"Ahh, I am SO excited about this!" Krystie squeaked as the plane started to taxi down the runway at London's vast Heathrow airport.

"Never been to America before?" Viks asked.

"Nope!" Krystie giggled. "Never even been outside Europe before, and even then it was only for the other launches, heh."

"Didn't get much of a chance to honeymoon thanks to 'other considerations'," Mikey, Krystie's husband, chuckled as he tried to calm the squirming fifteen-month-old child in his lap.

"And we're technically not even now," Krystie sighed. "Gonna be so busy this coming week we'll barely get any time for any sightseeing, heh. But we are determined to make the most of what we can."

"And you've got to admit," the north-east accented voice of Alice Devry chimed in, "there aren't many jobs where an all-expenses paid week in America is gonna happen!"

"Oh, definitely not!" Viks giggled. "Where you headed again?"

"For my solo appearance?" Alice asked, grinning as her brown-haired friend nodded. "Viva Las Vegas! Think they think that a red-haired girl from Teesside is the best bet out of all of us to be a showgirl, heh!"

"I'd definitely agree with them," Ricky, Alice's boyfriend, said as he gave the young woman's neck a playful nuzzle.

"Oh- shut up, you!" Alice chastised with a giggle. "Yesterday, right? His sister's seventeenth birthday. So what does he offer her? Tickets to see England play the USA at Wembley."

"...It's a night out, right?" Ricky shrugged.

"Uh-huh," Alice nodded. "That Heavenly Talent paid for and had spare tickets left over."

"Point being?" Ricky asked.

"Point being that maybe your sister had had enough of football growing up?" Jamie asked, silencing Ricky as the plane took off and bore its passengers westward.

As she sat back and listened to her friends' conversation, Jamie-Lee Milton knew better than most people on the plane why Ricky's sister wouldn't have appreciated the football tickets. She knew as well as Ricky himself did that for the first eleven and a half years of her life, his sister had been his brother. For over five years, Laura (as she was known after abandoning her birth name of 'Leon') had struggled with her transition from male to female, to become the girl she always wanted to be, the girl she had always been on the inside. Throughout most of her struggle, though, Laura had always had one source of comfort to fall back on- a group of models and reality TV called 'The Angels', the same group of which Jamie, Krystie, Viks, Alice and six other girls (all of whom were on the flight) were members. It was Jamie in particular that Laura, along with many other transgendered girls in the UK looked to for inspiration, because when Jamie had been born just over 27 years earlier, she had been a boy named 'James'.

A chance encounter seven and a half years earlier with an already-famous model named Charlotte Hutchinson, whom 'James' resembled despite being (outwardly) male, had seen Jamie's life take a path she never imagined possible. A skint, unemployed and virtually unemployable teenaged boy was transformed into a rich, famous and glamorous woman under the tutelage of both Charlotte and her agent, a very astute Nigerian-born man named Joshua Benedict. He had marketed Charlotte and Jamie, along with their friends Krystie, Mary, Hannah and Viks as a super-close modelling clique, and fans had lapped it up. And this was in no small part due to Jamie and the message she conveyed- that no matter what your circumstances were at birth, it shouldn't get in the way of your dreams, and most certainly shouldn't stop you from having them.

The other message that Jamie had tried, for the most part successfully to convey, was that one could never have too many friends. It was a message she took to heart, even during the occasions when events conspired to put her beliefs to the test.

In the five years that the Angels had existed, Jamie had interacted with and helped countless young girls throughout the UK and beyond, either through the occasional email or in a more hands-on way as an active mentor, as was the case with at least one other girl on the same flight. The more help she offered, the greater her fame grew, which gave her more scope to help other girls in need.

Jamie's path to fame hadn't been all smooth sailing, of course. Her initial coming out to the general public had been difficult (and had cost her her relationship with her then-boyfriend), and as the Angels grew in fame, there were always those critical of allowing a transgendered woman into an all-female clique, whether they were radical feminists who accused Jamie of 'misappropriating' her gender, or religious fanatics who used scripture to try to justify their bigotry. However, for every critical comment Jamie received either online or in the media, there were tens of fans willing to come to her aid.

The success of the Angels had led to them expanding, adding four new members (including Alice) and being signed to the ever-growing Amazon Prime Video lineup. The simplicity of the format (from both a marketing and production standpoint) quickly led to launches in other markets. Germany was first, followed by Italy, Australia and Ireland. Each new 'Angel group' had one thing in common- at least one member was (at time of joining) a pre-operative male-to-female transsexual. While Jamie initially worried about transgender issues being treated like a gimmick, her mind was set at ease upon meeting each girl and realising that their desire to be a role model was as genuine as her own.

Eventually, the time had come to launch the 'Angels' brand in the world's largest consumer market- the United States of America. Preparations for the launch had taken over eighteen months- since before even the launch of the German 'Angel group'- due to a mixture of licensing issues and the genuine desire to get the launch right. The British Angels had had limited success in some small pockets of America, but for the brand to truly take off, the nation needed its own girls to 'invest' in, just as Britain had with Jamie and her friends. Jamie was nervous about the upcoming launch, though, even though she would be there in person to assist with it, just as she had been in Germany, Italy, Ireland- and in Spain in the summer that had just gone.

However, during the launch of 'Bellezas', the Spanish 'Angel group', Jamie had felt like a fifth wheel for two very good reasons- she spoke very little Spanish, and for the first time, there would be no transgendered members of the group.

Jamie, along with Kelly, the other transgendered 'Angel', had briefly argued that the Bellezas group shouldn't be counted as a 'real' Angel group due to what they perceived as a slight, but their argument quickly petered out when they were reminded of Jamie's initial worries about her transgendered status- as well as that of Kelly, Melissa from the German group, Chiara from the Italian group, McKayla from the Australian group and Tanya from the Irish group- being seen as a 'gimmick'. The true 'gimmick' of all 'Angel groups', as Jamie was reminded, was that they had all been friends prior to the groups forming, and as Jamie herself often said, you can never have too many friends.

Two years earlier, a rival London-based talent agency had attempted to copy the success of the Angels by manufacturing their own group, known as 'Constellation', but despite early successes, they were soon eclipsed by the original Angels, helped in no small part by Kelly defecting from Constellation before the group had even made one public appearance together. All of the talent agencies promoting the international 'Angel groups' had taken this lesson to heart and made sure their girls had had months of interacting together before their public launch and tinkered with their line-ups to ensure the group had gelled perfectly- and nowhere was this more the case than with the two groups that were to launch in the United States over the subsequent few days.

And yet, Jamie still felt nervous about the launch, just as she had with Bellezas, because neither of the two groups contained any transgendered girls. Jamie understood the reason, which was the same as with the Spanish group- that they had to allow the groups to form naturally, and whether she liked it or not, no transgendered girls had naturally gravitated toward the groups. What made Jamie nervous was the fact that yet again, she would be flying into an unknown land and presenting herself as a girl, when there would be thousands, if not millions who would criticise her for doing so.

"Hey," Charlotte- Jamie's oldest and best friend- whispered to the young transgendered woman, derailing her train of thought. "You okay?"

"Hmm?" Jamie replied. "Umm, yeah, fine, why d'you ask?"

"'Cause after seven years, I like to think I know what that look means," Charlotte replied.
"...What 'look'?" Jamie asked.

"The 'I'm entering enemy territory' look," Charlotte replied.

"Umm, I've been to America before," Jamie retorted. "I think this'll be, like, my eighth trip? Second in the last six months, even."

"But first that won't be a holiday," Charlotte said. "And you're nervous about presenting yourself to a country where a good chunk of the population isn’t trans-friendly?"

"Umm, that describes EVERY country," Jamie retorted. "And this is the same country that launched RuPaul's Drag Race. Hell, if anything, America might be the most trans-friendly country in the world. Well, the north of it, anyway."

"Mmm," Charlotte mused. "But you're not a drag queen though, are you?"

"Well- no," Jamie sighed. "Which is part of the problem. There's a difference between a man pretending to be a woman for a job, and actually becoming a woman for life. And there are still some people who think the former's okay but the latter's some kind of weird perversion or something."

"Well then, who better to educate them?" Charlotte said with a grin. "And besides, like you said, there are huge chunks of America that ARE trans-friendly, so you don't need to be so nervous!"

"I know, I know," Jamie said, letting out a heavy, tired sigh. "It's just- ugh, I dunno. It feels like this whole trip is going to be, you know, 'make or break' for the Angels, you know? Either we keep flying high, or we- well, a plane isn't really the place for THAT metaphor..."

"Thank god these three are already asleep," Charlotte giggled, gesturing to the seat where her three-year-old son was sleeping, and to the laps or herself and her husband, where their months-old twin daughters were resting. "But yeah, I think I get what you mean. Joshua- well, everyone at the agency’s worked so hard to get this launch right. Now it’s our turn, heh.”

“Yeah,” Jamie chuckled. “But it’s not just Joshua who’s counting on us getting this launch right- well, not for me, anyway.”

“You will be FINE,” Charlotte insisted. “In a few weeks’ time you’ll be an icon and an inspiration to transgendered people on both sides of the Atlantic, I guarantee it. Hell, you already are for some people, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Jamie replied with a smile as she remembered all the friends she’d made on the Western side of the Atlantic Ocean. “Now we’ll be making it ‘official’, heh.”

“You make it sound almost like we’re getting married!” Hannah Dexter, one of the most high-profile of the ten Angels, teased.

“Meh, in a way, we kind of are,” Jamie replied.

“Well I really can’t wait to get there and get started!” Hannah giggled. “Yeah, it’ll be hard work, but no harder than being on Strictly, right?”

“Oh- you could at least have waited until we were out of British airspace before bringing THAT up!” Alice snorted as she and the other Angels began good-naturedly teasing their blonde friend. However, the mere mention of Strictly Come Dancing caused another of the flight’s passengers to start to tense up.

Like Jamie and Kelly, Stephanie Abbott was one of the most famous young women in the UK, albeit for her singing talent rather than for modelling, and like Jamie and Kelly, she had been born male, but had long since begun to transition to female. Unlike Jamie and Kelly, though, she hadn’t undergone gender confirmation surgery, but that didn’t stop her, any of her friends or any of her millions of fans from viewing her as a woman. Over the previous three and a half years, Stephanie and her bandmates had become just as famous and as loved as the Angels, and seen as role models to countless teenaged girls, but the road hadn’t always been smooth for her.

Stephanie’s struggles with juggling her transition and her fame had also resulted in struggles with anxiety, stress and depression, which had also resulted in her briefly running away from her life, her staying in a psychiatric hospital for a few days and conflict with her friends- including Jamie, with whom Stephanie had had a physical altercation. However, Stephanie hadn’t just survived, but had thrived, thanks to help from her family, her friends, her bandmates, and in particular her best friend.

Stephanie had met Kayla on the day they’d both auditioned for Out of Heaven and had immediately developed a liking for the petite girl. Just had Stephanie had grown during her time in the band, so had Kayla, developing from a nervous, shy seventeen-year-old girl into a confident and beautiful twenty-one-year-old woman. Over time, Stephanie's fondness for Kayla had grown into physical attraction, and eventually, the two had begun a loving, committed relationship. However, despite being together for over a year, Stephanie continued to be frustrated by Kayla’s reluctance to go public with their relationship, and Kayla’s appearance on the famous BBC dancing show had caused them to spend even less time together. The frustration even extended to the trip to America, as the last time Stephanie had visited the US, she had been on holiday with Kayla, celebrating the wedding of two close friends and spending time as a virtually incognito couple. During this trip, however, everyone would know who Stephanie was, and if they didn’t, an army of publicists would soon correct that. And worst of all, thanks to her Strictly commitments, Kayla had remained in England. However, as she was soon reminded, Stephanie was far from alone on the flight.

“You awake?” Becca, one of Stephanie’s bandmates, said, snapping the young transwoman out of her daydream.

