Hello everyone, hope everyone is having a good back to school and not freezing to death! I decided I needed one more chapter before the ball for the sake of fluff, so here's a happy chapter. Dedicated to my side chicks who help me with everything from boy problems to picking ball gowns, Paige and Amanda (AKA Sora Kalopsia and bibliophile609)! They helped me with much of the content in this chapter too.
Thank you for reviewing, delovlies, RunawayGirl 8125, mnbvcxz-xx, Nameless, Miss Kaydence, Sora Kalopsia, and suicideblonde99!
The next chapter (and probably the one after that) is going to be the Victory Ball, so if anyone wants to send me ball gowns and stuff for their girl on Pinterest (or anyway else) please do so! I have a whole board dedicated to it, with lots of stuff to choose from (you can just comment on the one you want if you want), or you can find one yourself, if you want! I'm happy to choose one too, if you don't care, haha.
(My Pinterest details are on my FF profile)
Please review!
-Shades
…
Lissa could smell the cupcakes as soon as she entered the lobby of Gracie's apartment building. Her suspicions were further proved when her best friend opened her door in athletic shorts and a flannel shirt Lissa was pretty sure was Damian's, everything entirely covered with a fine layer of powdered sugar.
Her three dogs surrounded her, with wagging tails and excited barking to see her. There was the big dark brown Newfoundland, appropriately named Brownie, the gawky still-half-puppy golden retriever Cookie, and the mottled black, white, and tan mutt that was, of course, called Cupcake.
"Hey! Come to help me bake?" Gracie chirped, oblivious to the icing in her hair.
Lissa fought back the hounds, and held up her phone, fighting back the urge to capture the moment on her camera. "Is that what we're doing? Because you texted me saying you needed me for an emergency sleepover in all caps."
"Oh! Yeah, well, I needed you to help me bake all these cupcakes. Damo's gone tonight with Colin on another official prime minister business trip, and tomorrow is our 4 years and six months anniversary, so naturally—"
Lissa ducked back down into the welcoming committee and let them snuffle all over her as she pet them. "And this wouldn't have anything to do with the Victory Ball in two days, would it? Or Wesley's Selection? Or anything to with Wesley? Or the fact that now my dating life is plastered all over the media?"
Gracie cocked her head to the side innocently, sending a few sprinkles to the ground. "Of course not!"
Lissa rolled her eyes playfully at her friend as she moved past her into Gracie and Damian's living room and tossed her stuff onto the couch. "So, despite the fact that you send me literally five hundred messages after the news started playing that clip of Wesley, tonight has nothing to do with that?"
Gracie headed to the large kitchen behind the couch that dominated the apartment. Every inch of available counter space was covered with baking implements and cooling pans of cupcakes.
"Actually, yes! Where did you find that hottie you were with? I mean, like, if you're trying to make Wes jealous, girl you are on the right path!"
"I'm not! I swear!" Lissa cried. She pulled her short hair back into what sort of resembled a ponytail and joined Gracie in the kitchen.
"Oh, sure. You just happened to be on a date at the exact same time he was?" Gracie nudged her in the ribs and turned to the oven to pull out yet another pan of cupcakes.
"It was just a coincidence! Joseph planned it all, anyway." Lissa grabbed a bowl of pink frosting, and stuck her finger in it, before Gracie snatched it away from her, and fitted it back on the mixer.
"Stop! You're supposed to be helping me, not eating and making excuses!"
"I promise, I was just on a simple date, nothing to do with Wesley—"
Gracie switched on the mixer, not breaking eye contact with Lissa. "What? I can't hear you!"
Lissa tried not to smile, and failed miserably and ended up bursting into laughter.
"Why are you making all of these?" she shouted over the mixer.
Gracie switched it off, and reached for the bag of powdered sugar and dumped more in. "I told you, it's our four years and six months anniversary!"
"Do you celebrate every month?"
