14. Lucas

The two of us got washed up again, and then it was time to get dressed up for the party.

I had had my assistant pick up a fabulous little number for Bernadette and I knew that now was the time to give it to her.

She was looking in her closet, a pensive expression on her face as she tried to decide what she was going to wear for the evening.

"Bella," I said, holding up the dress. She turned around and gasped as she beheld it.

I had been delighted too when I had first seen it. It had a full skirt of deep blue that would come to a few inches below her knees to create a 1950's style silhouette. Dotted along the skirt and the bodice were little crystals that seemed to be made entirely of starlight. And in the back, it tied up with a large bow.

In short, it was a dress straight out of a fairy tale, and I couldn't wait to see it on Bernadette.

"When did you get this?" she asked, taking it all in.

I smiled. "I had someone pick it up for you. I remembered that you didn't have anything really party-worthy in your wardrobe here and I wanted to make sure that you could dress for the occasion."

"It's absolutely gorgeous, thank you," she said, taking the dress from me and hugging it tight to her chest. "You spoil me, really. I don't know what I'll ever do to pay you back."

"Well, you can start by wearing it," I suggested. "It's lovely just as it is, but I know that it will look even lovelier on you."

She smiled, looking down at her feet in that demure way she had whenever she got a little embarrassed.

I handed it over, and she took it into the master bathroom to get changed. While I waited, I put on a nice blue velvet suit so that I would match her, especially in case no one else got the memo and we were the only ones dressed to the nines.

Then Bernadette emerged and my breath was absolutely stolen.

She looked like a heavenly vision in the dress, definitely like she had just stepped out of a fairy tale where she was the princess, or at least where she had a fairy godmother to enchant dresses to make her look even more stunning than she already was.

"We should head down," I said. "Our guests will be arriving soon."

She looked at me with a smile and took the arm that I offered her. Kissing my cheek, she leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Thank you for this. I really appreciate all of it. You make me so happy."

"Of course. I really should be saying that to you. Being able to be with you for these past few days, and then having you stay here has made my world so much brighter."

The two of us headed downstairs to where everything was set up and waited for guests to arrive. Within about fifteen minutes we had greeted most of the guests that were coming, and the party was in full swing.

I knew that Bernadette definitely would not have been able to keep track of all of the names and the people so I decided that I should introduce her to a few of my closest friends. But before I could, Bernadette grabbed my arm.

"I think I need to go use the restroom," she said. "I'll find you after I'm done."

"Okay, I'll be talking with some friends. I know they look forward to meeting you," I said, kissing her on the forehead. She smiled up at me and then left.

With a sigh, I headed over to where a few of my friends were talking next to one of the appetizer dishes, holding a few drinks.

There was Samuel, Vanessa, Howard, and Rachel. The four of them had been my closest friends in college and I was pretty sure that they would all hit it off really well with Bernadette.

"Hey guys," I said, grabbing a plate with some vegetables and dip, crunching down into a carrot. "What's been going on with you?"

"With us? What's been going on with you, inviting us to this party of all of a sudden. Has something gotten into you? And where's your little lady friend?" Vanessa asked. She had always been the bluntest of the group and could tend to be more confrontational. I think it came a lot from always protecting Rachel, who was shyer and tended to get picked on by the teachers.

The two of them had been best friends before they met the rest of us, and they stuck together like no one else did. They fit right in though, and always made us welcome in their little world. I had suspected for a while that they might be interested in each other romantically, but so far they hadn't announced anything like that and I wasn't about to pry.

Samuel, meanwhile, was the smartest of the group. He was a very friendly guy too, with a good sense of humor and a certain aura about himself that made him attractive to a wide variety of people.

Howard tended to be a little more awkward, but he had been the only one of his to find real love. His wife, Ana, was here but was chatting with some of her other friends not too far off. He was probably the nicest of all of us, and I had a feeling that he and Ana would make Bernadette feel very welcome.

"What's going on with me?" I scratched the back of my head. "I do have to say it has been an awful lot, I can't say I even know where to start."

"You know we're always down to listen," Rachel said with an encouraging smile. "We don't judge, you know that."

I laughed. "Thank you, but I can promise you it's nothing like that. It's just…I've told you guys about Bernadette before, right?"