“Hmm?” Stephanie replied. “Umm, yeah, just, you know, thinking…”

“Technically, I think it’s called ‘pining’,” Adeola, Stephanie’s other bandmate, teased with a wide grin on her dark-skinned features. “And believe me, I know the feeling. Pretty much everyone from Heavenly Talent is on this flight, but my fiancé? Nope, got to work all week back in England.”

“You know Jonathan did that deliberately,” Becca teased, referring to Adeola’s cousin, who was also the husband of one of the Angels and the general day-to-day manager of Heavenly Talent.

“No I didn’t!” Jonathan replied from his seat two rows in front of his cousin and her bandmates. “Wish I could take credit for it, though!”

“BOY,” Becca and Adeola retorted, earning giggles from many of the other women on the plane.

“No offence, Riley,” Stephanie said to Becca’s fiancé with a snort of laughter.

“Yeah, if I haven’t developed a thick skin by now, I never will,” Riley replied with a tired sigh, before grinning as Becca leaned into him for a cuddle.

“Ah, looks like it’ll be me and you keeping each other company!” Adeola teased Stephanie, who simply rolled her eyes and let out a small giggle in response.

“We’re NOT sharing a bed,” Stephanie replied, before sharing a louder giggle with her two bandmates.

“Ahh, no danger of THAT happening!” Adeola giggled. “Thank god we’ve got a great PA who’s got us great hotel rooms for our trip, eh?”

“A great PA who’s also gonna be sleeping alone tonight,” Becca said quietly as she gestured toward the back of the plane, where the PA in question sat by herself, staring intently at her iPad.

Nikki Phillips-Thomas wasn’t as famous as Jamie, Kelly or Stephanie. She had a significant online following, with over 100 000 followers on Instagram and over 10 000 subscribers on YouTube, and had briefly been a member of a group of ‘Angels’ aimed at a younger audience than Jamie’s group, but she wasn’t what you’d call a ‘celebrity’. However, this didn’t stop Jamie and the rest of the Angels from including not just Nikki but her friends as well in their lives as not just fans and colleagues, but genuine friends. Nikki had been a bridesmaid at Jamie’s wedding, and vice versa, and Nikki knew that she could always go to Jamie for help with any problems she might have. This was partly because Jamie believed in adhering to her most famous saying- that you can never have too many friends- but also because when Nikki was born, she was a boy named Nick.

Nikki’s transition officially started in 2013, when she began hormone replacement therapy, but it had truly begun two years earlier when she met her future wife, a girl named Sarah. Together, they had helped ‘Nick’ become ‘Nikki’, and over time, Nikki and Sarah had become the couple known to their friends as ‘Snikki’, as they were rarely seen apart. However, on this particular November morning, things were different. Nikki’s job as PA to the Angels required her to fly to America with them, whilst Sarah’s studies required her to stay in London, and even though they’d only been separated for a matter of hours, Nikki was already feeling bereft.

“Are you going to sulk for this whole trip?” Katie, Nikki’s friend and photographer for Heavenly Talent, asked.

“Oh- leave me alone,” Nikki pouted. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, got to make sure all the flights are booked, there are no delays…”

“Yeah, that’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Katie said with a tired sigh. “It’s not like you’re never gonna see her again, is it? Thought you’d got it out of you at the airport.”

“By now you should know that Nikki plus airports equals dehydration through the tear ducts!” Jacinta, a friend of Nikki’s and a fellow transwoman, teased, chuckling as Nikki rolled her eyes.

“Hilarious,” Nikki snorted. “The thanks I get for getting you an invite to this trip…”

“Oh- come on,” Jacinta said with an exaggerated sigh. “I am grateful, you know? The magazine will love the exclusives. And I’m definitely going to love getting to spend time with all of you, hehe!”

“Yeah,” Nikki sighed happily. “Dilating in an aeroplane toilet probably won’t-“

“That’s all I need to hear about THAT, thank you very much,” Katie protested, making her two friends smirk as she pressed the call button above her head. “If this is what we’re going to be talking about all trip, I am VERY glad I’m twenty-one!” Nikki and Jacinta smirked again as a smartly dressed stewardess approached their seats.

“Hi, how can I help?” The flight attendant asked with a professional smile.

“Glass of Bailey’s, please,” Katie replied.

“Make that two,” Jacinta said. “Nikki? You want one?”

“Ehh… Better not,” Nikki replied. “Need a clear head for all of this, heh.”

“Meh, don’t blame you,” Katie said, before thanking the flight attendant for her drink and relaxing back into her seat. “And who knows? Might be more trips across the Atlantic in years to come, if these new Angel groups take off. Pun intended, hehe!”

“Ooh, speaking of transatlantic trips,” Jacinta teased as a young, short-statured man with unruly ginger hair passed their aisle. “Hello, Kurt!”

“Oh, umm, hey,” Kurt replied in his soft Canadian accent. “Just, umm, going-“ Jacinta and Katie both giggled teasingly as Kurt gestured toward the toilet at the back of the plane.

“Don’t let us keep you,” Katie giggled. “Looking forward to getting closer to home?”

“A bit,” Kurt shrugged. “Me and Kelly are going to have a week in Winnipeg after the LA launch, we’ve already missed Thanksgiving and won’t be able to come over for Christmas so thought we should make an effort, heh.”

“ALREADY missed Thanksgiving?” Nikki asked with a look of panic in her eyes. “I- I thought-“

“Canadian Thanksgiving is at the start of October,” Kurt explained. “American Thanksgiving is next week. And I’m about to pee for about an hour, so please, for the love of god, excuse me!”

“You’re excused,” Katie said with a smug grin, before she was joined by her friends in a cry of one word: “BOY!”

“Thanks, and thanks,” Kurt said with a smug grin as he headed toward the plane’s small toilet.

“You know better than to try to use that as an insult,” Stuart Milton, Jamie’s husband, said with a grin from his seat directly in front of Nikki.

“Meh, that won’t stop us,” Katie said, smirking as Stuart chuckled and went back to cuddling his daughter.

Stuart and Kurt’s pride at being called ‘boys’ stemmed from the fact that at the beginning of their lives, they had been girls named ‘Claire’ and ‘Kate’ respectively. Like Jamie, Kelly, Stephanie, Nikki and Jacinta, they had struggled with their gender identities from early in their lives, and had taken steps, including undergoing surgery, to correct their gender to reflect who they truly were on the inside. And while the Angels as a brand was aimed at a mainly female demographic, both men found comfort in their message of unconditional acceptance.

When he was a little girl, Stuart never imagined that he would grow up to be a man, let alone a husband or father, and while the operations and the recovery periods he had to undergo to fulfil his wish were often painful, if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing.

“Weird to think this little one will have been to New York twice in six months,” Stuart mused as he and his wife cooed over their twenty-one-month old daughter. “That’s more times than I had before I was twenty-five!”

“Yeah,” Jamie sighed happily as the plane carried on westward. Whatever happened over the following week in her professional life, at the end of the day, she would still be a wife and a mother, and would still have countless amazing friends on her life. Because, as she mused to herself, you can never have too many friends…

The plane landed at JFK airport a few hours later, and everyone on board let out a sigh of relief as they disembarked and were able to stretch their legs, though the excitement levels soon rose as they collected their bags, cleared customs and headed into main concourse of the busy airport.

“Okay,” Nikki said as she took charge of the large group. “Does everyone have their American SIM cards installed in their phones? Don’t want anyone getting massive phone bills when they get home…”

“Yes, MUM,” Krystie teasingly replied, giggling as the younger woman stuck her tongue out at her.

“Good,” Nikki replied, before checking her iPad once again. “Taxis should be outside in a few minutes, you can all get checked in to your hotel, drop your bags off, then I’ve got a restaurant booked for-“

“Nikki, honestly!” Jamie interrupted her young protégé, before stepping toward her to talk as quietly as the noisy surroundings would allow. “Take it easy, okay? We’ve got three days in one of the most iconic cities in the entire world, somewhere I know you’ve never been before, take some time to look around and enjoy the sights, okay?”

“Well, okay, but-“ Nikki said.

“No buts!” Jamie insisted, before sighing. “Okay, what’s the ‘but’?”

“…Jon’s said he’s going to look at giving me more responsibilities if the America tour goes well,” Nikki mumbled, blushing as Jamie’s jaw dropped.

“A promotion?” Jamie excitedly asked.

“Not a ‘promotion’,” Nikki replied. “Just extra responsibilities, maybe a raise… Okay, yeah, I suppose you could call that a promotion, hehe!”

“I get it, I understand,” Jamie giggled. “And I get that you probably want to keep yourself busy with a whole ocean between you and Sarah.”

“Just a bit, yeah,” Nikki said, sniffing and wiping a tear away from her eye.

“Well, I just have one word to say to you for that,” Jamie said, before whispering in her friend’s ear. “Girl!” Nikki and Jamie exchanged excited squeaks as Nikki composed herself, before smiling at the crowd and leading them to the airport’s exit, where several iconic yellow taxis were waiting to whisk them into the heart of the big apple.

As they drove through the metropolis toward their hotel, all the men and women- not to mention the children- were in awe of their surroundings. Most of them had lived their whole lives in London, which was hardly a small or quiet city, but they were unprepared for the sheer scale of New York- not just the size of the buildings, but the noise of the millions of citizens going about their daily lives.

“This is AWESOME,” Krystie gushed as she gazed out of the taxi window.

“It’s certainly a bit bigger than Nottingham, that’s for sure!” Mikey chuckled, referring to his home city. “Hard to imagine how cities get this big, heh.”

“I know,” Krystie sighed. “And- and I don’t mean this as, like, a boast, but- it’s weird to think that no one here knows who we are, you know? Can barely go anywhere in London without being stopped by fans, you know?”

“Well, enjoy it while it lasts,” Mikey advised his wife. “This time next week everyone on both sides of the Atlantic will know you are.”

“Yeah, hehe!” Krystie said with a giggle, before sighing as she thought of her transgendered friends. “I’m just worried that too many of the wrong people will also know WHAT some of us are…”

Jamie couldn’t help but smirk as she and her friends entered the lobby of the Four Seasons hotel and immediately drew the attention of everyone present- especially the young men who all stopped and gazed at the bevy of beautiful women. Jamie allowed her grin to widen as she waited in line to check in to her hotel suite- while she was a happily married woman, she always felt flattered whenever she drew men’s attention, especially when the men weren’t aware of her celebrity status. However, she also found herself wondering just how badly the men might react if they found out about her ‘other’ status…

“Nervous?” Kelly asked Jamie, derailing the blonde transwoman’s train of thought.

“Uhh, maybe a little,” Jamie replied with a quiet chuckle. “Always am when I come somewhere foreign, even if America is as close to Britain as you can get culture-wise. Well, apart from your other half's homeland, heh! And I mean, everyone at the actual launch itself will be here to see us, right? “

“Well let's face it, they’ll really be here for the American girls,” Kelly teased. “We’ll be second fiddle. AGAIN.”

“Speak for yourself,” a refined Dublin accent said from behind Jamie and Kelly, instantly increasing the two women’s excitement levels.

“Tanya?” Jamie squeaked as she exchanged a gentle hug with her Irish counterpart. “Oh my god! When did you get here?”

“A few hours ago,” Tanya replied. “We’ve all checked in, me and some of the girls are going out for dinner in a bit. We would invite you, but we kinda have a pre-booking, you know?”

“It’s okay,” Jamie replied with a grin. “You nervous about tomorrow?”

“A bit,” Tanya replied with a shrug. “Have you seen any of the buzz online about the launch?”

“I’ve tried to keep away from social media for the last few days,” Jamie replied.

“We all have,” Kelly explained. “Figured the best way to do this was to go into it and be ourselves, not trying to, you know, meet any expectations or anything like that.”

“You two talking about ‘being yourselves’ when you’re going to be turned into a cartoon next week,” Tanya teased, giggling as Jamie and Kelly blushed.

“Yeah, well we didn’t have any say in THAT,” Jamie chuckled. “Other than ‘saying’ as in ‘voicing the characters’, heh.”

“Though the scripts did look great,” Kelly said. “Can’t wait to see the first episode in full, hehe! But as you were saying, there’s online buzz about the launch?”

