Maria sat surrounded by a sea of crape paper, soft baby blue balloons, and tacky signs covered in cheese slogans like: "Good-Bye Sleep, Hello Baby" and "It's a Boy!". This was the baby shower for little Ludwig (who should be arriving in the next month or so) organized by Antonio.
He had decided it was his duty to sneak into the apartment that she and Francis shared before hanging up decorations and setting up party games. There were a couple of problems with the whole surprise baby shower plan. Antonio had to come over early, the man had no concept of what early meant so he thought that eleven in the morning was early and enough time to set things up before the other guests would arrive around noon; it was his weekend to have the twins and it was extremely difficult to make sure most toddlers could stay quiet for an hour, let alone two who were prone to crying and temper tantrums; Francis was in charge of the food and had brought it all home the night before; both of them underestimated the bizarre eating habits and weak bladders of a pregnant woman.
Maria had figured something was up at four-thirty in the morning after during one of her frequent bathroom breaks. It had started out as a trip to the toilette but soon after she had finished her business an uncontrollable desire hit her to go and eat. So she stalked her way to the kitchen on the prowl for the left over pizza that she had saved from a few hours prior. What she found instead was both horrifying and beautiful (perhaps horrifyingly beautiful?). The cardboard box of pizza was gone, but in its place were trays of finger foods, sweets, and some kind of pasta dish. Whatever, she figured if her body wanted pizza then some of that pasta would have to do (after all there was cheese, carbs, and tomatoes in it—the basic building blocks of pizza). When Antonio had entered the house, Maria has managed to sleep through that. But only 15 minutes into his arrival her bladder was once again at maximum capacity and she waddled her way across the hall and into the bathroom. As she made her way back to the hall she caught the sound of a giggle from the living room followed by a shushing noise. This is when she discovered Antonio sitting on the living room floor the decorations forgotten as he tickled Lovino.
And that was how the surprise had been ruined.
Maria had been forced to retreat back to her room by both of her best friends, and cutely enough little Lovino and Feliciano as well. She had sat there as the two idiots finished hanging up the crape paper, setting up the table, and guiding the balloons into position before they called to her and told her it was ok to come out.
So, now, there she was thirty minutes into the failure of a surprise baby shower, feeling both thankfulness for the thought and second hand embarrassment for their lack in tack. "So, who else did you invite?" Maria asked raising her eyebrow from her spot on the couch.
Antonio thought for a moment, "Eli, but he said he was going to be late because he had to pick something up. You're dad… he never got back to me… Belle—"
"Who's Belle?" France quickly interjected suddenly looking very interested.
Maria turned her head to fix her blond friend with half of a death glare, "It's my special day Francis, so I hope you know you weren't going to be trying to bed any of the party guests." She gave a quick laugh unsure if it was meant to soften the blow and prove that she was joking, or if even though she had set up those parameters he would somehow still have been able to finish off the day with a date. She then turned back to Antonio, "So, who is this Belle? I don't know anyone with that name."
"Ah, well that's why she said she didn't want to come since she hadn't met you yet and that would be rude."
"This still hasn't answered the question."
"Oh right," the perma-smile on his face got even wider, "She's my girlfriend. Or well we've been seeing each other for about a month so I think she's my girlfriend now… plus she really likes Lovi and Feli… and they both like her, even Lovi likes her so that's a good sign right?" Antonio laughed.
Heck yeah it is… I didn't think it was possible for that brat to like anyone, Maria thought though she had enough sense not to say it and from the look on Francis's face he was thinking the same exact thing. So she settled on a cheerful "Congratulations man! It's great that you're finally dating after my bitchy cousin." Because it really was true. She hadn't been able to stand it when he and Rue had started to date, then when they got engaged, married, she had gotten pregnant—all of it. When he had told her the two were getting divorced Maria had honestly been excited thought could tell that it was bothering Antonio so she never said anything about her joy… since that would have probably just been cruel.
Francis said his congratulations too, followed by some cheesy line about how great it was to be in love and how badly he wished he could find just one person to dedicate his heart to. This elicited an eye roll from every adult in the room, the twins had fallen asleep in their play pin, but Maria was certain even in their dreams they had heard that and rolled their eyes behind their closed eye lids.
"So that's all you invited, three people? Man I though you knew I was more popular than this Toni!"
"Are you? I mean I asked Katya and Rue to come too and they both said they could see what they could do."
"You what?" Maria yelled out.
"Well you seem to like Katya—"
"I like Katya." Francis interjected in the background but he went ignored.
"And Rue's your cousin so I figured family was a good idea."
"Yeah but while I think Katya's fine she's Ivan's fucking sister and I want that crazy bastard as far away from me until I figure out if I should get a restraining order or something. He's also totally creepy and could use his tactics to pry information from her. Trust me she can't say no to that psychopath. That's like practically inviting evil into the house. But shit Satan asks for permission first, Ivan doesn't." Maria sighed covering her eyes with the palms of her hands. Antonio was letting out a stream of apologies. She breathed, "It's fine." Well Katya had so far kept up her end of the bargain about seeing what she could do about Ivan… and it had been more than two months since he had come-a-knocking on their door.
Still even if Katya didn't show up and didn't tell Ivan what was going on… there was still the matter of Rue. "Why would you invite your ex-wife? Seriously, she's your ex-fucking-wife. Shit and Eli's going to be here soon too? SO what is it a reunion of that woman's ex-husbands of something?"
"Oh, right… they were married weren't they." Antonio let out a little laugh rubbing at the back of his neck.
"Yes. Plus Francis is here, and while she might be with that other guy I have a sinking suspicion she would lee him for a chance to sink her evil harpy claws into him too."