"Just every year and a half," Gracie said, scooping the frosting from the bowl into a pastry bag. "Maybe one of these times he'll get it into his head that I am totally ready for a marriage proposal."
"Oooooh!" Lissa poked Gracie in the stomach and took the opportunity to reach around her to grab a bag of chocolate chips.
"I mean, we've talked about it, but I think Damian's waiting for the right moment. He's such an idiot sometimes, I don't know why I put up with his beating around the bush."
"Well, two messed up proposals would be a record, now wouldn't they?" Lissa teased, munching on a handful of chocolate chips. "Sometimes I still can't believe you turned Ethan down."
"Tell me about it," Gracie mumbled, "Damian said no more dogs. Three is apparently enough, but I really, really need to collect the whole set by having one named Pie." She took back the chocolate chips and replaced it with a bowl of batter into Lissa's hands. "Fill that pan up, please, instead of eating my ingredients."
Lissa grinned and shook her head at her best friend, and did as she was told, listening to Gracie's chatter about her week.
"I almost didn't recognize you when the news started playing all those clips, I'm so used to you having long hair," Gracie said. "And your boy is really, really attractive-"
"Joseph's not my boy, we literally went on one date—okay, two," Lissa interrupted.
"Oh, so Joseph, is it? Where did you find him?" Gracie pressed as she expertly frosted cupcake after cupcake with a tower of pink frosting.
Lissa knew she couldn't hide anything from Gracie, so she might as well fess up. Besides, why did this bother her so much? She liked Joseph, and there was no reason to be embarrassed about him.
"He's Wesley's valet," she said quickly.
Gracie paused her frosting to look at Lissa and rolled her lips together. "Ah, you sure know how to hit a guy close to home."
"Graaaaccceee," Lissa warned. "I told you, that's not what I'm doing. And besides, I'm pretty sure one of the stipulations of me coming over was to not talk about this? It's not a big deal, it's between him and Wesley, and I have nothing to do with what happened."
"Okay, fine. I hope you know you're no fun," Gracie joked. "So, have you met any of the Selected yet? They remind me so much of us when Ethan's started!"
Lissa crossed the kitchen to deposit the pan she had been filling in the oven, and nearly tripped over Brownie, sprawled across the floor.
"A few of them. Evie and Sophie adore them, but they could care less about me. Hey, where were you when I needed you the other day when I was stuck in the Woman's Room? I sent you like a million texts to save me!"
Gracie met her eyes, and her cheeks turned pink. "Um, well-"
"Never mind, I'm not sure I really want to know," Lissa giggled. "So, which of the girls do you like?"
"I only met some of them at the reception, so I'm hoping to meet more of them at the Victory Ball. I mean, I'm obviously trash for Lady Fallon because we're both Atlin babes. I didn't get to talk to her for more than like two seconds, though. I introduced myself, and she had to excuse herself."
"I've been seeing her all over the news. What's up with that?"
"She's from the Berlin family, and she has a lot of fans from modeling, and all of that really makes her popular with the secessionist provinces. Except now they're saying that Wesley's been ignoring her, so her supporters are getting touchy."
"I'm sure with all of the girls, he just hasn't had the time," Lissa shrugged. "I remember how chaotic it was it first."
"He did send fourteen girls home on the first day," Gracie brushed the errant strands of blonde, sugar-covered hair off her forehead and looked at Lissa. "It show's he's committed."
She pressed her lips together in a smile. "Well, I hope he finds happiness. We were such great friends when we were younger, and…yeah." The words sounded so foreign, almost like she was someone else.
She thought back to sunny days at Trentworth when the Selection had been temporarily moved to the seaside estate after the first rebel attack during Ethan's Selection that sparked the rebellion movement. She and Wesley would sneak away from the others to avoid being caught hanging out together. She remembered running down to the beach in the middle of the night, and him dancing crazily with her on the sand under the stars. He had almost kissed her then but had decided to wait, only to spontaneously kiss her when she was least expecting it a few days later. She'd pushed him a fountain in the garden in retaliation, and Wesley had pulled her in after him and kissed her some more.