"Oh have you?" Samuel laughed. "You mean your best friend who you have the biggest crush on, but are way too shy to do anything about?"

"Which is perfectly fine, some things just take time," Howard added helpfully.

"Thanks, but actually things have happened between us."

Vanessa's eyes opened wide and she looked at me with the biggest smile on her face. "You mean you finally told her how you feel? Oh Lucas, I'm so happy for you."

"Something like that." I couldn't help it. My face was split by the widest smile and I looked down at my feet, unable to meet their eyes while I was smiling like an idiot.

"Finally. I'm glad you did something about it." Samuel patted me on the back and Rachel choked back a giggle.

"We're all happy for you," she said. "Was she the one that you were greeting people with?"

I nodded.

"Oh my, Lucas, you have good taste," Vanessa said teasingly. "You never know, I might just have to steal her from you."

"You wouldn't dare," Rachel glared at her and Vanessa put her hands up in a motion of surrender.

"Fine, fine, I'll let the two of them be happy together. Sheesh, Rach, you always take things too seriously."

"Someone's got to keep you in line." Rachel looked up at Vanessa with a heart-melting smile.

"All right, enough of that," Samuel said, turning back to me. "So, what's going on with you and Bernadette that we need to know about? Besides the fact that you finally got up the courage to tell her how you felt."

"Actually, it was her who told me first," I said, remembering that fateful day when she had revealed to me what her feelings were. Everyone gasped, looking at me with surprise.

"Once a coward, always a coward," Samuel said, shaking his head with a smile.

"Let's not worry too much about the details," Howard said. "What's important is the fact that the two of you are together now, finally."

"Finally?" I raised my eyebrows. "Remind me how long again it took you to confess your feelings to Ana."

Howard looked down at his feet. "That's not important. We're married now, so who cares if it took me a year."

"It has taken you even longer," Vanessa said, nudging me with her shoulder. "Now, tell us what's going on."

"Well, the fact is that Bernadette is in a bit of a difficult situation right now," I started, wondering how much of her story I should actually divulge. I didn't want to talk about too many personal details as I figured that was something, she would want to do for herself. So, I decided to keep things short and simple.

"Apart from me, she doesn't really have a support system right now. Her friends from college are all terrible and got her into some bad situations and her mom just kicked her out of the house. I'm there for her, but she needs more, you know?"

"Of course." Rachel looked at me with a sympathetic expression. "I can't imagine what that must be like for her."

"There's more too," I said. "But I'll let her tell you those things herself. I don't want to speak her whole story for her."

"Of course," Rachel smiled at me. "I'd love to meet her for sure."

I looked around, realizing that it had been a while and Bernadette still hadn't found me. Maybe she had gotten lost? Or caught up in talking to someone else? Either way, it was probably a good idea to see if we could go find her.

"She went to go to the restroom," I said. "I thought that she would have been back by now."

"Hmmm, should we go find her?" Samuel asked. "Someone else might have started a conversation with her, or she could just be overwhelmed."

I nodded. "It is a lot more crowded than I thought it was going to be. I don't remember inviting this many people."

"People might have heard about it and decided to show up, or people could have invited friends," Vanessa suggested. "Some people are just fine with overstepping boundaries like that."

"Oh! come on, don't tell me you've never done that," Samuel said.

"No, I haven't. But it certainly sounds like you have." Vanessa shot an accusatory glare at Samuel and I stepped between them to try to de-escalate things.

"Guys, it's fine, seriously. Bernadette said she was fine with a party and I wanted her to get the chance to meet people like this. It's not something you have to worry about."

"Let's go find her then," Vanessa said, shooting Samuel one final glare before starting to walk off. She then looked over her shoulder at all of us. "Are you guys coming or not?"

"We're coming," I said, and hurried after her along with the rest of my friends.

I would have thought that with Bernadette's dress she would be easy to spot and find, but though we must have looked for roughly ten minutes there was still no sign of her. I was beginning to get worried, so I suggested we split up and try to find her that way. Maybe she was looking for us too and we just kept missing her?

But I had no luck on my own and was beginning to get seriously concerned when I finally heard a voice that sounded exactly like hers.