This Only Happens Once *partial edits

Chapter 23

ASHLEY POV

I took one look at the final product. I saw a beautiful girl standing in front of me, a girl I was so proud to be able to call my best friend. I had curled her hair in perfect ringlets and then put it up in an up-do. Then I had gotten out my makeup and started out with some concealer. There wasn't much to cover up but it was still necessary. Once I finished with the concealer I got out the eyeliner and eyeshadow. I decided to go with a silver sparkly eye liner and white sparkly eyeshadow. Next, Got out the mascara and applied it to her eyelashes. Finally, I added a little bit of blush and some soft pink lipgloss. Pretty basic makeup, I didn't want to cover too much of her natural beauty. I went into her closet where I had picked out her outfit and brought it back in. In my hand I held her dress, a knee length soft pink dress with a hint of sparkles, and the shoes she was going to wear, black wedges. I told her to go and get dressed and she did just that.

After about ten minutes she came finally back fully dressed. She rushed over to me as fast as she could.

"How do I look??" Maria asked impatiently.

"Absolutely amazing! Wow Maria," I told her motioning towards the mirror, "Go look in the mirror and check yourself out!"

She walked over to the mirror and then back to me. Faster than I could blink, I was engulfed in a hug that wasn't allowing me to breath. Somehow I found the strength in me to hug her back equally as tight.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She squealed.

"Of course! What else are best friends for?!" I tell her.

She just squeals some more until the doorbell is rung a minute later.

"I'll get it!" I yell.

CADEN POV

I stand at the doorstep of Ashley Michaelec's house waiting to pick up my mate. She told me she was going to have Ashley help her get ready and that she wanted me to pick her up here.

I see Ashley coming down from the upstairs. She comes to the door, but doesn't open it for me. Instead, she just stands there looking at me. I decide to knock again indicating I want to come in, but this only makes her laugh. For some reason she started making weird faces at me. Then she got out her phone and just took some selfies. Those poses included, the duck face, the peace sign, the duck face and peace sign, a basic face, and I think she even did one picture and wrote "#typicalwhitegirl" because she had gotten her Starbucks out. Oh boy. Next thing I knew I was getting a bunch of picture messages to my phone. I look at the number and don't recognize it. Wait, this must be Ashley's number because these photos were of Ashley telling me to wait there. I saved her number to my phone in case I ever needed something for Maria. I have now been waiting on her doorstep for about 15 minutes and I am starting to get impatient. I missed Maria so damn much. The way she smells, the way she walks, her laugh, her smile, the way of when she wakes up in the morning with her perfectly messy hair. I love everything about her and I miss everything.

I pound on the door now threatening to break into her house if she doesn't open the door this instant. I turn to look in the window and I see her sitting there laughing her ass of at me, well I think at me. I look around her, but I don't see anyone else around. The door is opened as I am looking for anyone else inside the house.

"Can I help you?" A British sounding person asked.

Without turning around I told them, "Let me in."

I was never asked in, I only had small arms wrapped around my waist.

"Ready to go babe?" The sweet, angelic voice of my mate asked me.

MARIA POV

"Yeah let's go." he says with his husky voice.

Caden walks me to his car, with his arm around my waist. He opens the door of his mustang for me to get in. Caden closes the door once I'm in and goes around to the other side for him to get in.

"Where are we going tonight?" I ask.

"It's a surprise." Caden tells me with a smirk on his face.

*skips car ride cause its boring*

It took about 40 minutes for us to get to the parking ramp. I knew we were downtown, but still didn't have any idea about where we were going to eat.

"How far do we have to walk?"

"Not far angel, it's only about a block away."

I breath out a breath of relief. I won't have to walk in these shoes. I mean they're comfortable and all, but I just don't like walking in them. I feel like I'm going to break my ankle, or foot, like I did when I was younger.

*flashback*

It was third grade. Everyday we went outside for recess before we had lunch time. There were about 45-50 kids in our grade. The lunch/recess teacher whistled for us all to come in because it was time for lunch. Everybody rushed up to the doors, waiting for the teacher to unlock them. My friends and I were in the middle of the line. The doors were unlocked and we all rushed inside. Before lunch we would always stop at the bathrooms so we could go to the bathroom or wash our hands. I was washing my hands and then I dried them. Today was also the day where I wore my sandals that had a heel, like wedges. I must have been walking too fast or something because next thing I knew I had twisted my foot sideways. This meant the side of my foot hit the ground very hard. I felt the pain right away, but brushed it off thinking it was just the impact of the hit and that it would go away soon. My friend actually helped me walk to lunch. I went to lunch like normal, sat with my friends, and ate lunch, sort of. In the middle of lunch I noticed it had to of been more than just the impact because my foot was hurting really bad. I told my friend and she helped me walk over to the lunch supervisor. She told us that we could go to the nurses office. My friend helped me walk down there and then stayed with me for a little bit. The nurse sent her back to class eventually and checked out my foot. She had me icing it. Once the nurse finished looking at it she called my dad, saying that we should probably go it the doctor's office to see what happened with it. He picked me up and brought me to the doctors. It turned out that I had actually fractured my foot!

*end of flashback*

We stopped walking. I looked up to see the sign of the place we were at. Caden was taking me to Hell's Kitchen! I love Gordon Ramsey's show! This is definitely going to be a great night!