“LOADS,” Tanya replied. “The girls they’ve got, for the New York Angels, I mean, already have over a million Instagram followers EACH. So forming a supergroup like this, especially one with links to similar groups in Europe and Australia?”

“Yeah,” Jamie grimaced. “It- it’s those ‘links’ that are kinda worrying me.”

“Yeah… Me too,” Tanya quietly confessed as she remembered her childhood- a childhood spent growing up in Dublin, playing football, rugby and being a boy called ‘Thomas’. Then, at the age of nineteen, she'd seen a British TV show starring a transgendered woman- the same woman that Tanya now considered a close friend- and the rest was history. “I mean,” Tanya continued, “there’s been a LOT of support. Stonewall and other LGBT charities have been REALLY positive about it, and about 95% of all the comments since the announcement have been positive.”

"Stonewall of course taking its name from the riots that took place in this very city," Jamie said with a knowing smile.

"Exactly," Tanya said.

“But that leaves 5%, right?” Kelly asked.

“You get a few arseholes, yeah,” Tanya sighed. “But not really any more than you get in England or I get in Ireland. Ireland, I mean, come on, one of THE most Catholic countries in the world, in case you needed reminding. And even then, most dickheads like that just call me ‘Mrs. Brown’. We just need to accept that we’ll get this shit wherever we go no matter how famous we are.”

“Oh, we need to understand it, maybe, and prepare for it,” Jamie said. “But accept it? Hell no.”

“Too right!” Tanya cheered with a giggle. “Ahh… It will be an awesome week, I guarantee you that, hehe!”

“Where are you going on the tour?” Jamie asked.

“Boston, with Charlotte,” Tanya replied. “They reckon ‘cause of the large Irish population…”

“That’s kind why I’m going to San Francisco,” Kelly said. “Large Chinatown. Think most of the Spanish Angels are going to Florida or cities near the Mexican border, the Italian Angels are going to places like Philadelphia and Chicago.”

“In fairness, they want to sell the Angels ‘brand’,” Jamie said. “So, they need to put us where they think we’ll generate the most positive publicity.” Jamie maintained a neutral expression on her face as her two friends both nodded.

“…So who’s going to Washington DC, then?” Kelly asked, smirking as Jamie and Tanya both sighed and rolled their eyes.

“None of us ten, I know that much,” Jamie chuckled.

“Or any of us,” Tanya said. “Think a couple of the German girls might be going down there though, ones who speak fluent English anyway.”

“I would say ‘it’s a pity there are no Russian Angels’, but that might be getting a bit TOO political,” Kelly giggled.

“Just a bit!” Tanya laughed. “Think they want to keep the launch as non-political as possible, which is a pity as I was hoping they’d invite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tomorrow, seeing as her borough’s around here.”

“Though she’s just as controversial as the orange idiot in the White House,” Kelly sighed. “It’s a pity, though, I always wanted to visit Washington, see all the sights, and I know there’ll be a lot of fans there who’ll be disappointed too.”

“It’s a big- well, huge country and there’s only so many of us to go around in very little time,” Jamie mused. “Someone’s inevitably going to end up being disappointed.”

“Well, we’ll just have to work extra hard this week, won’t we?” Tanya cheered, before giggling as Stuart approached carrying his daughter in one arm and a room key in the other.

“Speaking of working hard,” Stuart said with a mock tired sigh, “while you’ve been gossiping, I’ve been getting us checked into our suite upstairs. They’ll have the bags sent up to avoid overloading the weight limit of the lift.”

“BOY,” Tanya, Jamie and Kelly said simultaneously.

“Ah, but not you though, cutie!” Tanya cooed to the tiny infant in Stuart’s arms. “You’re going to be just as girly and gorgeous as your mother, aren’t you- oh, oh my god, Stuart, I- I’m sorry, I- I keep forgetting-“

“Don’t worry about it, honestly,” Stuart chuckled as he gave his daughter a gentle kiss on her head. “I was born the wrong gender, sure, but believe me when I say it’s VERY obvious that Olivia was born the right gender.”

“You should see her bedroom at home,” Jamie giggled. “You’d think it had a pink carpet. Nope, that’s just all her toys and her dolls.”

“Ah, SO jealous,” Tanya sighed happily. “there’s a part of me that’s desperate to become a mother, heh.”

“Well, out of all the many, many amazing things about being a woman,” Jamie said as she took Olivia into her arms, “being a mother is probably the best one.”

“Being a wife is also high on the list, right?” Stuart asked with a mock pout, before giggling as his wife fixed him with a withering stare.

“Come on,” Jamie giggled as she led her husband by the hand. “And it’s called an elevator, not a lift!” Stuart chuckled and rolled his eyes as he and his family headed up to the suite that would their home for the next few days.

After unpacking their bags and changing into smarter, more expensive outfits, Jamie and Stuart (and Olivia) headed down to the hotel lobby, where they met up with several other Angels and their families, and before long the group was settled into the back of yet more taxis, enjoying more sights and sounds of the big city en route to the restaurant that had been booked for them.

While the Angels enjoyed their meal, Nikki was sat cross-legged on her hotel bed reviewing the following day’s itinerary on her iPad while Jacinta and Katie lounged on the room’s sofa, trying to not get exasperated by their friend’s anxiety.

“Tell me,” Katie said with a sigh, “are you actually THAT worried about tomorrow, or are you trying to distract yourself from missing Sarah?”

“Think you know the answer to that already,” Nikki replied in a tired voice, prompting her two friends to roll their eyes and look at each other.

“Both,” Katie and Jacinta said simultaneously, before sharing a giggle.

“And it’s not like neither of you have work you can be doing,” Nikki said. “I saw you both taking hundreds of photos downstairs.”

“Can’t do anything with them until Riley gets back from dinner,” Katie retorted.

“Can’t do anything with them until I get home,” Jacinta said with a smug grin. “I could always take some more, though…” Nikki growled and raised her middle finger at the giggling Jacinta as the she took her phone out of her handbag and took several quick photos of the her.

“Send that photo to Sarah!” Katie teased, before giggling as Nikki hurled a pillow at her. “Ahh… Why ARE we in here anyway instead of hitting a bar or a club?”

“Two reasons,” Jacinta replied with a sad sigh. “Jet lag and work. It’s currently 7pm, which is midnight our time, so we wouldn’t be back until about 6am our time, and we have got a VERY busy today tomorrow.”

“Oh- okay,” Katie said, before chuckling with relief. “I was kinda worried that, you know, there was, like, another ‘issue’…”

“What, the fact that me and Nikki are, umm…” Jacinta said.

“Taller than average girls?” Nikki asked, before smirking. “I suppose I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about that. Same as anytime I go anywhere new.”

“Same here,” Jacinta said. “Even if we’ve been to America before, hehe! But, you know? Every time we visit Manchester, we only ever go out on Canal Street. Every time you guys come to Brighton, we- well, okay, bad example. But even there of all places I've had issues in the past. In hindsight it’s no wonder I can’t get a guy, heh. But anyway, a city like New York’s bound to have loads of LGBT friendly bars, right? It’s not like we’re in Alabama or anything.”

“And…” Nikki said with a grin, before showing Katie and Jacinta the map that she’d brought up on her iPad’s screen. “There IS an app for that, hehe!”

“Ah, cool!” Katie squeaked. “So… Is the headmistress saying we can bunk off early and go for a few drinks, then?”

“Only if you promise not to call me ‘headmistress’ ever again!” Nikki retorted, giggling as she put her iPad away and began rummaging through her bag for a fashionable dress to wear. “Besides, a very clever person did tell me earlier today to take it easy, to take some time to look around and see the sights..."

"And is 'the inside of a bar' one of these sights?" Katie asked with an excited grin.

“Hell yeah!” Jacinta giggled. “The only question is, will Miss Henderson be okay going to an LGBT bar and being hit on by all the girls in there?”

“As long as it’s not you two doing it, then yes!” Katie giggled as she headed back to her room to change.

The following morning, New York's newest residents rose from their beds early, eager to get stuck into the long day that lay ahead of them. As Stephanie headed down to breakfast by herself, she couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of the three exhausted-looking young women that greeted her.

“Good morning, girlies!” Stephanie said a loud, eager voice that earned pained groans from Nikki, Jacinta and Katie. “I see someone FINALLY decided to loosen up and have some fun last night, then?”

“Ugh,” Nikki replied. “Kinda regretting it now, heh. Well… I am and I’m not, hehe!”

“It was a great night though,” Jacinta giggled despite her hangover. “Did you and the rest of the band enjoy your meal?”

“Well… Kinda,” Stephanie sighed as she sat down with her friends. “Did feel a bit like a third wheel even though Adeola’s fella wasn’t there either. Kinda wish I was out with you three last night, heh. Enjoy my last day of stateside anonymity while it lasts!”

“No one recognised you or the band yesterday, then?” Katie asked.

“Nah, the other people in the restaurant didn’t exactly strike me as girl band fans, heh!” Stephanie replied. “Some didn’t exactly strike me as, you know, ‘me’ fans either, heh.”

“Kinda why we were at a gay club last night,” Jacinta chuckled. “Though me or Nikki aren’t as famous as you are, heh.”

“Yeah, well, famous in Britain doesn’t mean I’m automatically gonna be famous in America,” Stephanie reminded her friends. “Okay, yes, we have a small US-based fan club, but it’s, you know, small?”

“Well,” Nikki said with a smug grin, “it’s a good job we’re doing a big launch event today, isn’t it?” Nikki’s question was answered by the excited squeaks of the other three women at the table.

After a quick breakfast, the four girls headed back to their rooms, where they quickly changed into their outfits for the day. Even though she wouldn't be the focus of the day, Stephanie wanted to make an impression, and smiled as she pulled a low-cut satin and lace top over her head, savouring the sensation as it clung to her narrowing waist, widening hips and ever-growing breasts. A pair of black pantyhose was next, followed by a tight leather pencil skirt and, as had become tradition for Stephanie, a pair of shiny black knee-high boots with a chunky 3-inch heel.

“Oh, hey Steph!” Jamie said with a nervous giggle as she encountered her fellow transwoman in the hallway. “All ready for today, then?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Stephanie replied, fanning herself with her hands to try to remain calm. “I love that dress, by the way!”

“Thanks!” Jamie replied as she did a slow twirl to show off the delicate features of her slinky knee-length dark blue dress. “I love your boots, as usual, hehe!”

“Meh, figured I had to keep up appearances!” Stephanie replied with a giggle. “Have- have you heard anything about what we’re going to expect today?”

“I’ve deliberately kept myself away from social media,” Jamie replied with a nervous grimace. “Tanya- you know, from the Irish Angels? She’s been looking a lot, says we can expect a huge crowd today. Not that that should worry someone who’s sung in front of 30 000 people, right?”

“30 000 people who paid and knew exactly what they’d be getting for their money,” Stephanie said. “This is a voyage into the unknown. And besides, those 30 000-“ Stephanie trailed off as she remembered the concert that she and Jamie were referring to- the concert held just over a year earlier at the St Mary’s stadium in Southampton, the home town of the one member of Out of Heaven who was still on the other side of the Atlantic.

“…That was Kayla’s birthday concert, wasn’t it?” Jamie asked, smiling sympathetically as Stephanie nodded. “Can’t imagine how much you’re missing her. God knows I’d be a wreck if I didn’t have Stuart and Olivia with me, heh.”

“Speaking of, where are they?” Stephanie asked.

“Well, Eilish came over with us,” Jamie replied. “She and a few of the dads will be running a kind-of crèche today.”

“It’s called ‘daycare’ over here,” Stephanie teased, giggling as Jamie rolled her eyes. “And you know they’ll be sitting around playing videogames while Eilish does all the hard work, and we do all the REAL work.”

“They’d better not,” Jamie growled, before letting out a quiet giggle. “And don’t think of today as ‘work’. Like you said, 30 000 people paid to hear you sing last year. They didn’t pay just to hear Kayla Ford sing, the name on the posters outside said ‘Out of Heaven’. Just like today, the posters outside the venue will say ‘Angels launch event’.”

