Love in Ireland

/35/

A/N: This is mostly just a fun pre-epilogue chapter (I don't really know what to call it tbh). Hope you all enjoyed the story! I will be writing an epilogue.

-Saturday, February 3nd-

It's been a while since Declan's birthday and the whole messages fiasco after. The texts have slowed down and they're much easier to ignore now. Zach and Declan have both joked that if it ever gets bad again, they're getting me a new phone and number. We never figured out the people or person behind the texts. But I don't really care anymore. Eventually I learned to not take the things to heart because they weren't true. And having people to reassure me that the texts were wrong was comforting. Alannah and I managed to go through and delete and block all the old numbers, and I've barely thought about the texts for a week now. I'm still working to get over some of those fears that the texts triggered, but those are just thoughts in the back of my mind now. And they're so easy to ignore. Especially on days like today.

Yesterday was Alannah's birthday. Today is her birthday ball. Alannah asked for her ball to be moved to today at Ashton Castle so Bridget and Owen could come. We arrived at Ashton castle yesterday and celebrated Alannah's birthday when Bridget and Owen arrived.

"Alright, you're all finished." Carrie said, turning the chair so I could look in the mirror.

"This is amazing Carrie. Thank you!" My hair was pulled up in this swirly bun and she left out a couple of small pieces to frame my face. Around the top of the bun was this gorgeous gold leafy hair clip with pearls that Alannah gave me. It looked amazing against my bright red hair.

"You're welcome!" Carrie exclaimed as she packed up her stuff.

Once Carrie left, I did my makeup and put on my dress, jewlery, and shoes. I wore gold leafy bangles, a pearl bracelet, a simple gold necklace, and the bracelet and earrings Declan had gotten me for Christmas. Under my dress I had on gold lacey heels.

Before leaving, I walked over to the large mirror in the bathroom to look at my outfit.

Since it was Alannah's birthday, I made the dream dresses we had designed last summer. It's become a tradition ever since the first summer I started as Madam Bowden's intern. Alannah had found my dream ball gown drawing in one of my sketchbooks and she asked me if I could draw her dream dress. And then when her birthday rolled around the next year, and I surprised her by sewing her the dream dress. She had also asked me to be her plus one to that ball and she told me that I should make my dream dress to wear as well, and I did. Since then every summer we've designed our dream dress for the year, and then we fantasise about it all year as I slowly sew them. This year, however, I didn't have time to sew them throughout the year, so I sewed them with the rest of the dresses and suits. Let's just say Declan and Alannah had to force me to sleep some days. But I got everything done.

My ball gown was an emerald green color, which was A. My favorite color and B. Accented my hair and eyes. The bodice was a tight lace up bodice that was strapless with a round neckline. Around the neckline were folds of the same fabric that looked kind of like thick ribbons. The skirt was probably my favorite part of the dress. I had found a tulle that had a gradient from emerald green to lime green to white. So I did a few layers of that over top of the white layer underneath. Then I did shorter layers of plain emerald tulle around the waist. And around the waist and down the skirt, I added white and emerald fabric flowers, which tied the dress together and made it less plain. I loved everything about this dress. Every year I've managed to make my dream dress better and better. I'm not really sure they can be called dream dresses anymore, but Alannah and I haven't figured out another name that fits, so we've stuck to calling them our yearly dream dresses.

I grabbed my gold clutch purse and walked out of the door with a grin on my face. As I walked out of my room, Alannah exited hers, which was right next to mine.