Chapter 32
The Blessed Event

Six Months Later

beep…beep…beep…beep

I bury my head in my pillow and groan. It is way too early on a Sunday morning for that alarm clock to be ringing.

"Are you going to turn that off?" comes a hazy voice from beside of me. I mumble something unintelligible and an arm reaches over me and hits the snooze button.

"Don't make me get up," I moan, turning to Christian and burying my face in his chest this time.

"Don't get up," Christian mumbles.

"I have to get up." I roll onto my back and attempt to wake myself up a little. "Ugg. You kept me up too late last night," I say, glaring at Christian. Which is really pointless because his eyes are closed so he can't actually see the glare.

But he opens his eyes, smiling mischievously at the accusation. "I kept you up too late, Becka Hanson? Quite the other way around, I think."

"Either way, it's going to take some serious caffeine to get me through this day." I'm holding my eyelids open with my fingers now. It's not really helping.

Christian pulls me back towards him and says gruffly, "I say we just skip." Then he rolls on top of me and starts kissing me. Mmm. Hmm. Maybe that's a good idea he has there.

Or maybe not. I break off and scold him, "Stop seducing me. We can't skip Chase and Sophie's wedding."

"Why not?" he asks, kissing my neck now. It's very hard to concentrate when he's doing that.

"Because, for one thing, I'm in it."

Christian sighs like he really expected I'd say okay let's skip, and rolls on his back beside me again. "Who's idea was that?"

I pretend to ponder that for a second. "Mine, actually, I think."

"That was a bad idea."

"Yes well," I turn to face him, "I think we've established that Chase in general wasn't one of my brightest ideas. But you were a pretty good one."

"I was a pretty good one," Christian agrees, leaning in to kiss me again.

"Stop it. I have to get up."

"Nobody's stopping you," Christian grins.

Well…

Who's going to care if I'm a little bit late?

- - - - - -

"I still don't see why you're marrying him."

After he makes that comment, several throw pillows and a couple other odd objects are hurled at Christian from various positions across the room. Many of which miss their target and hit me instead. Some how we have all ended up hanging out upstairs in Sophie's so-called dressing room pre-wedding. And when I say all, I mean all: me, Christian, Jen, Luke Emerson (I'll explain that one later), and Taylor. Natalie Banks, maid of honor, has mysteriously disappeared. I think she's still a little afraid of me. West, best man, is with Chase.

"What is wrong with you people!" Christian asks, peeling Taylor's jacket off of his face and whipping it back at her.

"Watch it, Christian Lewis, that's my fiancé you're talking about," Sophie answers good-naturedly.

"Yeah," I add, taking her side. "And you know, Chase is a lot like me. Like if I were a guy, I'd probably, like, be Chase." To me, that sounded very profound. But I appear to be the only one of us who holds this opinion.

"Oh, please don't say that, Becka," Sophie groans. "That's like saying I'm marrying the male-you. Which, no offense or anything, is kind of disgusting when you think about it."

"I know," Christian says seriously. "I mean, marrying the female her would be bad enough."

"Uh!" I say, sounding a lot more insulted than I am. Because I'm not insulted. At all. "Well now that I know where this relationship is heading, or not heading for that matter…" I trail off, scooting away from Christian on the chair. "Hey Jen, I just broke up with Christian. You interested?"

Jen is doing one of those entertainment crosswords in a magazine she found laying around. She looks up at me smirking a little and says, "Not anymore." Only she and I and maybe Luke Emerson get the joke.

Things were easier with Jen than they should have been. To my credit, as soon as the post-Christian ecstasy had worn off a little (I mean, it still hasn't completely worn off), I immediately began to worry about breaking the news to Jen. I mean seriously, this was the second time in a row the guy she was interested in wound up interested in me. And this time I was interested back and I was dating him. I knew enough to know that a thing like me and Christian wasn't going to stay on the down low for long, so I knew I had to tell her. Soon.

But Jen found me first. Thursday morning she was in my room at another ungodly hour with some news of her own.

"I have something to tell you and you're not going to like it," she warned. I was going to say about the same to her, but she didn't give me the chance. "I'm dating Luke Emerson," she blurted.

"Thank God," I said.

Jen looked a bit miffed.

"I'm dating Christian," I said.

Jen continued to look a bit miffed. Then she started laughing hysterically. Then I started laughing hysterically. Then Jeremy came in a threatened to send us both to an insane asylum. And that's pretty much how it went down.

As Jen returns to her crossword, I continue with the joke. "So now that I'm not dating Christian anymore, I think I need a new boyfriend. Any suggestions anyone?"

"I hear Elton's available," Taylor says dryly.

Yes. Much to our shock and dismay, Elton and Amy did not stand the test of time. I speak satirically, of course.

Jen makes a sort of snorting noise that I think can safely be interpreted as sarcasm. I pretend to be seriously thinking about this Elton option. "I dunno. Elton was a good kisser," I shrug.

"I think I'm insulted by the implications of that statement," Christian complains.

At this point, West ambles on into our hang out room, making the group truly complete. With the exception, of course, of Chase Everhart.

"I see you've abandoned your poor cousin," I observe.

West shrugs and plops down next to his girlfriend. It actually surprises me sometimes that West and Taylor aren't getting married yet. But with them it's more like, they'll get around to it when they get around to it. No urgency there.

"That's mean," I scold. West shrugs again, and I just roll my eyes.

West learned shortly after he assured me that Christian was way over caring about me dating Chase that things were exactly the opposite. Apparently Christian spent the three days he wasn't talking to me (after the Natalie Banks post-Thanksgiving catastrophe) talking to West about how desperately love sick and without hope he was. We all laugh about this now, although Christian assures me it was not very funny at the time.

