celeste explained, gesturing towards the pile of books, picking one up and placing it more prominently to lean against the others.

"Have you read it?" Maria asked.

"I did actually. It's right up my alley. The beginning reminded me a little of "Journal 64" but you managed to make it your own soon enough, and I think that's the whole point of this event - it's about showing them something they won't expect," Celeste said.

"Thanks," she replied surprisedly, as if not having expected an event planner to actually know what she was dealing with.

"No problem," Celeste replied, continuing to clear up the book signing desk, by throwing out some wrappings that had been left laying around.

"How far along are you? If you don't mind me asking...I have a two year-old at home," Maria asked, feeling like she needed to explain her question.

"Oh," she reacted, having not quite expected the questions. "Sure, umm... I'm five months, a little over," she added.

"You look really good for 5 months," Maria complimented her. "God, I gained like 40 pounds during mine, only recently got half of that off," she laughed.

"Thanks, and you really do look great," Celeste replied. She could sense that Maria was essentially trying to just calm her nerves, talk about something else. "Do you have a boy or a girl?" Celeste asked, seeing how this topic seemed to work for her, Maria's body language relaxing right in front of her.

"A girl, Olivia. She's with my mom right now," Maria replied.

"Cute name," she replied smilingly. "We're having a girl too," she added.

"Okay, time to shine," Celeste said a minute later, seeing already a few people beginning to gather. "You just take a few deep breaths, you'll do great. I'll just go do a quick final round to see if everything is ready," Celeste added.

Twenty minutes later the room was bustling with people, Jess standing assuringly next to Maria, Celeste observing the event from the back of the room. She was glad to see Jess in his element, he was in fact more than just an author or an editor - he had that presence that this job required - speaking confidently and professionally about the author and how her writing had shone out to him, what made her special. Celeste made a few photos, both of Maria and the crowd.

The event went beautifully, Maria getting over her nervousness as soon as she opened her book and the story flowed out of her. The questions were anticipatory and she did great, even cracking a few jokes.

They were about half-way through the mingling, when Maria pulled her aside. "Can you take a picture of us," she asked.

"Of course," she said, pulling out her phone. "Jess," she called, gesturing to him to stand next to Maria. "Smile," she said, and snapped a picture.

"Can I get one with you too?" Maria asked.

"Me?" Celeste asked confusedly.

"You put this thing together, you gave me just the boost I needed to not completely freak out. I'd love a picture with you," Maria explained.

"Oh, okay," she relented. For a brief moment the fear she'd felt at the past HPG event came back to her, but she tried to calm herself. Things were different after all. Nobody was after her, especially with her new name, she had contracts to protect her, and surely - this was just a simple picture, not the front page of Voici that would bring the press around asking questions. And even if they did, she had the legal obligation to deny any connection.

Jess snapped the picture a moment later, sending them over to Maria from Celeste's phone.

"Now, go mingle," Celeste urged, friendly, patting her shoulder.

"You did good," Jess said, pulling her side close to him.

"Thanks," Celeste replied.

"You know, if you wanted to you could help us out a few days a week for a while, until you feel up to it," Jess suggested.

"Jenn wouldn't mind?" she asked. She got along with Jenn fine, but sometimes she worried whether it wasn't comfortable for her with the two of them, catching an occasional kiss or just having their own dynamic in the office.

"Nope," he replied. "And there's a lot you can do from home but that's up to you," he added. He'd seen her mood improve since she started, probably as she felt a strong sense of purpose.

The mingling continued well into the night. Jess had taken over at some point, when Celeste's back and feet were getting tired, allowing her to put her feet up on the coffee nook sofa. But her job was done. The event had been a success, and she sighed with relief as she and Jess locked up the place around midnight, Maria heading off in another Uber along with 'thank you's. It had been a career change for her, and now it was just for everybody to hope for the best - that people like the book, that they like it enough to write about it from there for other people to buy it.

Celeste kicked off her shoes when they got home, heading straight for the bedroom. She was exhausted. She was just putting her phone to charge, noting a friend request from Maria. She had no real reason to decline, she was nice. Her eyes fell shut as soon as her head hit the pillow, even before Jess reached the bedroom.


Jess yawned as he was making Celeste her smoothie bowl next morning, wanting to let her sleep a bit longer. He hesitated a little, whether offering her a job, however part time and flexible, would really be in her best interest. He'd made the decision largely on a whim, seeing how excited she'd been, and how effortlessly the planning and running of it had gone in her hands - but yesterday, when she'd been exhausted like that - that surely couldn't be good for either of his girls. But he knew he couldn't take it back now. He just needed to make sure she took care of herself. Jess made her a little treat, decorating the smoothie bowl with cut up fruit, some coconut granola, chopped up milk chocolate and some frozen blueberries, knowing how she loved these little touches, leaving it out on the counter to wait for her.

He'd decided to work from home that morning, not having any significant need to be present at the office. As he drank his coffee at the kitchen counter, he opened up his laptop beginning to browse through his e-mails, thankfully not too many yet, and social media. There were already some tweets on Maria's book, which was good - no review yet, which was in a way good - at least the book hadn't caught the attention of those skim-and-review reviewers that rarely had anything good to say. They'd sent the book to some reviewers already in advance, but usually it took them a day or so before the posts and articles would show up. Now it was just left to wait.

Maria's professional Facebook page was blooming, getting a lot of followers. She'd posted pictures from last night - the ones Celeste had made of her on stage, a few she'd made with emerging fans and the two with Jess and Celeste tagging them both. He too wondered for a moment whether Celeste would have a problem with it. Would Henri still keep tabs on her?

As far as he knew Henri had never learned his name, unless he'd sent a PI after him as well, which he wasn't aware of at least. Would it help her if she had his name instead? This was of course just a very minute reason why he would consider that. He knew it sounded patriarchal - but there was just something about knowing that she was his, being able to call her his wife, that appealed to him, 'girlfriend' sounding too juvenile at this stage of life, 'partner' somehow complicated or uncertain, 'mother of my (future) child' just awkward. He really saw himself with her for the long term, and while he knew he could be wrong - they hadn't even been together a year - he carried the idea with him nonetheless.

He switched to the page view of Maria's author page, which he had access to, editing the post she'd made, switching Celeste's full name to Celeste M without the tag, just in case.