The Blossom of Rose

51 • Generous

"You alright, Rosa?" Luca asks, glancing over his shoulder at me, as he holds the frame on the wall. We're adding the finishing touches to Marcello's nursery as I'm due in about a month.

"Couldn't be better," I comment, keeping my eyes trained on his muscles as they flex from every minor movement. I'm sitting on the rocking chair with a bowl of strawberries on my belly while he fixes the frame onto the navy feature wall, firmly.

He has a pencil behind his ear and stands on the step ladder with the toolbox on the first step. Unfortunately, he didn't resort to taking his shirt off but I already know every inch that's under that.

"Done," he sighs stepping down from it. The frame reads the name Marcello in a large, silver, formal font that takes up the entire middle section of the wall. Under it has Oakley Armani in a smaller, white, cursive font that fits the length of the main frame.

Marcello Oakley Armani. Our son.

"I love it," I breathe out mesmerised by it with tears in my eyes.

Luca designed the whole nursery himself with an off-white and navy theme. It was also his idea to get a frame of Marcello's names on the wall and he initially chose the designs for them after asking if I liked them.

He's about excited to become a father as I am to become a mother. It's adorable.

His eyes hold so much love and he kneels in front of me, pressing a kiss on my 8-month belly. He hovers his mouth there as if deep in thought and that tender action makes my heart sigh. I rest mine on the back of his head to comfort him and he looks up at me, grabbing my hands in his.

Seconds of silence go by then he asks, "what would you want in your dream house?"

I've been planning my dream house for as long as I can remember but I never thought I'd get asked about it. When I was 14, I made a whole board of it but then Ricardo found it and burned it.

"Well...it has to be a mansion big enough that if I call your name it echoes throughout the house," I start and then close my mouth as I eye him hesitantly. He doesn't want to hear me rambling on about this.

"Don't hold back. I wanna know everything," he reassures, cradling my hands in his and a flare runs through my body.

"It has to have a pool, hedges along the driveway with a fountain, a black gate that wraps around the whole premises and our room needs to overlook the ocean so when I wake up I see two gorgeous things instead of one," I smile down at him and he leans up to peck my lips.

"Anything else?" He runs my fingers down the side of his face and I ponder.

"Ooh, it needs to be styled in the old money way so it needs to look like a palace," I perk up and then roll my eyes at him, "but don't worry you can have your black furniture."

"I love it. But I'm just going to add one thing; a library," he suggests.

My eyebrows shoot up and I stammer, "you read?"

"I used to," he responds standing up and offering a hand to me, "come on."

He helps me up and we walk down the hall to our room, which was initially his room. Luca tells me to sit on the bed and he disappears into the closet returning with a box full of dust. He sits on the bed and places it in between us.

"My mother loved to read. Mostly the classics. So, she introduced it to me. When I was a teenager, reading was my favourite thing. We used to sit outside on the hammock the whole day immersed in our books until my father got home from work," he clears his throat deeply and glares holes into the box.