Lukas & The Lion

Chapter 55- Happily Ever After Pt. 4

Author's Note: Part 4 of 4 of the final chapters of this series. I am breaking them up by character perspective. Thanks for reading! Enjoy the journey through their heads.

**[Lukas' View]**

Over the next few months, the new house settled into a routine. Ari would wake me up every morning and I'd get ready for school then go into the main house for breakfast.

Ari told me eventually I would need to cook breakfast in our own kitchen in the small back house we shared. I hadn't made much for him. His mother and Nima always had meals for us and she loved it when we joined in.

I was still a little weirded out by Nima.

Whenever I came into the room he went quiet and almost never looked me in the eye. Ari mostly ignored him except when he needed something. I was a little jealous of how the man followed Mr. Khorasani around like a puppy. I used to sit and talk to Mr. K every day, but now there was always a third wheel lurking behind us.

School was getting harder too. Ari drove me everyday and Mr. Khorasani usually picked me up. I'd go back to his office or home and work on my homework and projects. He brought in a tutor two days every week to help me out with stuff and get me working on college applications.

Nima always gave me a little look of jealousy when Mr. Khorasani would come home with me. He would be waiting in the kitchen with all his chores done and the two of them would go off to workout together before dinner. I would go alone to the back house and wait for Ari if he wasn't home from work already.

We'd have dinner with the family and then go back to our place for the night. He would look over my homework and then we'd have time together before bed.

We spent every Friday night with my dad at Mr. Teza's house. They did a better job about keeping their sexual weirdness hidden.

It was good to see dad so happy being Uncle Mir's boy. He was happy keeping the house, fixing up boats, and was even working on rebuilding an old Camaro. He came to my school once for parent conferences, but deferred to Ari when the teachers had questions.

We have plans for when I finish high school and turned 18. Ari wants a wedding, a big one.

He wants his big family and friends and some of their important clients. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't like being in front of a crowd, but he says it will be a traditional Persian wedding where we will be seated with a covering over us for most of it.

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"You look nice, my love. We are in rush. No time to change," Ari said impatiently.

He was so cute when he got impatient with me. He never wants to show anger but he isn't good at hiding it.

I knew we were in a rush, but he had chosen my outfit and I didn't like it. If I made him wait then he might give in.

"I look like a dork," I said and pulled at the tight neck of the long-sleeved blue button-up shirt he'd chosen.

It was a warm, winter day, nearly 80 degrees, and we were heading for a backyard party at the house his uncle shared with my father. He had me covered from head to toe in a blue shirt and pressed pants. I wondered why he was covering me up.

"It is your father's birthday party. There will be many men there and friends of my uncle. I do not wish you to attract so much attention," he said as he grabbed his car keys and steered me towards the door.

That was it! That explained the outfit. He knew we would be at a party filled with the kinds of men my father and his uncle hung around.

Ari gets jealous when other guys look at me and angry when they try to talk to me. When we are out, he expects a quiet boy who stays close to his side. I didn't argue with him. I like his protectiveness.