“Yeah, the New York Angels, though,” Stephanie reminded her friend. “Like I was telling the girls over breakfast, we’re foreigners here, no matter how close British and American culture might be.”

“Well then,” Jamie said with a shrug and a confident grin. “We’re just going to have to show these Yanks what they’ve been missing this whole time, aren’t we?” Stephanie smiled as her friend led her down to the hotel lobby, while Jamie mused on how just two years earlier, she'd have given anything to not be even in the same room as Stephanie Abbott, but was now deeply fond of her- proof that anyone and everyone has the potential to be a friend, if the circumstances were right, and Jamie crossed her fingers and prayed that the circumstances would be right that day.

Jamie marvelled at the sight that greeted her when she reached the lobby- it wasn’t just the Angels and the other members of Out of Heaven and Heavenly Talent who were assembled in the lobby, but members of Angel groups from around the world. Tanya and her friends from Ireland were present, as was Jamie’s friend (and fellow transwoman) Melissa and her friends from Germany, and many of their friends from Italy, Spain and Australia as well. Jamie felt herself getting giddy as she mingled with the crowd, knowing that each of the women was a friend of hers, and by the end of the day, she'd be making yet more friends- and as she reminded herself, you truly can never have too many.

“Hi Jamie!” The distinctive soft voice of Melissa Schubert called. “It has been a long time! But today is going to be exciting, isn’t it?”

“Hi Melissa!” Jamie giggled as she exchanged a hug with the German transwoman. “You look great! And you sound great too, your English has really improved this last year!”

“I thought I should put in an effort,” Melissa giggled. “Especially as I knew I would come here!”

“Well it’s great to have you here, hehe!” Jamie giggled. “How’ve you been, anyway? I mean, after the…”

“The operation?” Melissa asked, smiling as Jamie grimaced and nodded. “Everything is fine. I healed fast and the scars are fading. It is like I was always totally woman!”

“Because you were,” Jamie reassured her friend. “We all were, no matter what anyone else says. Have- has there been, you know…”

“I- I do not follow?” Melissa asked.

“Has anyone- have you had any abuse in Germany?” Jamie asked. “From transphobic people, I mean?”

“…A little bit,” Melissa said quietly. “It is the same everywhere, but in Germany it is punished more harshly, Berlin has anti-hate speech laws that punish it. I know America has freedom of speech but why should that mean freedom to abuse people?”

“Freedom of speech also means that you can tell them you are a rich, famous, beautiful and anatomical woman,” Jamie retorted. “And if they disagree, they’re objectively wrong and can shove it.” Despite her confusion, Melissa couldn’t help but giggle at the confident look on her friend’s face.

“I did not know what all of that means,” Melissa replied. “But I know what ‘shove it’ means and I agree!”

“Ah- sorry,” Jamie grimaced. “I’m still right, though.”

“Hell yes you are!” Melissa said. “And now we wait to see our fans, the only people with good opinions! Each fan is like a new friend, ja? And you know what they say about friends?”

“I definitely do,” Jamie replied with a warm smile.

The women didn’t have to wait long for their rides to arrive, and all of them squeaked with excitement when they saw that the yellow taxis that ferried them to the hotel yesterday had been replaced by a fleet of gleaming white stretch limousines. Jamie, Charlotte, Krystie and Mary took their seats in the rear of the first limo, and within seconds had popped open the complimentary bottle of champagne that had been provided for them.

“Just one glass each, okay?” Jamie said excitedly. “Don’t want to get squiffy before we even get there, hehe!”

“Well, make it zero glasses for me,” Charlotte said bashfully. “Kinda still got two babies to nurse when I get back to the hotel, and even though it’ll be hours-“

“One tonic water for Mrs. Hartley,” Krystie said with a smug grin as she opened a smaller, more non-descript bottle and poured it into her friend’s glass.

“And one for me too, please,” Mary said, blushing as her three friends’ jaws simultaneously dropped.

“Oh- oh my god, Mary?” Krystie squeaked, almost dropping the bottle of tonic water as she poured it into her best friend’s glass.

“Yes, yes, get it out of your systems now,” Mary said with a sigh, before giggling excitedly. “Me and Dan only found out a couple of days before we flew, we were planning to tell you girls- well, now, hehe!”

“Oh my god oh my god!” Jamie squeaked as she, Charlotte and Krystie took turns hugging the pregnant Irishwoman.

“Calm down, god!” Mary said, taking several deep breaths and fanning herself with her hands. “We won’t be due until next summer, and that’s ages away!”

“Summer?” Krystie asked excitedly. “Does this mean that Mrs. Milton won’t be the only birthday buddy to your kids?” Jamie giggled as she remembered that her 25th birthday was also the same day that Mary’s second daughter was born. Jamie didn’t hold many happy memories of the weeks surrounding that particular day, but she would always fondly remember the birth of another member of her ‘extended family’.

“Maybe, god, I don’t know!” Mary replied. “We think it’s due in July. God, you’d think this’d be easier the third time round…”

“You’ll be awesome, just like you were first and second times,” Charlotte assured. “And baby number 3 is going to be every bit as cute and clever as her older sisters, I guarantee that!”

“You can’t even guarantee that she’ll be a girl!” Mary retorted.

“Oh, but I can!” Krystie giggled as she gave Mary’s belly a playful rub. “Girl rays! Girl rays!”

“Sure, are you ever gonna let your brother forget he said that?” Mary asked.

“Think we all know the answer to THAT!” Charlotte giggled excitedly. “Ahh… I mean, I know we’re all mothers already, but the thought of yet another cousin for our kids to play with, you know?”

“Totally,” Jamie squeaked. “And I’ve already got loads of baby clothes Olivia’s grown out of, some that she never even wore, hehe!”

“Still a chance it could be a boy,” Mary reminded her friends.

“Nah, there isn’t,” Krystie said confidently. “Ahh, I can’t believe how excited I am! Are you going to tell anyone on the tour?”

“God no!” Mary replied. “It’s gonna be mad enough when we get home. Thank god we’re doing the animated series, though. You don’t get stretch marks on cartoons, hehe!”

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Krystie sighed. “Thank god I spend all day with my belly covered by a leotard, heh!”

“I’ve got you both beat,” Charlotte said defiantly. “Twins. Twice the babies, twice the stretch marks.” Krystie and Mary both giggled at Charlotte’s joke, though the laughter soon stopped when they saw the fourth woman in the limo biting her lip to try to stifle her tears.

“Jamie?” Krystie asked.

“…No stretch marks for me,” Jamie said with a sad sigh. “Never been pregnant, never will be.”

“Oh- god, jeez…” Mary grimaced. “I- I’m so sorry, Jam-“

“No, please, don’t be sorry!” Jamie said with a chuckle. “I should be sorry for being such a buzzkill, maybe I need another one of these!” Jamie forced a smile on her face as she poured herself another glass of champagne. “A toast- to Mary, who’s gonna be an amazing mother. AGAIN.”

“To Mary!” Charlotte, Jamie and Krystie cheered.

“Well I have another toast, then,” Mary said. “To Jamie, for proving that no matter how you were born, an amazing mother will always be an amazing mother.”

“And no less a REAL mother than any of us,” Krystie said as she gave the blonde-haired transwoman a gentle hug.

“Aww- you guys…” Jamie said, her voice filled with emotion.

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you any different,” Charlotte said softly.

“And god knows a few people have tried,” Jamie sighed. “People who say I shouldn’t even be in the same toilet as Olivia.”

“Bathroom,” Krystie corrected her friend, giggling as Jamie gave her a playful nudge with her elbow. “Ahh, you’re not wrong, though. Fortunately, none of those idiots will be here today.”

“How can you be so sure?” Jamie asked.

“Take a look out of the window,” Krystie advised, directing Jamie’s attention to the venue they were quickly approaching…

At the back of the motorcade, Nikki stretched her muscles on the back seat of her yellow taxi to try to quell her nerves, which were increasing with every passing second. She’d worked extra hard over the previous weeks to ensure that the New York launch would be a success, but now that the day had arrived, she found herself mentally running through every element of the day in her head over and over again, certain that there was something she had missed somewhere. However, as she herself was forced to acknowledge, her obsession with her work was at least in part to distract her from the fact that her wife hadn’t texted her in over an hour…

“If you want to stretch out any more, I can always climb out the window and ride on the roof,” Katie said, earning a scowl from her friend. “Or the boot, I suppose…”

“It’s called a trunk over here,” Jacinta said, giggling as Katie rolled her eyes. “But Katie’s not wrong, stop panicking, for god’s sake! It’ll all be fine, and besides, you didn’t do all this single-handed, did you? If something does go wrong, there’ll be blame to share, right?” Jacinta’s smile fell as Katie and Nikki regarded her with angry stares.

“Not helping,” Katie mouthed at her roommate. “Besides, we know it’s all going to be fine, anyway.”

“How can you be sure?” Nikki asked.

“Well, THAT is a pretty good sign,” Jacinta said, gesturing out of the taxi window at the launch venue- or rather, at the massive lines that had formed outside it.

Jamie allowed herself a wide, toothy grin as she stepped out of the limousine and was immediately greeted by the blinding glare of the paparazzi’s flashbulbs and the deafening noise of the assembled fans. Glancing over the crowd, Jamie could tell from the t-shirts and the posters that were being held out that most of them were fans of the soon-to-be debuted New York Angels, but there were still plenty of people wearing the logo of the British Angels- and better still, plenty of people wearing the pink, blue and white of the transgender pride flag.

Jamie smiled professionally as she posed for the cameras and waved to her fans, before heading into the venue and making way for the next Angel to soak up the adoration of their fans. Once she was inside the venue, Jamie was escorted by a member of staff to the main reception area, where she gasped at the sight that greeted her.

Dozens of tables had been arranged around the room, many selling merchandise of not just the New York Angels, but all of the international groups and Out of Heaven too. Tables bearing flags of the countries with international 'Angel groups' had been set out in such a way to allow the Angels to interact with their fans, sign autographs and take selfies, and numerous other attractions had been laid on for the fans who would pass through the hall that day.

Jamie had only been able to explore a small part of the room before a very familiar, and very loud voice brought her back to reality.

“Jamie!” Joshua Benedict, the owner of Heavenly Talent, boomed in his hybrid African-London accent. “How are you enjoying New York, New York?”

“It’s a hell of a town,” Jamie replied with an excited squeak as she approached Joshua’s table, where Charlotte, Hannah, Viks and Alice were all already waiting. “And this venue is awesome! It must have cost a fortune…”

“Money well spent, going by the crowds outside!” Alice giggled.

“Money well invested!” Joshua corrected the red-haired woman.

“We are going to get absolute thousands of new social media followers from this tour,” Viks enthused. “New followers, new endorsements…”

“Bucketloads of money,” Jonathan said with a grin as he finished his wife’s sentence. Jamie giggled along with her friends at the prospect of increased wealth and fame, though secretly, she was hoping that she could use at least some of her increased wealth and fame to raise awareness of the struggle that many transgendered women like her faced on a daily basis. If she could help at least one person, Jamie reasoned to herself, the trip would have been worth it...

“Hey everyone!” Krystie cooed as she approached the Angels’ table, with Mary following closely behind.

“Hello my Angels!” Joshua boomed. “Are you keeping your adoring fans wanting more?”

“Sure, they’ll get more of us soon enough!” Mary giggled.

“You can say that again!” Charlotte teased, before biting her lip and giggling as Mary shot an angry glare at her. “I mean those who were lucky enough to get passes for this event, hehe!”

“Speaking of, when do the doors open?” Hannah asked.

“When everyone’s here,” Jonathan said. “Going to get photos taken first- well, when Katie gets here, anyway, then a Q&A in the main auditorium, then a meet and greet. And believe it or not, that’ll be the whole day, with how many people are out there!”