Here's another thing we laugh about now, which Chase assures me was not very funny at the time. After a lot of cajoling and begging (on my part) and a lot of evasive answers and looking adorably embarrassed (on Christian's part), I was finally able to pull out of him some of that mystery conversation he had with Chase during the three days of silence. As far as I can gather, it went something like this.

Christian: Hey, so we need to talk. Or actually, I need to talk.

Chase: cowers against the cafeteria wall

Christian: Listen, obviously I'm fighting a losing battle here. So whatever. You win. I'm done.

Chase: still cowering

Christian: But I just hope for your sake you aren't the kind of jackass I think you. Because if you hurt her editor's note: me. If Chase hurts me I swear to God, you're going to wish you hadn't.

Chase: again, still cowering

Christian: And yes, that was a threat.

Awww.

Okay, so a little on the violent side there, Christian.

But still. Awww.

Right now, nobody seems very inclined to go and make sure that our man Chase is doing alright. Empathy for that boy really runs deep in this crowd. No, seriously, we all do love him down somewhere deep. Sophie loves him anyway. Christian might not love him quite yet, but I think he's growing into it.

"Fine, then I will go chill with Chase. Make sure he doesn't run out before the wedding starts and all that jazz," I say, taking a martyr-ish tone of voice. I rise to make my grand exit, but Christian catches my arm before I go and pulls me into an uncharacteristically intense public display of affection.

"Marking your territory," West observes, once it's all said and done.

Christian shrugs. "Something like that," he grins.

I continue on my pathway to the door. "Be good," Sophie instructs. Chase and me, it's sort of like a whole big joke now.

"I'm always good," I say innocently. Everybody has something sarcastic to say about that.

- - - - - -

To his credit, Chase does not appear to be nervous at all. A little bored maybe. A little lonely. But not nervous.

"Came to keep you company," I say brightly as I make my way into the room.

"Nice dress," Chase replies. He's making fun of me, of course. I do not look good in yellow.

"You're fiancé picked it," I shoot back.

"Fiancé," Chase repeats thoughtfully. "You know, just between us, sometimes I'm surprised she's still actually marrying me. You know, after," he makes a grand sweeping gesture with his hands, "everything."

"Christian was actually just saying the same thing," I offer, and Chase gives me look. Yeah. It's going to take some time, I suppose, for Chase and Christian to rise above their issues.

"You're just lucky Sophie's so generous," I say. Not in a mean way though. I just say it because it's true, and we both know it.

"Yeah, and you're lucky Christian is so generous," Chase replies, which is also true.

I laugh. "I guess we're both just lucky then."

True.

- - - - - - - -

The wedding goes off without a hitch, which, if you ask me, is kind of boring. The photo session afterwards is an hour of excruciating pain.

"My face hurts from smiling too much," I inform Christian, walking up to him when we're finally through with the pictures. I opted not to zoom over the reception with the rest of the bridal party, as I found I had a better ride option. I massage my cheeks with the palms of my hands.

"That's very attractive," Christian says, smiling a sort of amused half-smiling.

"Hey," I pout. "You'd think after six months you'd have learned by now that as my boyfriend, you are only allowed to say nice things to me."

"That was nice," Christian says innocently. "It was a compliment."

I just laugh and roll my eyes, and Christian tucks me under his arm and walks me out of the church.

"Six months, huh?" he exhales, once outside. It's kind of a rhetorical question, so I don't say anything, although I do wonder where he's going with this. There's a park bench outside of the church, and Christian motions for us to sit down. We do. I'm suddenly a little nervous.

After a moment of gathering his courage or something like that, Christian says, "So I've been thinking about our relationship lately. A lot. And—"

"Oh my God. You're breaking up with me," I break in. At Sophie and Chase's wedding. How insensitive can you—

Christian interrupts my train of thought. "What! God, no. Becka. Why on earth would I be doing that?"

"I have no idea," I admit. "But when you preface a conversation with 'I've been thinking about our relationship' what am I supposed to think?"

Christian just shakes his head, apparently baffled by my logic.

"What were you going to say then?" I ask suspiciously.

"Well I was going to ask you to marry me," Christian grumbles. "But you kind of ruined the moment."

"What!" That comes out a little more emphatically then I intended it to, kind of like a shriek. "Oh my God, yes, yes. I mean, you're still asking, right?"

Christian breaks into a smile again. He pulls me over to him and kisses the top of my head. "With an answer like that, I'd say so."

"Mmm. Good." I lean into him, suddenly so happy that I almost can't stand it. We need to get a move on it, or else I'll be making a late entrance into the reception. But we don't need to go just yet.

"I love you," Christian says into my hair.

"You'd better," I say, smiling to myself and thinking about that thing I said a long time ago, about me having my own Mr. Knightly, and how maybe that isn't such a bad thing after all.

No. On the contrary, it's very, very good.

A/N: This was basically me tying up all my loose ends, but I hope you guys enjoyed anyway. You all deserved one more chapter :o)

So I was thinking maybe I should do another one of these modernized-Jane-Austen deals now that this one's done. Sense & Sensibility? Mansfield Park? Maybe Pride & Prejudice cuz it's fun although there are like 2 gazillion versions of that on here already. Or maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead… I dunno. What do y'all think?

Oh, and one last HUGE thanks to all of my awesome, wonderful, and all other words meaning the same thing, reviewers. You guys rock. Trust me, there wouldn't be a story without you. Hugs and kisses all around.

(And review one more time)