Page 42 of Gracefully Yours

There it was.

Daniel wrapped his arm around me, pulling me deeper into his side. “You heard her,” he nodded. “We’re engaged.”

“Are you pregnant?” Angelina narrowed her eyes. “Daniel, you didn’t accidentally get her pregnant, did you?” She looked at me. “I’ll kill my brother if he did.”

I flushed, my cheeks surely already pink from how warm they felt. “No. I’m not pregnant. We just… realized we both had feelings for each other at the wedding, and we’ve been trying to figure out the best time to tell all of you.”

Gabbi blinked. “Since thewedding? But… it’s been months?”

“Sorry.” I winced. “I feel like I did this all wrong. We wanted to ask all of you if you’d be our bridesmaids and groomsmen.”

“Of course!” Noelle squealed, throwing her arms around me. And then all four of us girls were in the middle of a group hug.

When I pulled away, the guys were all patting Daniel on the back, and I was so glad they’d all become friends. I liked that all our guys—now that Daniel was reallymine,even if we weren’t really inlove—were a group too.

“Oh my god, you know what this means?” Noelle’s smile radiated off her face, her freckled cheeks glowing as she looked over at Gabbi. “You’ll be the last two to get engaged.”

She raised an eyebrow at Hunter, and he gave her a dopey grin. “I think we’re good for now.” Gabbi laughed.

“I can’t believe we’ll get to plan our weddings together,” Noelle said, squeezing my hand excitedly. “Matthew and I are planning on getting married next fall.”

“When are you guys tying the knot?” Angelina asked, sipping on her glass of wine, practically staring us down through the glass.

“We’re still deciding an exact date, but…” My cheeks heated. “It’ll be in December sometime.”

I didn’t really see any reason to wait. Especially if we were going to get married at his dad’s house, and we didn’t have to rent a venue… Plus, I was making my dress. I’d already started on the sketches for it. All we had to do was book the caterers, and his step-mom was helping take care of most of it. She was a godsend I hadn’t expected when we’d started all of this craziness.

“December!” Gabbi’s eyes went wide. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe a little,” I laughed.

“Crazy inlove,” Daniel added with a little smirk, and I resisted the urge to elbow him in the stomach.

We certainly weren’t Angelina and Benjamin who enjoyed a good verbal sparring, and I thought injuring myfiancéin front of all our friends might give off the wrong idea.

Still, my face flushed as they all launched into a million questions.

“How’d he propose?” Noelle asked.

“Yeah, Charlotte, howdidhe propose?” Angelina looked between the two of us, still standing next to each other.

Daniel gave me a little smile, like it was our own inside joke. “Why don’t you tell them, darling?”

I fiddled with the ring on my finger. What had we agreed on? Something as close to the truth as possible? “It was my birthday,” I started, looking over at him. “We went to this restaurant in downtown with this amazing view, and he surprised me over dessert.” Close enough, at least. I’d spent most of that night thinking about how I wanted cheesecake.

“And the ring?” Gabbi asked Daniel. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” He pulled me to his side.

“This is just… crazy.” Angelina crossed her arms. “After all these years, I can’t believe you two are actually together. And none of us even knew it.”

“Yeah, well, we are.” Daniel gave his younger sister a nod. “So you’ll have to get used to it.”

I was glad he was acting more confident than I felt, because her comment had only succeeded in me feeling bashful.

Why had we waited so long to tell them, anyway?

Because it was fake?

---