“I can believe it, I remember some meet and greets we did back in the UK,” Jamie said, before remembering a key element of many of those meet and greets. “Umm, speaking of which, back in the UK, on those meet and greets- umm…”

“I know, I know,” Joshua said softly. “You have my word that THAT topic will be treated with the same sensitivity here as it is in the UK and every other country we have visited. We are launching the American Angels, not the Russian Angels!”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Jamie chuckled. “It’s just always a worry, you know?”

“I know, and I remember how nervous you were in Spain,” Jonathan said. “But we’ve been proactive here, even invited a few local LGBT charities along to the launch just in case the message wasn’t loud and clear enough.”

“The message of course being ‘transwomen are women and transmen are men’?” Jamie asked with a grin.

“Aka ‘stating the bloody obvious’,” Hannah said with a supportive smile. “You might want to check out some of the booths, before it gets too crowded in here?”

“Sure,” Jamie said with a shrug. “Send Nikki over to get me when I’m needed, okay?”

“Sure,” Hannah said with a knowing smile that confused Jamie as she headed off to have a look around the hall.

When she reached the first charity’s booth, however, Jamie’s jaw dropped as she realised why Hannah was being so insistent about her checking out the booths.

“P- Paige?” Jamie asked, smiling as the dark-haired woman setting up the booth turned around and her mismatched blue and green eyes widened.

“Jamie?” Paige replied in her thick Scottish accent, before squeaking excitedly and giving Jamie a hug. “Oh my god! I didn’t even notice you come in! How have you been?”

“I’ve been good, thanks, but how have you been?” Jamie asked. “I was so gutted I didn’t get to see you and Jess off at Heathrow, but- oh my god, is Jess here too?”

“No, she’s still at home,” Paige said with a sad smile as she thought of her laid up wife. “Still on the mend from- well, you know, hehe!”

“Definitely,” Jamie sighed.

Like Jamie, Paige and Jessica were both transgendered women, and like Jamie, they had both had gender correction surgery. However, unlike Jamie, neither woman was a national celebrity. The two women had met when they were working as flight attendants for an airline based in Paris, and had fallen in love at first sight, and despite more than a few bumps in the road, had finally married in August that year. Despite the fact that she gained no fame or fortune from attending the ceremony, which was held on the shores of Loch Lomond, hundreds of mile from her home, Jamie had immediately accepted her invitation- after all, a friend was a friend, regardless of how famous they were, and as Jamie herself often said, you can never have too many friends.

“She might be along later,” Paige said. “She’s working on getting her strength up for travelling on Thursday.”

“Thursday?” Jamie asked. “Oh, right, Thanksgiving.”

“It’ll be the first time Jess has been home for Thanksgiving in years, so she’s really looking forward to it,” Paige said. “Especially after all the trouble she had when she first came out.”

“But everything’s fine now?” Jamie asked.

“Better than fine,” Paige replied, showing off the two rings on the third finger of her left hand. “Especially in this city, hehe! I’ve always, always dreamed about living and working in New York. And here I am! Dreams really do come true, heh!”

“And you’ve not had any, you know, ‘trouble’?” Jamie asked, biting her lip as Paige frowned.

“Not myself,” the Scotswoman replied. “But I hear about it all the time- well, at work, you know? Every day I hear some story about a kid who’s been kicked out by their parents… Lucky that we’re here to help, heh. And by ‘we’, I mean you too, Jamie.”

“Me?” Jamie asked, before smirking. “Well, I mean, I'll do what I can… It’d be better if there was, you know…”

“A ‘girl like us’ in the New York Angels?” Paige asked, smiling as Jamie nodded. “Yeah, but you can’t just shoehorn someone in if they don’t fit with the rest of the group. Luckily, Josh Benedict and the head of the NY Angels’s agency are HUGE LGBT rights champions. Just means we’re gonna work a bit harder this week, heh!”

“If you call standing still and having your photo taken ‘work’?” Jamie asked.

“No, I know how hard you work,” Paige giggled, before laughing even louder as she saw a familiar face approach Jamie. “Though not as hard as someone…”

“Hey Jamie,” Nikki said in an almost breathless voice. “Oh, hey Paige! Didn’t think I’d see you today, hehe!”

“Trust me, if I wasn’t here on business, I’d have bought a ticket!” The Scotswoman giggled. “How are you, Nikki?”

“Busy!” Nikki replied. “Believe me, I’d love to stay and chat, but Mrs. Milton here needs to get her butt in gear as it is very, very nearly showtime!”

“Okay, MUM,” Jamie teased back, before following her protégé to the centre of the room, where dozens of beautiful women were assembling.

Jamie took her place amongst her countrywomen and posed professionally as every other 'Angel group' assembled around them, including the newest group from the city they were in. As the women all took their place and posed for the group photos, Jamie mused on how if she hadn't known beforehand, she'd have struggled to realised that girls like Kelly, or Melissa or Tanya- or even Jamie herself- were not 'like' the other women in the group. However, she was also forced to acknowledge just how lucky she was that that was the case, especially as she thought about some of the women she'd helped who weren't lucky enough to be 5' 5" and have a naturally slender build...

After the photographs were taken, the assembled women began to disperse and mingle with each other, and before she could even compose herself, Jamie was all but dragged to another part of the room by her best friend.

“Jamie, I’d like you to meet Crystal and Monica,” Charlotte said, introducing Jamie to two unfamiliar women. “Crystal, Monica, THIS is the world-famous Jamie-Lee Burke, hehe!”

“Hi, it’s so nice to finally meet you!” Crystal said in a thick New Jersey accent as she exchanged a gentle hug with Jamie. “I have been following you online for SO long!”

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you too!” Jamie replied with a polite giggle. “So, you’re America’s newest superstars, then?”

“Yep!” Monica said as she exchanged a gentle hug with the blonde transwoman. “We start recording in January, I can’t wait!”

“Cool!” Jamie squeaked. “I hope Charlotte has already welcomed you into the wider family?”

“Oh- totally,” Crystal replied.

“It’s so amazing to think there are already so many different groups around the world,” Monica enthused.

“It is,” Charlotte giggled. “All thanks to the amazing brain of Joshua Benedict!”

“More like all thanks to you guys!” Crystal said. “It’s amazing to think that you’ve been friends for so long, and can work together and still be friends, especially when-“ Jamie bit her lip as Crystal furtively glanced in her direction, before grimacing and glancing at her drink.

“It’s okay, honestly,” Jamie said with a sigh. “It’s the first thing people usually ask when they meet me, heh.”

“First thing they ask if they know ahead of time,” Charlotte corrected her BFF. “Because I mean, would you really be able to tell?”

“Hell no!” Monica giggled. “Hell, you know, you two- has anyone ever told you two that you look a little like each other?” Jamie and Charlotte both bit their lips to stifle a giggle as they recalled the circumstances of their first meeting.

“…Sometimes,” Charlotte replied. “And no, I don’t think of that as an insult at all, being told I look a little like someone who used to be- a long time ago- male.”

“Well, duh,” Crystal said. “Any woman with any sense would give anything to look like Jamie-Lee Burke!” Jamie giggled at her new friend’s compliment- even though it was more than a little sycophantic, she could tell that Crystal’s acceptance of her was genuine, as was Monica’s- and Jamie had no reason to believe that any of the other new Angels wouldn’t be genuine either.

Jamie, Charlotte and all the other Angels spent the next half an hour mingling with their international equivalents, and the more Jamie got to know her American counterparts, the more she got to like them. They were all very professional, of course- knowing exactly what to say and when to say it, leaving Jamie in little doubt that the New York Angels would be a great success, at least commercially. However, she was left with the nagging doubt at the back of her mind that without a 'girl like her' in the group, the group was missing a key element.

As the multi-national Angels mingled and posed for photos, Nikki took the opportunity to sit back and relax, happy that at the very least, the first part of the launch event had gone smoothly. As she waited for the next segment of the launch event to begin, Nikki distracted herself by sending text messages to her wife on her iPad, even though she knew that Sarah would likely be eating dinner with her mother and unable to reply. Nikki became so distracted that she failed to notice her friend sitting down next to her until she gave her a gentle nudge, causing Nikki to squeal with surprise and nearly drop her phone.

“Who- Steph, for god’s sake!” Nikki chastised her giggling friend. “Not got anything better to do?”

“Nope!” Stephanie replied with a smug grin. “Not going to be singing until later this evening. Texting Sarah?”

“Yeah,” Nikki sighed. “Always makes me feel less stressed, heh. You heard from Kayla today?” Nikki smiled sympathetically as her friend grimaced and shook her head.

“She’ll probably be getting ready for her dance, if she hasn’t already danced,” Stephanie replied. “Think I’ve got the time zones right there, heh. Though if they had to launch Angels in America, couldn’t they have done it in Florida in July instead of New York in November? It’s FREEZING outside…”

“It's not that bad, and it’ll be warmer when we get to California,” Nikki replied, sensing her friend’s need to change the topic and knowing and understanding why. Nikki knew how stressed Stephanie was about having to keep her relationship a secret from the world, and while she understood Kayla’s reason of having to maintain a public profile, Nikki still couldn’t help but feel sorry for her famous friend.

“You don’t feel like getting out there and hob-nobbing too, miss ‘former teen Angel’?” Stephanie teased, making her friend roll her eyes and giggle.

“Maybe if I didn’t have a million other things to do!” Nikki replied, showing Stephanie the to-do list on her iPad. “Looking forward to taking some time tomorrow to actually look around New York.”

“Even if you won’t be seeing it with the person you most wanted to see it with?” Stephanie asked, smiling sympathetically as Nikki nodded. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Still, I’ve got the feeling this won’t be the last we see of the big apple, hehe!”

“I hope not!” Nikki giggled along with her friend as the excitement levels in the room rose in anticipation of the venue being opened to the public.

Twenty minutes later, the front doors of the venue opened and thousands of excited fans poured in and began checking out the stalls, taking photos and buying merchandise as they waited to take their seats in the main auditorium. Eventually, all the fans were seated, and as the excitement level reached fever pitch, the house lights dimmed and the familiar strain of ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams filled the vast room.

“Showtime, girls!” Charlotte said with a wide grin as she led the other nine British Angels onto the stage in front of a backdrop of the Union Jack, where they eagerly soaked up the cheers and the camera flashes of the crowd. Once their ‘section’ was complete, the ten women stepped back to allow their German counterparts to take the limelight, followed by the Angels from Ireland, Italy, Australia and Spain. Once all of the existing Angel groups were assembled, the music stopped and was replaced by 'Empire State of Mind' by Alicia Keys, and the noise of the crowd, which was already high, somehow got even louder as one by one, the New York Angels took their place on the stage.

“Thank you, New York!” The de facto leader of the group, a tall blonde woman named Megan, shouted into her microphone. “It’s great to be here in front of you all!”

Jamie stood back and allowed herself to relax as the American women soaked up the admiration of the crowd, musing on how the launch of the British Angels had been a much more subdued affair, but how in recent times, their public appearances had been increasingly popular- though nowhere near the level that was playing out in front of her. After the introductions were completed, a brief video trailer of the New York Angels’ upcoming TV series played on the screen behind the women, before chairs were set up on the stage for the New York Angels to formally introduce themselves to the audience and answer their questions.

“Good start,” Hannah said to her friends, who nodded in agreement.

“The crowd obviously adores them,” Jamie commented.

“Us,” Charlotte corrected her friend. “The crowd loves us. We’re all part of the same family, and today, that family’s just got even bigger.”

“I suppose that’s the great thing about the show being broadcast over the internet,” Viks mused. “Everyone can watch, no matter where they live. The American Angels could end up getting just as many British fans as we have American fans.”

“As long as they share and don’t steal!” Alice said, earning giggles from her friends.

“Well,” Hannah said as the group emerged back into the venue’s reception area, “I don’t think sharing will be a problem…”

Jamie allowed herself a wide grin as she and her friends stared out at the area they’d been only a short while earlier, which was now packed with excited fans. The ten British Angels were escorted through the crowd to a long table that had been set out for them, where a long line immediately formed to get the famous women’s autographs and have selfies taken. Jamie couldn’t help but grin at the star-struck looks in the eyes of the fans as they took their selfies, especially the large group that had gathered around her end of the table.

