Loving Lucian ✅

Chapter Sixteen

"What does that mean?" I asked, expecting a different reaction from telling Lucian Montenegro that I wanted a boyfriend.

"Whatever you want it to mean. I guess it says that you are the highlight of my life." He said, making me just blink at him.

"I am?" Was all I managed to squeak.

"Peyton, I didn't start smiling, or laughing, or being happy 24/7 until I met you. Of course you are the highlight of my life. And I'll forever treat you that way." He held my hands while he spoke, kissing them when he was done.

Now I know how America feels.

"Am I in a relationship now?" I asked, to clear it up. I wasn't functioning properly because of what he'd said.

"Well you're definitely not single anymore." He grinned. And it went without saying that we weren't going to put an exact label on what we had. We were just going to keep it unexplained. What we had was too big to be just one thing.

I got this warm tingly feeling in me. I'd felt something similar to this, like when Trevor asked me to be his girlfriend, and when Dean asked. But not like this feeling. This feeling was stronger.

I smiled brightly and giggled, pecking his lips. "Then you're not single either."

"I've never heard any better five words."

We spent the afternoon just messing around. For once, he acted like an actual 26 year old. We watched cartoons, though he said they didn't make any scientific sense, and we ate junk food. He ordered pizza and we split it half and half, I got six slices and he got six slices. I only could eat three, so he devoured the rest.

"You more inhaled them than ate them." I giggled.

"I did not. I'm just hungry, that's all. I didn't eat breakfast this morning or dinner yesterday." He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"How are you tired, it's only--" I cut myself off, remembering what Johannes told me about a month ago. He said Lucian was having trouble sleeping most nights and he barely ate.

"What? You just zoned out for a second."

"Um, nothing. Just something Jann told me." Johannes told me not to tell Lucian he told me.

"Was it about me?" His jaw started to clench, and I grabbed his hand.

"Yes, but it wasn't what you think."

"When did he tell you?" He asked, and I looked down.

"The day I quit. He just said that I should make sure you were okay because he said you weren't sleeping well and you barely ate." I said it so quick that it became incoherent, but he managed to make sense of it.

Hearing me mention the day I quit made him jerk his eyes shut like it pierced him through the chest. "And I yelled at you because I wasn't sleeping well and barely eating." He finished the explanation. "Peyton I'm--"

"No! No, do not apologize, Lucian! That would be what, the fifth or sixth time? I'm over that. Actually, if you'd never yelled at me that day, you wouldn't have become friends with me. You wouldn't have then invited me to be your fake girlfriend with your family in Barcelona. I wouldn't have ever kissed you, and you wouldn't have kissed me. I wouldn't have told you my secret, and we wouldn't have slept together and we would not be where we are with each other today. Butterfly effect."