Happily Ever After

76: Surprise?!

TW: Smut! Starts at the first set of asterisks, ends at the second set.

After dinner, they ate the rainbow cake. Lucia got to cut it, and blow out the candles on the rainbow topper that Maya purchased from the store. When the bambina got a thick slice, Carina smiled as she took her youngest's picture, the little blonde grinning from ear to ear.
"What do we say, tesoro?" the Italian prompted, and Lucia's smile could not be any bigger than it was then and there.

"I was born this way!"

———

The girls' birthdays were around the corner, and of course they celebrated with style.

Neither Maya or Carina couldn't believe that they had a ten year old, as well as a seventeen year old. For the bambina's tenth birthday, Lucia had a big sleepover party where she invited a handful of her friends. For the entire time, the house was filled with the loud, excited chatter of little girls. Moose spent the majority of the night hiding, taking up residence underneath Maya and Carina's bed.

Carina was the only one who could somehow coax him out, bribing him with some chicken slices from their leftovers from a previous dinner.

One of the gifts that Lucia had received for her tenth birthday was an iPod, so she could finally be added in the family group chats, and be able to text her family. Her camera roll was already filled with pictures of Moose, her famiglia, and her friends.

It felt weird to the rest of the family how quickly Lucia was growing up.

When Sarah's birthday came in April, she opted not to have a special party, but her friends decided that they would pay for her when they went to laser tag that weekend. "It's hard not to feel ancient," Maya grumbled as Sarah blew out the candles on her birthday cake that Carina had made.

"Si," Carina agreed, feeling the exact same way.

The month of May came upon them, and they became aware that Sarah's examinations were arriving soon. The teenager was constantly studying, spending what appeared to be every second of her available time pouring over a textbook of some sort and yelling for people to be quiet.

Maya would often find Sarah passed out in the midst of her reading; asleep with her face in the book. On one occasion, the blonde had gotten up in the middle of the night and discovered the teen still studying.

"Sarah, you need to go to bed," Maya insisted angrily, having requested that Sarah go to bed at eleven, yet it was nearly three in the morning now.

"No, I need to review this," the teen whined.

Maya went back to bed, and after five minutes, she could still see the light in Sarah's room still on, so the blonde got back up with a huff, marching down the hall. She opened the door, and took the textbook out of the redhead's hands. "Hey!" she protested.

"Come here. You're sleeping with us tonight, I cannot trust you. Let's go," Maya grumbled, holding her hand out for Sarah. The teen sighed angrily, getting up and taking her mom's hand, following Maya to her room, where Carina was fast asleep.

"Lay down," the blonde instructed, and Sarah huffed again in frustration, feeling like she was being babysat. "I don't need to sleep here-"

"If your eyes are not closed by the time this sweater is off, you and I will have an issue," Maya growled.

So, the teen muttered to herself, annoyed at what she felt was overprotectiveness, closing her eyes and settling herself into a comfortable position, feeling her mamma's arm being slung over her body.