After about half an hour of autographs and selfies, Jamie felt a tap on her shoulder from Nikki, who escorted her and two of the other British Angels back to the auditorium. As Jamie took her seat in the plush leather chair on the stage, she felt her nerves start to jangle. Posing for photos and taking selfies with fans was one thing, but answering questions in front of a packed crowd always caused Jamie to be anxious- especially crowds that weren’t there to see her, but to see a completely different group of Angels. Suddenly, Jamie felt like a very small fish in a very large pond.

“Hello Jamie!” The blonde transwoman heard a voice with a soft Italian accent say, distracting her from her anxiety and bringing a smile to her face.

“Oh, hi Chiara!” Jamie said. “You’re going to be- well, I was going to say ‘thrown to the lions’, but seeing as you actually do live in Rome…”

“Hehe!” Chiara replied as she elegantly lowered herself into one of the chairs. “I do not get ‘thrown to the lions’ but I assume it is to do with colosseum?”

“Ah- sorry, forgot you’re still learning English,” Jamie chuckled. “I’d have thought they’d have sent someone who was fluent in English to answer these questions?”

“I wanted to come on the stage,” Chiara said defiantly. “Not because to practice my English, but because- well, you most certainly know!”

“Yes, that’s true!” Jamie giggled. Chiara had been born in Rome at the start of 1993, but it wouldn't be until early 2014 that she took the name 'Chiara', having had to live the first 21 years of her life as a man named 'Riccardo'.

“I am hoping to change a few people’s thinking!” Chiara said with a nervous giggle. “Like you are, I think?”

“…I don’t think many people’s thinking needs to be changed,” Jamie said, before grinning as she took her phone out of her bag. “Want a crowd selfie?” Chiara giggled as she stood up and followed Jamie to the edge of their stage where they turned their back to the crowd, who immediately started cheering as Jamie lifted her phone for the selfie.

“Ah, haha, you are probably right!” Chiara giggled as she sat back down. “It- it is just difficult, sometimes. I remember in Madrid, I felt like I should not be there, because, umm…”

“Because there weren’t any ‘girls like us’ in that group?” Jamie asked. “Yeah, I know that feeling, heh. But let me guess- the rest of Bellezze told you that Angel groups aren’t just about transgendered girls, but about girls full stop, which we most definitely are?”

“…Yep,” Chiara replied with a giggle, which Jamie shared. "Which all of us are!"

"Gorgeous, successful girls!" Jamie giggled as Chiara returned to her seat.

Once all the women were seated, the emcee, a good-looking American man in his early thirties named Paul, returned to the stage to applause from the audience and introduced the panellists. Jamie smiled professionally at the loud cheer that greeted her own name, though it didn’t help to settle her nerves at speaking in front of a large crowd. When she was sixteen, she’d never dreamed that one day she’d be answering questions in front of an audience of thousands of fans, in New York City, wearing a designer dress and heels…

“So, ladies,” Paul said, “what do you think of the New York Angels?”

“They’re great girls,” Hannah Dexter replied first. “We had the chance to chat before the launch, I reckon they’ll be great additions to the family.” Jamie and the other ten women on stage murmured in agreement with Hannah.

“I definitely would like for them to come to Rome some day!” Chiara said with a giggle. “But they get on well and you can tell that they are real friends.”

“I can definitely see the New York Angels lasting a long, long time,” Cherelle, one of the Australian Angels, said to more general agreement.

“That brings me to a question I’d like to ask our English roses, if I may,” Paul said, making Jamie tense up- she doubted it was a coincidence that the question was prompted by Cherelle, who along with her fellow ‘Aussie Angel’ Alice Oliver, were the only ‘Angels’ anywhere in the world to be in a relationship with each other. Jamie knew that LGBT issues would be raised during the Q&A session, she’d just hoped that it would’ve been a little later…

“The British Angels have been running for five years now,” Paul said. “How much longer do you see the group lasting, especially now that half of you are parents?” Okay, Jamie thought to herself as she scrambled for her thoughts. Not the question I was expecting…

“For as long as we’re friends with each other,” Hannah replied bluntly. “For me and Viks, that’s been more than half our lives, and I can’t see us ever not being friends.”

“Same for me and Charlotte,” Jamie said firmly.

“Though the two of you have fought in the past, haven’t you?” Paul asked, making Jamie fidget uncomfortably in her seat.

“Well- I wouldn't say FIGHT,” Jamie replied, shifting uneasily in her seat at her white lie. “All friends fall out from time to time, me and Charlotte are no exception. But we’re still best friends and always will be, we’re godmothers to each other’s children…”

“There is already enough hostility in the world,” Helena, the youngest member of the German Angel group, said. “Sometimes it is good to show what is positive.”

“Many reality shows such as yours depend on drama and conflict to get ratings,” Paul said. “Why do you feel this positive message has been successful, and how successful do you think it will be in front of an American audience?”

“I think it’s because we’re not like other reality shows, that’s why we’re successful,” Cherelle said.

“A lot if it is also probably due to social media,” Hannah interjected. “Last few years, all the celebrities and role models have come from Instagram and YouTube instead of TV. People like watching real people in real situations, with us- with all of us, what you see is what you get.” Jamie tried not to grimace as she feared that Hannah had given the emcee the perfect opportunity to segue into some awkward questions…

“As for American audiences,” Claudia, a young Swiss woman who was a member of the German Angels, said, “you would need to ask them!” The twelve women on the stage grinned as Claudia gestured to the audience, who all cheered as one.

“We all have plenty of fans from around the world,” Cherelle said. “And Americans have great taste, so naturally we have plenty of fans from this country as well!” This earned another cheer from the audience, which in turn earned another grin from the women on the stage.

“I suppose that’s one of the great things about the internet,” Jamie mused. “It makes the world smaller, you know? Make us more, like, accessible…” And I’ve just opened the door myself, Jamie thought to herself.

“The internet can also be a source of conflict,” Paul stated. “And I know many of you have faced criticism and even online abuse from internet trolls. What’s it like, dealing with that when you’re famous?”

“Well, you hit the nail on the head when you said the word ‘troll’,” Hannah said. “There are people who get their kicks from sending online abuse, and those people have something seriously wrong with them.”

“They’re sociopaths, simple as that,” Saoirse, a member of the Irish ‘Angels’, said in a disgusted voice. “I mean, I hope they eventually grow up and realise that what they’re doing isn’t big, clever or funny, but while they do it- nope. Don’t deserve any of our time.” The twelve women all nodded in agreement as the audience applauded the young Irishwoman’s speech.

“It’s a question I’d particularly like to put to you, Jamie,” Paul said, making Jamie take a deep breath. Here we go, she thought to herself. Better to get it over with sooner rather than later.

“…Yes, I’ve had far more than my fair share of online hate,” Jamie confessed in a quiet voice. “And yes, most of it is for the ‘obvious’ reason. Even though I’ve been living 24/7 as a woman for seven and a half years, there are still people who can’t get over the fact that for the first nineteen years of my life, I was a man. WAS. That’s the distinction. Some people are born into the wrong gender, and the way a person needs- not chooses, NEEDS to live their life isn’t any business of anyone else.” Jamie allowed herself a smile as her speech earned a rapturous round of applause from the audience, many of whom also leapt to their feet. Before Jamie or Paul could speak again, however, they were interrupted by an unexpected source.

“It is difficult for someone born into the correct gender to understand what it is like to not be,” the soft, refined African accent of Malaika Okumu said. Malaika was the tenth member of the British Angels and the last one to have been added to the group, and as such was the one Jamie felt least close to. Jamie considered Malaika a friend, of course, but had struggled to get to know her at first, thanks in large part to Malaika having only lived in the UK for five years and English not being her first language. This had also resulted in Malaika being known as ‘the quiet Angel’, but on this occasion, Malaika clearly had no intention of being quiet- and the smile on Jamie’s face widened with every word her Kenyan friend said. The fact that Malaika had unquestionably accepted Jamie as a woman, when her home country had long been violently repressive toward LGBT people, didn't hurt Jamie's opinions of her.

“A lot of people dismiss transphobia as not important because it does not affect them,” Malaika said. “As though because they cannot understand it, it must not exist. I know firsthand what this can be like. I am fortunate that I am not transgender myself, but I have experienced more than my fair share of bigotry because of the colour of my skin and the way I speak. And I have known many white people who dismiss racism as not being a problem anymore because they do not see it in their day to day lives. But it is a problem, and so is transphobia, homophobia and every other form of bigotry. We need to live and let live. My being black does not hurt or inconvenience anyone else, and it had no effect on me being successful. The same applies to Jamie or Chiara being transgendered, or Cherelle being in a same-sex relationship. It doesn’t hurt anyone. So let us be.” Malaika bit her lip and blushed as almost everyone in the audience rose to their feet and applauded her speech, including the other eleven women on the stage.

“That was very profound,” Paul said. “I think everyone in here can agree with what you said, though my question was actually directed at you Jamie as you have a young child.” Sure it was, Jamie thought to herself. “You and the other Angels who have children have been including your children less and less in your social media accounts and onscreen in recent months.”

“We feel it’s not fair on them to force them into the limelight when they’re still very young,” Jamie replied in a matter of fact voice.

“Which we can definitely appreciate,” Paul said. “But it has led to speculation that it will lead to the eventual breakup of the Angels, as your family life takes time away from your careers.”

“I definitely consider myself a mother first and an Angel second,” Jamie said. “And maybe the day will come when I’m no longer able to be an Angel, I don’t know, nobody knows what the future might hold. But as long as I can be both, I will be both.”

“As will I,” Malaika said, flashing a supportive smile at her friend as every other woman on stage murmured in agreement.

The Q&A session lasted for another 45 minutes, during which time Jamie fielded questions from both the emcee and the audience about multiple topics, including about any advice she might have for transgendered girls embarking on their journey- advice Jamie was only too happy to give. After receiving a standing ovation from the crowd, Jamie and the other women headed to the backstage area to catch their breath, though as they walked, there was only one thing on Jamie’s mind.

“Oh my god, Malaika!” Jamie squeaked, making her African friend giggle and blush. “What you said… Wow.”

“Seriously, wow!” Hannah gushed.

“It’s- it’s just something I have wanted to get off my chest for a while,” Malaika said in a quiet, demure voice.

“I never knew you’d had it THAT bad since you moved to England,” Hannah asked.

“It’s not been nearly as bad since I joined the Angels,” Malaika said. “But when I first moved to the UK and could barely speak the language… I wouldn’t treat an animal the way I was treated. It is perhaps why Joshua is fond of me, because he experienced the same when he moved to London in 1982.”

“And god knows he’s done well for himself in the 36 years since,” Jamie chuckled. “As will you.”

“And you!” Malaika giggled. “We have both had obstacles to overcome, obstacles put in our way. And we will rise above them. For do Angels not have wings?”

“Too right we do!” Hannah giggled as the three women returned to their table to continue meeting their fans.

Jamie had only been sat back down and meeting her fans for ten minutes when her table was approached by a nervous, almost tearful girl in her late teens.

“Hi!” Jamie said with a friendly smile. “Are you enjoying the event so far?”

“Oh my god, SO much!” The girl replied, her quavering New Jersey accent betraying her nerves. “I- I’m Sally, by the way.”

“Jamie,” the Englishwoman replied, holding out her hand, which Sally eagerly shook.

“I know!” Sally squeaked, fanning herself with her hands and sniffing back tears. “I- I heard what you said in there just now, and- oh my god, I sound SO dumb…”

“No, go on, please,” Jamie said.

“You- you’re just such an inspiration, you know?” Sally said, making Jamie giggle and blush. “What you said, about needing to be your own person, no matter what everyone else says…”

“Yeah…” Jamie said. “Sally, do- do you need to talk privately to me, or- or to someone?” Jamie smiled sympathetically as Sally began to sob, before leaping up from her seat and leading the distraught teenager to a quiet part of the hall.

“I’m sorry, I am SO sorry,” Sally blubbed as she and Jamie sat down away from the hustle and bustle.