Thinking back on those days left her heart warm and fuzzy, and a delicious feeling of happiness spread over her as she remembered.
It ended just as quickly when Gracie pulled her back to reality.
"You still care for him, don't you?"
"Well, yeah, I don't want him to end up miserable and alone," Lissa said quickly. "He's a nice guy." She snatched one of the frosted cupcakes and peeled back the liner before Gracie could stop her.
"Girl, if you keep eating all my hard work you're not going to fit into your gown for the ball!" Gracie chided her, shaking her head. Mercifully, she dropped the Wesley subject.
"Aha, perks of a governess! I get to wear a blazer to hide anything, which means I also don't have to wear a strapless bra, and I can leave as soon as it's Evie and Sophie's bedtime."
"What!" Gracie exclaimed. "You're kidding, right? You can't wear a blazer to a ball! It's white-tie, for the sake of all things cake!"
Lissa took a giant bite out of the cupcake. "As an employee on duty, while I'm there, it's considered professional. I asked Joanna, and since she's going to be on duty making sure everything goes smoothly, she said she's wearing one too over her dress."
"Yes, but Joanna's the housekeeper of the palace. She makes sure that the entire palace keeps on functioning, and she isn't made to enjoy balls. You, on the other hand, are. What else are you wearing?"
Lissa shrugged and stuffed another bite of cupcake in her mouth. "I have the dress I wore to the reception or the dress I wore to dinner. Or I could borrow one of yours, I guess."
"Um, yeah, you're going to have to, because you can't wear those over-glorified maxi-dresses to a ball!" Gracie all but shrieked, emphasizing her words with her frosting covered spatula, sending pink all over the counter and floor. Cookie the dog was happy to lick it up until Gracie shooed him away and started to wipe it all up.
"Gracie, this is beginning to sound like Cinderella, except the prince is my ex-boyfriend-who-I-couldn't-ever-actually-lawfully-date, and my current kinda boyfriend is his valet."
"Wait, Joesph's your kinda-boyfriend?" Gracie cried. "You said you only went on two dates!"
"I don't exactly qualify sitting together at breakfast and dinner for the upper staff a date…" Lissa offered. "And he's never actually like asked me, but you know me, how does all that stuff work anyway?"
Gracie pulled her phone out of her shorts pocket and began to type frantically. "Never mind, that's beside the point. The point is that you don't have a gown for the ball, and you need one because you have a kinda-boyfriend and Wesley will be there."
"Wesley doesn't have to do with any of this!" Lissa cried, abandoning the cupcake preparation and moving back into the living room to flop on Gracie's couch. "What are you doing anyway?"
"If you're staying over, I'm ordering pizza, duh," Gracie held the phone to her ear with her shoulder smashed into it to hold it in place, and started cleaning up the counter as she placed the order.
So naturally, when Gracie went down to the lobby twenty minutes later to retrieve the pizza, Lissa didn't think anything of it; she just stayed on the couch flicking through the channels to find a chick flick they could watch when she got back.
It was a bit of a shock when Gracie returned with a sunglasses and hoodie draped figure, who immediately threw a pink-filled garment bag overtop of her.
"What the?" Lissa sputtered, pushing the plastic off. The person removed her sunglasses and pulled off her hood, revealing Nicole's familiar blonde highlighted chestnut hair.
"I hear we have a fashion crisis going on," Nicole said, grinning. "Do you realize how hard it is to sneak out of the palace on short notice?"
Gracie set the pizzas down on the coffee table and propped her hands on her hips. "Since you insist on wearing an outfit that doesn't require a strapless bra, I had to get back up."
"Guys, come on, I'm a governess, I have to wear that!" Lissa exclaimed, crawling out from the garment bag and standing up. "What is this, anyway?"
"As your now-official fairy godmothers, my dear, you shall go to the ball!" Nicole giggled and reached for the garment bag.
