"Esté? Everything alright?"

After an incredibly busy day of preparing the house for the party amongst laughing about old memories that cropped up in every corner of the property, eight o'clock in the evening had eventually rolled around.

Estélla had been upstairs getting ready since six-thirty and was yet to greet her guests downstairs, of which there were at least forty by the time Tony decided to go and check on his friend at a quarter to nine.

He had been busy downstairs welcoming the guests that had arrived and mingling with them, sharing drinks and shaking hands. It was a nice surprise to see a handful of faces he actually knew, too. He happily explained to everyone that he and Esté had known each other for years, the unlikely friendship sparking a multitude of questions from guests that night.

Esté pulled the bedroom door open with haste, revealing her flushed cheeks and perfectly curled hair, red lips and black lined blue eyes.

"Can you zip me, please? I've been trying to do it myself for twenty minutes."

Tony just laughed and followed her into her room, pushing the door closed behind him. The room hadn't changed much from what he remembered, the walls still being painted the same pale blue and the paintings framed in the same tarnished gold. The house was decorated in entirely different taste to their Manhattan home, but it suited the ocean-front property perfectly.

Esté was holding up the neck of a white mini dress with her arm across her collarbones, feet flat on the wooden floor as a pair of white Louboutins sat idly beside the end of the bed.

She turned around and scraped her hair into her hand, twisting it around her fingers and holding it up above her neck. Tony leant backwards and narrowed his eyes, gently pulling the silver zip up the rest of the way.

"Thank you," she said with a sigh before walking over to a weathered chest of brown drawers and grabbing a bottle of perfume, "Is everything OK downstairs?"

She spritzed the perfume across her skin and through her hair before checking her appearance in a long mirror by the window, the light of a crescent moon and a million stars shining through the glass.

"Yeah everything's fine, people have been asking for you but I told them you were just finishing up getting ready, nobody seemed to mind."

Esté slipped on her heels and turned to him with a deep exhale, concern evident in her wide eyes and downturned lips, "Do I look alright? I feel like I never look as good when I do my own makeup."

Her long legs were bronzed with a shimmer down her shins, the same gold tint reflected sparkles on her arms and across her shoulders. Her hair was blowdried and curled the same way it usually was, framing her face perfectly. Sharp cheekbones sat high on her face and her eyes sleek with winged liner, the deep red lip complementing the all-white outfit generously.

Esté looked beautiful, she always did, she always had done. Tony had listened to her complaining about her hair and her teeth, her nose and the dimples she got when she smiled since she was old enough to notice those things, and even at the tender age of ten years old, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You do know you're literally a supermodel, right?" He said with a raised brow, looking her up and down with his hands clasped behind his back.

Esté just rolled her eyes and tilted her head, "I'm being serious, Tony. Do I look OK? I get nervous styling myself now when I'm so used to having someone pick my clothes out for me and do my hair and makeup."

Tony's lips pulled to the side in a small smirk as he nodded once with a slow blink, his voice low and gentle, "You look beautiful, Estélla. The dress is perfect, your hair is perfect, your makeup is perfect, you are perfect."

He watched as her cheeks turned red, shoulders pulling inwards at the kindness of his words and her inner awkwardness at not knowing how to receive compliments.

"Thank you," she said with a nervous smile, taking a moment to admire how handsome he looked too, looking just as sharp as he always did in black jeans and a navy shirt, hair and stubble perfectly groomed and cologne heavy, "You look pretty good yourself."

Tony shrugged and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the same mirror, turning his head to stare at himself with a smirk as he fixed his cufflinks, "I do, don't I?"

Esté just laughed, leaning back on the bed with her palms resting flat against the duvet behind her, "Will you be OK tonight?"

"What do mean?" He said with a scoff and a questioning expression, "Why would I not be OK?"

"Well, these are all people I know, my friends. And I know our circles overlap sometimes but I'm worried you won't know anybody."

Tony almost wanted to laugh at the remark, though the sincere worry painted in her bright eyes made his heart warm. Estélla had always been kindhearted, she had been the child in school to go out of her way to make friends with the quiet, shy kid and make sure they had someone to sit with at lunch, always befriending the new student that joined halfway through the year and make sure they felt welcome. And as she worried about Tony making friends that night, it was evident that she hadn't lost that quality.

"You're worried about me making friends?" He asked, his tone teasing her and a tug of a smile matching, sarcasm flashing across his dark eyes.

She sighed then, posture relaxing as she thought about her words and rationalised them with an embarrassed smile.

"I'm sorry," she shook her head, "I just care a lot, you know what I'm like."

"I do," Tony smiled, "But I'll be fine, so don't worry. You ready?"

Pursing her lips as she checked her reflection in the mirror just once more, Esté nodded and linked her arm through Tony's, both of them following the buzz of music and chatter from downstairs together.