“No, no need to be sorry,” Jamie said softly. “Sally, has- has something happened? I mean, I’m not a counsellor, but if you need to talk, I’m happy to listen.”

“But I’m taking you away from your event,” Sally moaned.

“They can carry on without me for a few minutes,” Jamie whispered. “Do you need me to call someone? The police, a parent-“

“No- no, not my parents,” Sally whispered. “You- you can probably tell by now…”

“’Tell’?” Jamie asked, before her eyes widened as she examined the young woman, who despite her young age, was almost 5’ 11” tall, had broader than average shoulders and, most notably, an Adam’s Apple…

“…Oh,” Jamie said. “And you- your parents…”

“Kicked me out when I told them,” Sally blubbed. “That was four months ago, and I- I-“

“It’s okay,” Jamie said, giving Sally’s hands a gentle squeeze. “You’re my friend now, and that means I’m going to help you. Like I said, I’m not a counsellor, I don’t even live in New York- or even America- so I can’t give you any, you know, practical help… But I know someone who can.”

Jamie kept a determined smile on her face as she led Sally by the hand through the crowd. It would’ve been easy for Jamie to simply dismiss Sally as an overeager fan, or to just give her directions to get to where she was taking her, but that wasn’t in Jamie’s character. She knew what it was like to be young and have no support from anyone, but Jamie also knew that it was important to never lose hope. When she was 19, Jamie was lost, with no family, no friends and no direction in life. Thanks to her best friend, a year later she had a job, wealth and had begun to recover her relationship with her parents. And now, at the age of 27, she was able to help a girl who had been just like Jamie was ten years earlier.

“Oh, hi Jamie!” Paige said as the famous transwoman approached her booth with Sally in tow. “You got some time away from the fans, then?”

“Sort of,” Jamie replied. “Paige, this is my friend Sally. Sally, this is my friend Paige. She and her wife are girls like you and me, and they work for a charity that’s set up to help girls like you and me.”

“Hi Sally, it’s nice to meet you!” Paige said, greeting the teenager with a gentle hug.

“Hi,” Sally replied with a nervous giggle. “I- I love your accent, hehe!”

“Thanks!” Paige replied in her distinctive Scottish twang. “I can take it from here Jamie, thanks.”

“Thanks Paige,” Jamie said with a smile. “And Sally? Keep in touch, okay?”

“W- will do!” Sally said with a nervous giggle as Jamie headed back to her table, barely taking five steps before being intercepted by her PA and protege.

“Hey Jamie,” Nikki said. “Did you need a bathroom break?”

“No,” Jamie replied with a cool smile. “Just needed to help out a friend.”

“Ah,” Nikki replied. “An old friend or a new friend?”

“Does it matter?” Jamie asked, sharing a giggle with her young protégé. “It’s been a great day today, Nikki. You definitely deserve a pat on the back.”

“Thanks,” Nikki said with a shy smile.

“So, are you feeling a little less stressed, then?” Jamie asked.

“Definitely,” Nikki replied, though the reason for her relaxation was less due to the success of the day, and more because she had an unread text message from her wife waiting on her phone…

The event continued into the late evening, with the line to meet the Angels not dwindling until the very last minutes of the event. Eventually, the time came for the Angels to grab their coats and head out to the limousines that were waiting to ferry them back to their hotel. Once they arrived, the women all headed back to their suites to change into more comfortable (but still stylish) clothes, and once they were changed, five of the ten women headed to a different suite in the hotel, where there were several younger people eagerly awaiting their return.

“Mummy!” Olivia squeaked, reaching for Jamie the second the blonde woman entered the room. Jamie was, of course, only too happy to reach down and take her daughter into her arms, gently cuddling her as she giggled contentedly.

“Hey there, cutie!” Jamie giggled, giving Olivia a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Has she been too fussy today, then?”

“She’s been good as gold,” Eilish replied. “Went down for her nap, ate all her supper… I was gonna put her in her cot but figured you’d want to see her first before she went to sleep. God knows she wanted to see you, hehe!”

“Yes, and yes!” Jamie said, before giggling and rolling her eyes as her husband entered the room.

“Daddy!” Olivia squeaked, wriggling around in Jamie’s arms before being handed over to her father.

“Hello baby girl!” Stuart cooed, giving his daughter a kiss in the same spot that Jamie had. “Have you been a good girl for Auntie Eilish?” Jamie and Stuart both giggled happily as their infant daughter grinned and nodded excitedly.

“Daddy’s girl,” Jamie said, sharing a giggle with her Irish childminder before flopping down onto one of the room’s sofas.

“Well,” Charlotte announced as she sat down next to Jamie with one of her twin daughters in her arms, “I think we can officially call today a success!”

“It was,” Viks said with a happy sigh as the five non-parent members of the Angels entered the room. “And from what I hear, the day’s ‘MVP’- well, ‘MVA’ was none other than Miss Malaika Okumu!”

“Oh- don’t,” Malaika said, blushing as she slumped into one of the room’s sofas. “We all played a part today. Not just us, but all of the other Angels from around the world, and Out of Heaven, Nikki and Katie too…”

“It was most definitely a team effort,” Charlotte said with a nod. “Think we gave the New York Angels the launch they deserve, hehe!”

“Did anyone get to talk much to them today, though?” Kelly asked. “I noticed each country’s Angels seemed to stay mostly to themselves. I get that for some of us, there’s a language barrier, but still, who knows when every Angel in the world will be in the same place again?”

“Umm… next Saturday, AngelCon in LA,” Hannah replied. “But I kinda get what you mean, it’d have been nice to talk to them more. But we were VERY busy today.”

“Hell, how often do the ten of us get the chance to just get together and talk like this?” Abbey-Gayle asked to murmurs of agreement from the room.

“That was one of the questions we were asked, actually,” Jamie sighed. “How long can the Angels, as an organisation, continue the way we are? I mean, half of us have extra ‘responsibilities’ now…”

“We go on for as long as we can, and as long as our fans want us,” Charlotte said firmly. “But ‘Angel’ is just a label, a brand. Take that brand away, and the ten of us will still always be friends, right?”

“Right!” the other nine women said confidently, while Jamie relaxed back into the sofa, as contented as she had ever felt. Even though she was in a foreign land and had a lot of work ahead of her, she was surrounded by her friends and her family. Jamie had rarely if ever felt a more powerful sense of belonging- and the comfortable skirt and clingy sweater she wore only enhanced that feeling.

The following morning, Jamie woke up just after 7:30am and made no effort to get out of bed. Her husband had already risen early to give their daughter her breakfast and change her nappy, and she had nothing planned that day other than to see the sights that the Big Apple had to offer. As she tried to drift off, though, her mind kept being brought back to the young woman she’d met the previous day. Jamie had helped countless young transgendered women during her life, including several from outside the UK (including America), but there was something about Sally that stuck with her.

Unable to drift back to sleep, Jamie reached for her phone and logged in to Facebook, quickly composing a private message that she hoped would ease her mind.

‘Hey Paige,’ Jamie typed. ‘Are you up yet?’ Jamie set down her phone, reasoning that as the Scottish woman had also had a long day the previous day, she would also be enjoying a lie in, but within seconds, Jamie’s phone pinged to inform her that she’d received a reply to her message.

‘Hi Jamie!’ Paige replied. ‘Great day yesterday!’

‘It was!’ Jamie typed. ‘How did you get on with Sally in the end?’

‘We got on fine,’ Paige replied. ‘She told me about her history with her parents, I got her referred to a support group that’s going to get her an apartment, help her finish school, hopefully get into college.’

‘That’s great!’ Jamie replied.

‘It’s what we do,’ Paige typed with a ‘smiling’ emoji. ‘Why did you need to follow up, though? You’ll probably never even see Sally again.’

‘I know,’ Jamie typed. ‘I dunno, maybe I just feel responsible in a way. Here I am, going up on stage, being treated like royalty, when there are girls like us who have nothing, simply because they need to be girls like us.’

‘With great power comes great responsibility?’ Paige asked.

‘Something like that,’ Jamie replied. ‘Keep me informed about Sally, please? And make sure she knows she can friend me on here too.’ Jamie signed off her message with a smiling emoji, before relaxing back onto her plush bed. Even if Sally turned out to be the only person she helped during the trip, it would’ve worth it.

“Not suffering as much this morning, then?” Stephanie asked as she entered the hotel’s restaurant to find Nikki, Katie and Jacinta eagerly tucking into their morning meal.

“Like we were going to go out again after yesterday,” Nikki snorted. “Got back to the hotel room, collapsed on my bed and that’s about all I had the energy for. Especially as I’m going to spend most of today making sure the Angels all have their plane tickets in order.”

“Still going to Chicago with Jamie?” Stephanie asked.

“Philadelphia with Mary first,” Nikki replied. “Then Chicago with Jamie on Tuesday.”

“I’m heading to Philadelphia tomorrow as well,” Katie said. “Dan wants me to video him running up the Rocky steps, whatever that means. Where are you heading, Steph?”

“Straight to LA,” Stephanie replied. “Might make a stop off in San Francisco first, introduce Becca and Adeola to the fan club we met there in July.”

“Kelly’s going to San Francisco,” Nikki said. “Think she’s looking for company on the flight, heh.”

“Cool,” Stephanie said. “But I really, really want to see more of New York before I leave, hehe! Dunno when I’m gonna be back here again…”

“Same here,” Nikki said with a sigh. “Though…”

“She wishes she could see it with Sarah,” Jacinta and Katie said simultaneously, making their friend roll her eyes.

“Well,” Stephanie sighed as she thought about her lover, who was also still in London, “I can definitely sympathise with that…”

Despite missing their other halves, Stephanie and Nikki joined the rest of the Angels after breakfast as they embarked on their sightseeing tour of New York City. The women gasped in awe at the historic Chrysler and Empire State buildings, skyscrapers far taller than any building in London, before heading through Times Square, Wall Street and Broadway and paying their respects at the World Trade Center memorial.

The women's final stop was a trip to see the Statue of Liberty up close, a monument both Nikki and Stephanie were eager to have their photo taken in front of- photos that were immediately sent to Sarah and Kayla. As they took the ferry back to the Whitehall terminal, Nikki and Stephanie took the opportunity to relax and reflect on both their experiences of the day, and their relationships as well.

“So,” Nikki asked hesitantly. “Have- have you talked to Kayla yet today?” Stephanie frowned as she fidgeted uncomfortably at the mention of her girlfriend’s name.

“I texted her,” Stephanie mumbled in reply. “Waiting for her to get back to me. She’s probably, you know, tired after yesterday, heh.”

“She’s done really well to get this far in Strictly,” Nikki mused.

“Hmm,” Stephanie mumbled in agreement. “Doubt I’d have done as well, heh.”

“Have you seen last night’s show yet?” Nikki asked.

“Ehh… No,” Stephanie replied, her cheeks flushing with her confession. “I, umm, know she’s back next week as I read a spoiler online but, umm, no.”

“I get that this is gonna be tough,” Nikki sighed. “Especially when you’re not at home as well. Heh, can’t believe I’m feeling homesick already…”

“Well, ‘Sarahsick’, anyway?” Stephanie teased her friend, who rolled her eyes and smiled sadly.

“I guess,” Nikki sighed. “As long as you admit to being ‘Kaylasick’ too?”

“Obviously,” Stephanie said. “And this week shouldn’t be THAT tough, I mean, I’ve had three months to get used to missing her…”

“But you’re still together, and that’s the important thing,” Nikki said softly. “If she didn’t feel about you the same way you feel about her, well, you know, right?”

“I guess,” Stephanie said, a smile slowly creeping onto her face. “And it’s not like we can’t come back to New York at some point in the future. While we’re still relatively unknown in New York, anyway.”

“I was about to say,” Nikki chuckled. “Normally you’d be clamping your hand over my mouth the second I started talking about ‘Stayla’!”

“If only to stop you using that horrible couple’s name!” Stephanie replied, her smile widening. “Seriously, you need to think of a better name than ‘Stayla’, Mrs. ‘taller half of Snikki’!”

