Loving Lucian ✅

Chapter Forty Eight

Lucian Montenegro

"So all you have to do, is take this dart, and pop the balloons until you see streamers that are either blue or pink." My mother explained. I wasn't participating in this game, only Peyton, because my mother concluded that it wasn't fair that I already had an idea of my baby's gender. By the way, I failed to tell Peyton that hint awhile ago, so she was mad at me for the rest of that week.

Peyton nodded and immediately popped a ballon, which only resulted in gold streamers exploding from it. "Cold." Josh shook his head, sitting on opposite sides of the room as my sister Camille, but I knew she wanted to sit next to him. It was uncomfortable enough knowing that my oldest sister was all over my closest friend right now.

"Oh like you know," Peyton narrowed her eyes at him, but he countered, "We all know which one it is." She looked at me and I shook my head. "I don't." She then stuck her tongue out at Josh and he reciprocated.

She popped another balloon, and Logan said, "even colder." In a millisecond, she was frustrated. There were over two dozen balloons, we were going to be here awhile.

About twenty minutes went by, and she was about halfway through, with nothing that could tell her anything about the baby. Eventually, I sighed and got up to help her despite my mother's ban, I just used the pointy end of the mini umbrella from my drink.  She moved on to popping three at a time out of impatience, and after awhile, we got to the last one.

"This better be it." She grumbled under her breath, I chuckled at her crankiness, and since the balloon rested against a hi part of ceiling, I popped it for her. Nothing but gold steamer. An intense silence filled the atmosphere, I could feel her frustration radiating from her in waves. "Lucian..." She whined, turning and hopelessly resting her head against my chest. "Please, don't cry." I only said this because she's been crying about a lot of things lately, like recently she found out about our adjustable bed, she cried and tried to sleep in the living room because she didn't want to 'bother' me with her snoring. She cried in the shower last night because she ran out of her special, favorite-scented shampoo that kept her hair light and shiny. "I'm gonna cry." She whimpered with a pout that was more adorable than pitiful.

Suddenly the doorbell rang, and I swear I've never seen an ill person jump up so quickly as her mother did. She was no longer wearing hats, she grew back her blonde hair and now had a closely cut and shaved pixie style, also she was off oxygen, which Peyton cried tears of joy about. "I'll get it!"

"Ma petite coccinelle!" A voice I'd never heard before rung throughout the foyer, and  Peyton immediately stopped tearing up and looked behind her, at the old woman who approached the living room with a blue balloon in her hand. That...shouldn't be right, if I got my guess correct.

"Mamie!" Peyton nearly knocked down the woman with a hug, I was glad the woman didn't look too frail or else I'd be worried. The woman said something in French, again, the one language that'd be useful to know besides Irish, since I'm mentioned a lot in those types of conversations. Peyton replied, her accent not as heavy, but accurate. "Ah, Lucian, this is my grandmother, Anie." She suddenly remembered she had a clueless husband and pulled her apparent grandmother forward. I'm taller than most of her family, and I swear this woman was the shortest of all of them. And, she was almost identical to my wife, just older by a lot and brunette. "Mamie, this is my husband."

"This is the man you were driving yourself insane about the last time I saw you? The one who suggested a con—"

"That, was never really a problem, nor his idea, please don't bring that up," Peyton shushed her, eyeing her, which tells me that Peyton told her something to make her not like me. "Don't bring what up, darling?"