"In this. Not in a blazer. I'm not sure you can even wear any type of bra with this one." Gracie added. Nicole slipped the dress out of the bag and held it up for Lissa.
She had to admit, it took her breath away. The palest blush pink wispy tulle, strapless, covered with gorgeous, delicate flower petals trailing their way down the fitted waist, and flaring out ever so slightly to the floor. The hem was hiked up in the front to the ankle, and slightest train trailed out from the hem in the back.
It was a gown fit for a princess.
"It's lovely…" she breathed, running her fingers over the silk flowers. "It looks like…"
"The gown you wore to the birthday masquerade party all those years ago? Yeah, that's what we thought too!" Gracie squealed. "I hope you don't mind, I'm wearing pink too."
"Babe, we wouldn't expect anything else from you. Besides, mine is too," Nicole added, her hand going to her stomach, her tiny baby-bump hidden underneath the incognito hoodie. "I just hope I don't puke my way through it. I swear this baby is trouble."
"Hopefully these fit too," Gracie produced a shoebox from the bag Nicole had brought and handed it to Lissa. She removed the lid and found a matching pair of delicate heels, open-toed with a strap at the ankle.
Lissa could hardly find the words to say as she stared at the beautiful things, produced in the time it took to order a pizza. "Ohmigosh, guys! Where did you get these?"
Her friends exchanged a glance.
"Um, okay. So don't freak out, but we kinda stole it." Gracie mumbled, knitting her hands together.
"What?" Lissa cried. "What do you mean you stole it? Gracie, that's larceny!"
"Not if we don't get caught, it's not!" Gracie fired back. "You totally deserve it more!"
"She has no idea, it was one of the dresses that her maids had for her to wear to another event. I'm a princess now, I do what I want." Nicole said. "We didn't exactly steal it."
"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but…I can't exactly turn it down…" Lissa admitted. "Who did you steal it from?"
"Lady Eleanor. You guys are the same size and we figured since you guys are both from Tammins it kind of evens out!" Gracie said happily. "Now can you please go try it on? She has a dress for the ball already, she has no idea we took this one. Nicole just asked her maids if she could see some of her dresses, and they said yes. No biggie."
Lissa sighed deeply, but she just couldn't resist the dress. Besides, Lady Eleanor was the one who had her necklace. It would have gone perfectly with this dress, too.
"Okay, fine. You win, you horrible criminals." She took the dress from Nicole, and the shoes from Gracie, and went into the bathroom to change.
When she came back out, she knew there was no way she would be wearing her blazer now.
"How do I look?" She said, pulling her hair out of the ponytail and shaking it out.
"You look absolutely stunning," Nicole said. "Wesley is going to be so jealous."
"And Joseph is going to be all over you at the ball," Gracie clasped her hands together happily under her chin.
Lissa groaned. "Come on guys, this isn't about them! This is about me having something to wear, and you guys being the bestest friends in the whole world, even if you are criminals."
"Okay, you win," Gracie said.
The gasps of her friends only affirmed her decision as they took a million pictures of her and oohed and ahhed over her. She hadn't noticed at first, but the back of the dress dipped dangerously low, and it fit her torso like a glove to keep it on, clinging to her every curve. The flowers fluttered with the slightest movement, and the skirt was surprisingly light, that twirled around her with every step.
In the back of her mind, she had to admit that Nicole and Gracie's words earlier hadn't exactly been wrong. There was the tinest part of her that wanted to Wesley to see her, and maybe wanted him to see her with Joseph, and maybe be jealous. Even if she was over him and he was over her and they were both moving on.
Because deep down, she didn't want to lose him. She was terrified of losing him, and he wasn't even hers.
Lissa pushed the thoughts from her mind. "the shoes are a little big," she said, sticking them out from underneath the hem. "The heels are so tall!"
"Just make sure you don't lose one of them," Gracie winked. "I know they're not glass, but they are couture, so close enough. Cupcakes, anyone?"
…