“Meh, I used to hate ‘Snikki’ at first,” Nikki shrugged. “Now I love it. Want to know why?”

“Because by merging your name with Sarah’s, it in some way merges you with her?” Stephanie asked.

“Bingo,” Nikki said with a grin that was shared by her friends as the ferry docked.

As Nikki had an early flight the following day, she and Stephanie agreed to head back to the hotel and to flag down a taxi once they were out of the ferry dock. Before they were able to get 10 yards, however, both women became aware of several pairs of eyes staring at them- eyes belonging to a group of six teenaged girls, whose excitement level increased when Stephanie looked back at them.

It was a situation Stephanie was familiar with, of course- back in London, she would regularly be stopped by teenaged fans eager to get a selfie with a singer from their favourite band. However, she had also experienced situations where the ‘fans’ hadn’t been fans at all, but had openly sneered at her to her face, had called her a 'fag', a 'queer' or words even worse than that. Such occasions were few and far between, enough to reassure Stephanie that most of the time, she could safely let a fan approach her, but that was in London, where everyone knew her, where most of her fans lived and where she had a support network that would instantly come to her aid if she needed it. But in New York, Stephanie was unknown- and even a skinny 5’ 6” transwoman who’d been taking oestrogen for over two years would still stand out in a crowd if the first thing you noticed about them was their Adam’s Apple…

“Should- should we talk to them?” Nikki whispered, making Stephanie bite her lip as she considered her response. The whole purpose of the trip to America was to engage with new fans, after all, and even though the day was designated for rest, Stephanie had standing orders to interact with as many fans as possible… But she had a superseding standing order to keep herself safe. The trips to New York and Los Angeles were designed to keep her and the Angels as far away as possible from the less salubrious parts of the cities, and a group of teenaged girls hardly posed a major physical threat, but there were more types of harm than just physical harm…

“Let’s do this,” Stephanie said, forcing a professional smile on her face as she approached the giggling teenagers, whose excitement levels increased with every Step Stephanie took closer to them.

“Oh- oh my god,” the apparent leader of the girls said as Nikki and Stephanie stood mere feet away from them. “Are- are you-“ Here it comes, Stephanie thought to herself. “…Stephanie Abbott?”

“Yep, that’s me!” Stephanie replied with a giggle, grinning widely as the girls all squeaked with excitement.

“We are SUCH huge fans of yours!” The lead girl squeaked. “Can- can we get a selfie with you?”

“Of course!” Stephanie replied with a smile. “Nikki, d’you want to do the honours?”

“Sure!” Nikki said, smiling knowingly at her friend as she took the photo with one of the girls’ phones. “Were you girls at the Angels launch yesterday?”

“We wanted to be,” one of the other girls replied. “But we couldn’t get tickets.”

“Huh, didn’t realise we’d sold out,” Nikki said as she returned the girl’s phone.

“I didn’t realise we had fans in New York!” Stephanie giggled.

“Oh- totally,” the lead girl said. “We’d kill to go to one of your concerts, if you ever do one in New York!”

“Well, I think I can suggest it to my bosses, hehe!” Stephanie said. “You girls take care, okay? And keep listening to Out of Heaven!”

“We will!” The lead girl giggled as she and her friends headed toward the nearby subway station while Stephanie and Nikki headed toward a nearby taxi that had pulled up.

“We are SUCH huge fans of yours!” Nikki teased her famous friend once the girls were out of earshot.

“Oh- shut up,” Stephanie replied. “It’s nothing I don’t hear on a daily basis in London anyway.”

“Yeah, but it’s exciting to hear it from American fans, surely?” Nikki asked.

“Definitely,” Stephanie replied, though deep down, she felt regret about the loss of her anonymity, effectively ruining her chances of a romantic trip to New York with Kayla, and she also regretted that Kayla herself wasn’t able to meet the fans that she just had…

As the sun began to set, Nikki and Stephanie returned to their hotel rooms to prepare for the following week. Nikki checked and rechecked the Angels’ schedules, making sure everything was planned down to the tiniest detail and nothing was left to chance. Before she went to bed, Nikki checked her phone for any messages from her wife- however, as it was after 2am in London and the following day was a Monday, no new messages had reached Nikki’s phone in hours and Sarah was showing as offline on all of her social media accounts. Nikki tried to put her misery at being alone in bed to the back of her mind as she drifted off to sleep- she had a long week ahead of her, after all…

The following morning, Nikki, Katie and all the Angels and their families rendezvoused in the hotel lobby for a quick goodbye before splitting up ahead of their separate nationwide trips. Nikki and the Carters headed to LaGuardia airport, where the atmosphere became more energised as each flight was called one by one, and the energy levels remained high for Nikki as she (along with Mary, her husband and her children) headed west, deeper into the United States of America. However, Nikki remained nervous about the other nine Angels' trips- even though other PAs would be taking care of them, Nikki had been responsible for writing a lot of the itineraries for the week, and hoped she hadn't made a mistake somewhere that could cost her company dearly...

Just over an hour later, the plane landed at Philadelphia International airport, where Nikki and the Carters were whisked to a nearby television studio for Mary’s sit-down interview in front of a live audience. After the interview, Mary and several of the Italian Angels headed to the studio's reception area, which had been set aside for a meet and greet session. Mary, Nikki and the others remained in the studio until late into the evening signing autographs, selling merchandise and taking selfies with a seemingly never-ending stream of fans. Eventually, the fans began to dissipate, and Nikki let out a loud sigh of relief as she and Mary took a taxi back to the hotel.

“Why were you so panicky?” Mary teased her young friend. “We’re the ones who have to go up on stage, you know? And that was after mixing a bumpy plane ride with morning sickness too!”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Nikki replied with a tired giggle. “Ah… I just want everything this week to be perfect, you know? And…”

“…And?” Mary asked.

“And you get to go back to your hotel and cuddle up next to your hubby while I get to sleep alone,” Nikki sighed. “Not that I want to cuddle up next to Dan, god no, but-“

“Yeah, I get it,” Mary chuckled. “Sure, we’d better hope you can hold out until you see Sarah again or you won’t need a plane to fly back home, heh!”

“I guess,” Nikki giggled.

“And just for the record, any woman would be lucky to be able to cuddle up next to Dan Carter,” Mary said defensively. “Well, any heterosexual woman, anyway. Which I suppose you’re not. Heterosexual, that is.”

“I guessed,” Nikki said with a giggle as she crossed one leg over the other, smiling at the sensation of her nylon-covered legs gliding over each other with nothing between her legs to 'get in the way'.

"Though I suppose I'm going to get plenty of home time when this little one comes along, heh!" Mary giggled as she patted her midsection. "Ah... You know, we were talking last night about how long the Angels can go on, you know?"

"Really?" Nikki asked. "Is this a subtle way of telling me to look for another job?"

"Oh, god no, you are doing a more than brilliant job, believe me!" Mary said. "It's just, you know, our lives are all so busy, those of us who have kids, and I haven't been back to Belfast in months... Malaika was saying she was homesick too, you know?"

"All good things must come to an end?" Nikki asked with a sad smile on her face.

"Eventually," Mary said. "But- but never mind that for now. This week, we make America OURS!"

"Hell yeah!" Nikki cheered as she mused on Mary's words. Her potential promotion at Heavenly Talent made Nikki less nervous about the prospect of the Angels potentially disbanding, but didn't prevent her from wondering what the future held. All she knew was that wherever her life would take her, she would always have the love of her wife and her friends- and she would always be the woman she always was inside."

After another early night spent re-reading her messages from Sarah (who had again gone to bed long before Nikki), Nikki woke up early for her flight to Chicago. As she checked in at the airport, Nikki couldn’t help but muse on how alone she suddenly felt. She’d never flown alone before- previous occasions had either been with family, with Sarah or with other friends, such as the previous day’s flight. Even though she was able to exchange text messages with her wife while waiting to board her flight, which calmed her nerves, Nikki couldn’t help but feel increasingly anxious as the plane delivered her westward. She was in a foreign land, and even though she'd been to America multiple times beforehand, travelling away from home always brought her anxiety- especially about the possibility of being 'found out'...

Nikki’s anxiety lessened, however, when she landed and was greeted in the airport concourse by the smiling face of (and a friendly hug from) her mentor.

“Hey Nikki!” Jamie giggled as she escorted the twenty-one-year-old woman to their waiting taxi. “Did you have fun in Philadelphia?”

“Yep!” Nikki replied. “Mary’s show went REALLY well, heh! Loads of people at the meet and greet afterwards, too."

"That's good to hear," Jamie said. "So... Are we feeling any less panicky yet?"

"A bit, yeah," Nikki confessed. "I heard everything went great in Boston and Atlanta as well. Is Stu back at the hotel?"

"Well, you just mentioned Atlanta, where Krystie was, right?" Jamie asked.

"Umm, right...?" Nikki asked.

"Which is also where Mikey WASN'T," Jamie explained. "Him and Stuart stopped off in Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll hall of Fame."

"Okay, well, they're both musicians, I guess?" Nikki said.

"And they're both fathers who left me and Krystie literally holding the baby," Jamie said in a mock angry voice, before giggling and shaking her head. "I dunno. I suppose I can allow them ONE day. But they know they're going to pay for it in the long run. On three, okay?" Jamie giggled as her protege nodded in the affirmative. "One, two, three..."

"BOYS," Nikki and Jamie said simultaneously, giggling as they headed toward their waiting taxi.

After checking Nikki into the hotel and ensuring that Olivia was settled with the Heavenly Talent PA who was doubling as childminder for the day, the two transwomen headed to the venue that had been booked for the launch. The venue's manager, a short, scruffy-looking man named Kovlachek, warmly greeted the two women and escorted Jamie to her dressing room, while Nikki inspected the area that had been set aside for the meet and greet after Jamie's on-stage interview.

"Is everything set up fine?" The manager asked, breaking Nikki's concentration as he approached.

"Hmm? Umm, yeah, it's perfect," Nikki replied with a grin. "I think we're just about ready to get going!"

"Yep!" Mr. Kovlachek replied. "Just as soon as the others get here."

"Umm, well Carla from the New York Angels and Serena and Caterina from the Italian group got here a while-" Nikki said.

"No, no, no, not them," Mr. Kovlachek said. "The others, you know, Charlotte, Hannah, those girls?"

"Umm," Nikki said, her heart beginning to race as she wondered whether she'd forgotten something. "No, the deal was for one of the British Angels to visit each city, aside from the launches in New York and Los-"

"WHAT!?" The unkempt manager yelled, startling the young woman into silence. "You mean I'm only getting ONE Angel?"

"Th- that was the deal," Nikki said as her teeth started to chatter with nerves.

"Well I've got a marquee on the front of this building that says 'Come and meet the Angels'," Mr. Kovlachek yelled. "What am I meant to do, go out there with a can of paint and cross out the 'S'?"

"Mr. Kovlachek," Nikki pleaded. "The deal said-"

"No, you listen to me!" The manager yelled. "YOU fucked up! You promised me ten Angels and you've delivered only one! Now I've got to go on stage and look like an idiot because of YOU! We should've let the Germans bomb the shit out of you people!"

Nikki felt her stomach churn as the angry man stormed away, while she dropped into the nearest seat out of fear that her legs would give way right there in the middle of the hall. In the hallway behind her, Nikki could hear the muffled sounds of a loud argument between a man and a woman- no doubt Mr. Kovlachek arguing with Jamie about the situation. As the sounds grew louder, Nikki's future flashed before her tear-filled eyes- her promotion would be toast, closely followed by her job, her independence...

Nikki's distressed state meant she didn't hear the argument come to an end, or the sound of footsteps approaching her. She was only brought back to reality by a comforting arm being wrapped around her shoulders, and the last voice she expected to hear.

"Don't worry, Nikki," the voice said. "It'll be okay. I had a few words with that fat bastard, and I told him that was NO way to talk to a woman."

"Huh- Alexa?" Nikki asked. "Wh- what are you doing here?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" The Minnesota native replied with a sympathetic smile. "I'm helping my sister."