The Thistles of Rose

34 • Motherly

♕ Rose ♕

Now that I've officially decided on a venue, I was able to get the invitations printed. With only a month left before the wedding, Maya and I had to sit and get them done.

She took a calligraphy course in art class while searching for her hobby, which proved handy. So, she inscribes the names with a gold pen and then hands them to me where I tie the bow, add the stalk of white gypsophila and seal it with the stamp of the Armani mafia crest.

The fan wires above us and blows cold air in cycles. It's the beginning of April and the weather has gotten hotter. It doesn't help that I've got a teething, eight-month-old who gets sick from the AC.

Maya rambles, disregarding the invitations, "Everyone is happy but me. You're getting married, Brando and Alara made things official, Roman's dating some girl and even Marco has a girlfriend. I'm sorry-Marco has a girlfriend! That dipshit! Why am I the only one who's not in a relationship?"

She sighs exasperatedly and runs her hands through her hair. She trimmed and dyed it this week, in time for the wedding. Her dark blonde hair is dyed with spots of sage green highlights, to match her dress, and sits above her shoulders.

"You don't have to be in a relationship to make you happy," I tell her, sealing the invitation and ticking off the list.

She groans into her hands, and I sip my cold lemonade, waiting for her to have more invitations ready.

"But I want to. And it's hard because, with the girls, I can't tell whether they're into girls and with the guys...they're just absolute dipshits whose egos are bigger than their-."

Her brown eyes dart behind me and she falls tight-lipped. Instead, she reaches over for the bottle of whiskey my responsible fiancé gave her and drinks straight from it.

"The baby gates are up and the child locks are on all the draws," Luca says, entering the dining room with Aurelia propped on his hip, "This little diavola can't get anywhere now." [devil]

He's dressed in his usual button-down shirt with his grey eyes brighter and his frown curved more in a straight line. Luca nuzzles his nose in her neck, tickling her. Aurelia bursts into ethereal laughter, smiling vivaciously, at her father.

My heart swoons at the sight of my two most important people.

Lia is eight-months-old now, so she has just learnt how to crawl and is also clever enough to figure out how to open a cupboard. Unfortunately, I found both of them out the hard way when I looked back to see that Aurelia had crawled out of her baby bouncer and had raided the chocolate draw.

That was a very messy day.

He doesn't steal her breath for too long and presses a doting kiss on her chubby cheek. Aurelia's bright eyes latch onto mine and she, immediately, holds her small arms out to me.

"Mama," she babbles, squirming in Luca's arms.

Her first word was dada. Of course, it wasn't what I expected seeing as I almost died for her but I wasn't entirely surprised.

Impatiently, she fusses in small whimpers, leaning her body toward me. Her eyes start to fill with soft tears. The colour of them is still quite unclear but the most prominent is green. I quickly hold my hair up with a claw clip before Luca passes our distressed baby to me.

Like a wound plunged into chilling water, she relaxes into my body and is wrapped by the bandages of her mother's delicate love. Her small head rests on my chest, and I softly rub her back.

Her sweet, baby smell is unreal. Ah, my precious baby.

"Idiot," Maya greets Luca.

"Dork," he responds, switching off the fan before sitting on the chair beside me. After glancing at the bottle, he squints at it, calculating how much she's had, and then slides it out of her reach.