She's Mine to Protect(Lucas Baker Fanfic)(A Baker's Flower Series #1)

The Family

  The temperature in the room seemed to rise with every passing moment and Lucas was getting closer to passing out. The familiar thoughts of 'I can't do this' and 'I'll only screw this up' ran wild in his head as his nerves were being pushed to their limit. His hands fiddled with a clicker pen that his mother had left on the table in front of him in case he wanted to change his speech for the reception before they left the house. He had been stressing over what he would say due to the fact that he wasn't always the most graceful with words or good at expressing how he felt, unless it was alone with Chrys but even then it scared him. All of a sudden, interrupting his thoughts of panic, his mother was standing at the door with her purse in her hand and arms crossed.

    "Magnolia just called, they're leaving for the church in a few minutes and- Lucas? Are you listening to me?" She questioned when she noticed that he wasn't reacting to anything she said to him. Dealing with her son's not needed nervousness throughout the morning had left Marguerite frustrated and ready to get the day's main event going.

    "Mm-hmm I heard ya." He responded emotionlessly, not taking his eyes off the paper on the table with its many crossed-out words and the odd cuss word written in the margins.

    "Then let's go. Your father and Zoe are already out there in the car." She informed him before leaving through the doors and going down into the garage across from the kitchen. Slowly, Lucas got up from the table, straightened up the coat of his tux, picked up his phone and the pen and then turned to follow his mother to the car. To his surprise, Zoe was now standing there at the door, looking gorgeous in a red dress.

    "You look good." She complimented, staring him up and down.

    "Uh, thanks I guess. You do too."

    "You think so? It's a bit too fancy for my liking."

    "You always were more an I-only-wear-clothes-that-I-can-get-mud-on kind of girl."

    "A fact that I am proud of." She chuckled, then turned more serious. "You know, I'm proud of you too."

    "What the hell for?"

    "Oh come on you Dum-Dum! You're a dad now, you're getting married today, you're putting your life together after all that happened. Not many people could do what you're doing after what we've been through, especially someone like you."

    "Hey now, what d'ya mean someone like me?" He snapped defensively.

    "Just take the compliment, Bro." She answered with a laugh just as their mother called them once again to leave. Just like they did when they were kids, the two siblings fought to be the one who got to the bottom of the stairs and to the car first; from the driver's seat, Jack Baker rolled his eyes at his children, yet deep down he was just glad they were all together again.

    Like a real family.

    In her parents' hotel room, Chrys was twirling in front of the bathroom mirror; from the doorway Celes clapped happily at the sight of her mother in her dress.

    "You're so gorgeous, Mommy!" She said with an overflow of excitement.

    "Nowhere near as much as you Boo." She told her daughter, calling her by a long-time nickname, before covering the little girl's face in kisses and delicately pulling at a brown lock of curly hair.

    "Mama stop! It tickles!" Celes managed to say through laughing.

    "Me 'oo! 'Ella 'ants ticks!" Bella screamed as she came crawling into the bathroom to join her mother and sister. Her short and chubby legs, which were hidden by her little white dress that matched her sister's, could carry her at a surprisingly fast pace, which no one understood how. The only thing the baby seemed to struggle with (for a child of her age) was forming full words, although Lucas tried to convince everyone that it was simply because she got so excited at times that she just forgot to finish what she was saying. Chrys, on the other hand, believed it to be the result of Bella still being a baby and not needing to have perfected how to talk; her theory was that the baby's fast development was mostly due to because that was how Lucas was as a baby, according to what Marguerite had told her one night while they were going through his baby book and photo albums.