Everything Has Changed

Cooking with Flo

October 20th

"Remind me again why I'm not spending the night in my pjs with a romcom?" Lizzie asked as she sat at the vanity, doing her makeup.

Tonight was Flo's book launch and it required everyone from the office to be there for the news reporters and as part of that, our partners were required to be there too. It was Arthur's way of bulking up the crowd, so it looks really busy.

"Because you're my fiancé and this is my work thing and I really need you there," I responded, walking over to her and planting a kiss on her head, "please?" I said, looking at her in the mirror.

She nodded and took a deep breath, "I can't promise I'm going to be nice to her."

"You don't even have to talk to her," I replied, walking away to do up my shoes.

I was wearing blue pin-stripe trousers with a matching waistcoat. I had a white t-shirt underneath and grabbed a leather jacket because the weather was getting colder again. Lizzie was wearing her long black maternity dress. It was the only thing that really fit her apart from leggings and her dungarees which for some reason seen to be the stretchiness piece of clothing ever. She had put her hair up into a claw clip on the back of her head, letting her face-framing pieces sit around her cheeks. I gave her some of my gold hoop earrings to match with her shoes. She refuses to wear anything but flip-flops since hitting 6 months into her pregnancy, so we splashed out and got a nice pair of sandals with gold buckles.

"You ready to go?" she asked, standing up.

I nodded with a smile, "let me take a few photos first," I said, pulling her towards me so we were standing in front of the full-length mirror.

I kissed the side of her head after a few shutter noises and linked my hand with hers, leading us downstairs towards the front door. I knew I was going to have a few drinks tonight and Lizzie is almost 8 months pregnant, so she was not driving anywhere for a good few months. Our Uber was waiting in the driveway when we opened the front door. He welcomed us and told us we both looked lovely. I made small talk most of the way there and would look at Lizzie every so often. She was looking between the window and my hand, playing with the ring on my ring finger. She was nervous, it was very very clear she was really fucking nervous and nothing I could say would change that. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze and she looked at me with a small smile.

"It's only a few hours," I told her.

She nodded slowly and leaned her head on my shoulder, "can we play worst case scenario?" she asked.

"You go first," I agreed.

"Florence compliments you," she said honestly.

"There is poor footage of the event, and all of my hard work will not have paid off," I replied.

"She tries to touch my baby bump."

"I trip up when I walk over to the stage."

"She brings up the one thing none of us want to talk about-"

"Okay ladies we're here. Have a good night," the Uber driver smiled, looking at us through the mirror.

I kissed the back of Lizzie's hand and helped her out of the car, taking a few deep breaths with her before we walked into the building. Arthur had rented out another function room in a hotel in town but this one was double the size of Milo Greene's and was absolutely packed. I couldn't see Jess or Cory yet, so I led us over to the drinks and gave her a lemonade. She muttered a thank you and I took a big ass sip of the dry martini in my hand.

"Ready to mingle?" I asked her.

She hummed and linked her arm through mine, following me around until I clocked eyes with another one of my co-workers, Daisy. She was here with her husband Charlie, and both smiled at us when I approached. Daisy was dressed in a long floral dress with heels that wrapped around her feet. Her hair was pin straight and sat effortlessly on her back. Her husband was in a simple black suit and sipped his martini every few minutes like clockwork.