The full experience

The day started quite peaceful. The couples each shared breakfast with their partners in the morning and then started their respective days. With Laila's day being filled with her designs and building her website. Noah had created a template for her and left adding the content up to Laila since she wanted to do everything that she could do without the help of others, herself, including Noah. She lacked the skills to build a website from the ground up, but with a database and a template, she was capable enough to fill the pages herself.

With someone coming to the house to do her hair and make-up done for tonight and her dress being taken care of in advance, as she had decided to go in one of her own designs, it gave her plenty of time to get some work done until the crew got here. An opportunity she happily made use of.

The reason she had decided to go with her own design instead of buying something ready made, despite the short amount of time she had to design and make her dress, was because this event could be good for her business as well. With everyone bringing their partners, it was a good way for her to build some connections and show off her work. Perhaps she might get the name out there before the formal launch of her brand.

Fortunately, despite being quite far along in her pregnancy, her belly wasn't too big and allowed her to still look stunning in the dress she had created, even though she didn't feel that way herself. A thought that wasn't too foreign for a lot of women in their third trimester, who saw themselves as much bigger and more bloated than they actually were or looked in the eyes of others. Laila wasn't immune to this either and it was one of the reasons why she was having mixed feelings about attending this formal event with Noah.

On the one hand it would be the first event they would be attending as a couple together since she had come to this time-line. On the other hand it was a time she felt the least attractive and she couldn't stand for a long period of time or dance with Noah very much. Nor could she wear the type of heels she wanted to. Since it was dangerous and too straining for her ancles for Noah to approve of or for her to feel comfortable in. So, she wouldn't be getting the full experience, nor would he.

Heck, she couldn't even fully wear the design she had in mind. Having to make some adjustments to fit the state she was currently in. But all in all she was determined to make the most of tonight and to have fun, even if it wouldn't be perfect. She didn't look her best, but she didn't look bad either. Besides, now people would see how the designs would look if you aren't slim like a model or if you wanted to wear it as maternity wear.

With those thoughts in mind she did what she needed to do and planned to stop in time with the website to take a shower and steam her dress before the people from the salon got there. But although that was the plan, it is easy to lose track of time if you are deep in thought or focussed on something. As was the case with Laila during the time before the event. While the workers were gathering at the venue, Laila was still staring intently at the screen in front of her. She had filled several pages and prepped some others, but wasn't nearly done with what she had in mind for her website. So, her fingers were trying to keep up with her eyes. While her eyes were struggling to create what she had envisioned in her mind.

Even her alarm, that she had set in order to give herself plenty of time to shower and take care of her dress, she had managed to turn off without properly registering it. It had one of those smart silencing mechanism. So, just by flipping the phone over on its screen, the alarm was snoozed. If no snooze was installed, it would turn the alarm off. Which was the case for Laila. It wasn't until Garry entered the room and scraped his throat to get her attention, after which he even had to call out to her, that Laila fully snapped out of her focus and was made aware of the present time. "Ma'am, aren't you going to get ready. It is already 5 o'clock."

With a startled expression Laila looked at her phone and back at Garry as she repeated in shock, "5 o'clock!? The make-up and hair people are going to get here in fifteen minutes." Frantically she closed up her laptop and tried to clean some of the mess she had created as she was wondering how she would get things done in the little amount of time she had.