The house was soon full and felt alive, people spilling out of the living area onto the patio and sitting on sun loungers around the pool, huddling together on lavish outdoor couches around a stone fire pit, some even ending up drinking on the sand in the dark, the only light coming from the moon and the glow of the large house behind them.

It was clear that Esté was more than a little worried about everybody enjoying themselves that evening, especially Tony. She'd sought him out three times in the first two hours to check that he was OK, though after she'd had enough champagne, all her fears drowned in the alcohol and her smile stayed fixed on her face, not a care in the world.

Rockstars drank liquor and told myths about LA nightclubs while actors danced around the dining table beneath the crystal chandelier, singing along badly to the songs crafted by the hands of the men across the room from them. Models laughed in the kitchen and poured more champagne, kicking off their high heels and letting their feet rest though still walking with more elegance and grace than anyone else in the party, turning heads and pulling sunglasses from men's eyes as they walked on by like they hadn't noticed.

Tony found himself outside by the fire pit, sitting with a crystal glass filled halfway with whiskey and a single ice cube, conversation flowing with two girls Esté had introduced to him as her friends from England. The heat from the orange flames was welcomed as the time reached midnight, though the party was nowhere near sleeping. People were sat by the pool with their legs dangling in the warm water, not feeling the cold as red heaters cast a hot blanket across the patio.

There were over one hundred people there that night though it felt like a lot more in a good way. The home that had sat vacant for so long was filled with soul and laughter, music and heart. People were enjoying themselves and as Tony recalled how Estélla had admitted her fears about the party being a flop since she'd only ever hosted one with Giovanni, he felt glad to know that once again, she'd pulled it off.

"So, do you know any more about Esté and Brad than we do?"

Alicia Moore was a twenty-something year old model from the south of England with a pretty face, piercing green eyes and the longest blonde hair Tony had ever seen. She was friendly with a smile never seemed to fade and Tony appreciated how talkative she'd been, constantly asking him questions about himself and putting him at ease once Esté was dragged away by someone else.

"Yeah, surely you know something, Tony? You can read her better than us since you've known her for so long."

Katy Myers had ebony hair blacker than the night sky and huge brown eyes, though she too had a voice as soft as a cloud and sincerity in her smile that comforted Tony without even thinking about it. She had a different accent than Alicia and mentioned that she was from the north of England, though that meant nothing to Tony when she tried to explain where her hometown was in comparison to London.

"Honestly, I have no idea. She's private about stuff like that," Tony shook his head with a shrug of his shoulders, leaning back with an arm across the top of Katy's chair, "She hasn't told me a thing and I'd be a fool to speculate. Why, what do you two know?"

The girls exchanged a glance accompanied with sheepish smiles and mischievous giggles that made Tony hold back a smirk. He knew Esté liked Brad, it was obvious, but regardless of the number of times he'd asked about him, she always gave him the same bland answer of nothing.

"We think they hooked up in Paris, but we aren't sure. I saw them kiss in a club one night but I didn't see them leave together and I've no idea what else happened that night," Alicia kissed her teeth, staring up at the sky in thought before raising her champagne glass to her lips, "Like you said though, she's annoyingly good at keeping her business to herself."

"Put me down! Are you crazy?"

The three of them turned their heads at the loud voices coming from over by the pool. There were men swimming in their boxer shorts and girls stripped down into their underwear and a random t-shirt they'd found, the evening turning into a pool party outside with music playing from speakers and guests setting up their own cocktail bar on a table next to the water.

Tony craned his neck to see through the crowd of guests by the pool, squinting as he tried to see what was going on. There were a haze of mixed conversations thrown against the music and the laughter, though Tony recognised one laugh out of everybody else's.

"You want me to put you down? Alright, I'll put you down."

Dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt, Brad held Estélla over his shoulder with a drunken smile on his face, one arm wrapped around her waist as he walked towards the pool. She was laughing wildly and so was everybody else, not making even the slightest attempt to wriggle out of his strong grip, a beaming smile on her red lips.

Without hesitating, Brad walked straight into the deep end of the pool with Estélla still in his grasp, earning a huge breakout of cheer and laughter from the guests surrounding them as they followed suit, more and more people jumping into the water after them.

Estélla rose to the surface with her jaw hanging wide open, gasping for air with her hair slicked back and mascara staining her under eyes.

"You are insane!" She laughed, wrapped her arms around Brad's neck and her legs around her waist as he held her hips, wiping water from his own eyes as he tried to stop himself from laughing even more.

Tony couldn't hear what Brad said back to her for the chaos than had unfolded over by the pool, but a strange numbness caused the light behind his eyes to dim ever so slightly as he watched Estélla kiss Brad under the starry night sky.

"Well," Alicia laughed and shook her head, "I guess we don't need to speculate anymore."

"No," Tony said quietly, throwing the rest of the whiskey past his lips with an inability to look away from the scene, "I guess we don't."