"Hey, I'd never marry your cousin." France lifted his hands up in defense, "I am a lover but that kind of commitment I am no way ready for."
"Please marrying that woman isn't a commitment she'll leave you in a matter of a year or something. The prissy bitch likes to act like she's a high and mighty symbol of classy upper class whatever. Just she might not even show so I'm not going to get worked up over it." Maria threw her hands up in the air, "Someone get me something to eat."
Antonio stood up and made his way to the table where the food was being stored and started to pile thinks up on one of the powder blue paper plates. There was a knock on the door and Francis stood up to answer it. Suddenly he came rushing back and practically hissed, "It's Rue!"
"The demon knew we were talking about her." Maria hissed back maneuvering herself so that he knees were digging into the couch, she shot a look over at Antonio.
"Maybe if we ignore her she'll go away."
"That would be rude though." Antonio said at a normal volume, completely oblivious as to why they were whispering.
There was muffled speech from the other side of the door that they couldn't make out followed by a louder voice, this one belonging to Rue and it was quite obvious why she was being so loud, "Oh Eli, what are you doing here?"
"NO!" Maria yelled out unable to hold in the pain. She then suddenly went back to whispering, "Shit let her in. Hold on though I need to do something… wait until I get to my room." She stood up from the couch after two tries and a hand from Antonio, before slowly making her way to her room. In the time it took to get there, there were another two knocks on the door.
Maria shut her bedroom door behind herself and heard Francis greeting both her boyfriend and cousin at the door as they entered. Right, so Maria had to make the whole thing as quick as she could and looked around the room frantically for something else to wear. The sweatpants weren't going to cut it if Rue was in the house. Her mind flashed back to one of the hideously in fashion maternity dresses that Francis had bought her. Maria ran to the closet and started to shift through the mess for the thing.
"Finally!" she let out a little gasp of victory as she lifted the pale blue dress with tiny flowers all over it in a darker blue from the closet, thankful that it wasn't just straight up white. She tossed away her shirt and kicked off the sweatpants before coming to the realization that she was going bare back and braless…
The lack of panties wouldn't be such a bother, the dress was long enough that she didn't really need to worry about taking anyone's picture. Maria then waddled her way over to the dresser and went through the top drawer for a bra that would fit. Finding an actual one wasn't going to well so she settled on a sports bra pulling out and stuffing her swollen breast inside of it. Then she tossed on the dress thankful that it wasn't wrinkled and that it was big enough to fit over her stomach. Lazily she clipped her hair back into a messy bun and slipped on a pair of sandals that were sitting next to the bedroom door before walking into the hall. She let out a deep breath shutting the door behind her and holding her stomach for effect as she made her way back to the living room.
She only had seconds to decide how to make her entrance. She needed something to say the moment she "noticed" that Rue and Eli had entered the apartment.
"Oh there you are!" Rue said standing up from her spot on one of the armchairs. Maria held back a hiss annoyed that her cousin had managed to say something first, "Look at you, it looks like you actually put effort into the way that you look today. I'm so much more used to your…" she paused clearly for effect to let everyone know that she had insulted her cousin but in a back handed way, "… effortless beauty. That's what it's called right when a woman manages to look lovely without clearly trying one bit."
There was a brief uncomfortable silence in the room. All the while though Maria kept her smile plastered to her facing hoping that it hadn't faltered one bit. "Oh Rue it's wonderful how you can keep all of your poise and elegance despite being in a room full of men that you've managed to scorn? I mean every one of them here has a history with you other than Francis."
Another moment were everything was quiet before her cousin let out a loud laugh (though it was quite obviously fake). "It's been too long since we've had one of our moments. Your feet must be so tired you should sit down. I know I was exhausted when I was having the twins." She motioned towards the two sleeping toddlers who had managed to stay completely out through the drama.
Maria grinned before settling back into her spot at the center of the couch between Francis and Eli. She took her boyfriend's hand right away and kissed him on the cheek as soon as she sat down. "Hello Eli." She said very clearly before whispering in his ear, "we can kill Antonio together later."
He kissed her back, "Sorry I was running late," he then followed up her whisper with one of his own, "I know the perfect place to hide the body."
He's so perfect for me. Maria thought.
"So, how long have the two of you been together exactly?" Rue asked her eyebrows raised as she motioned towards Maria and Eli.
2013-09-03 17:17 (UTC)(link)
"A few months now." Eli said cheerfully.
"So this little bundle of joy isn't yours then?"
"No, or course not."
Rue let out a sigh of relief, "Oh thank goodness I was worried that you had cheated on me Eli. But now that I know it's not yours we can go ahead and have a lovely party."
The room went silent yet again. Maria cursed Antonio mentally for extending the woman and invitation. Eli held in the obvious Like what you did to me that he was so clearly thinking. Antonio continued with his genuine oblivious grin. And Francis swooped in and saved the situation from exploding into a fist fight.
"So should we play a game. Antonio do you have the drawing pad."
"Let me get it from the closet." He hurried over to the hallway closet grabbing what he needed before making his way back to the ring of fire-y hatred, "It's baby themed Pictionary." He smiled holding up a large black marker and over-sized paper pad.
Francis stood up alongside, Antonio and assisted him with setting up the easel. That was until the knock on the door.
Everyone froze for a moment looking around the room. Unsure of who it could be out of the other two people Antonio could have invited. Maria's father was a very prompt man so odds of it being him were slim, if he was running late he would have called a head and Maria's phone hadn't rang once. That left Katya but she would have called a head too…
Rue looked around at the others looking confused as to why no one had gotten the door, before she stood up and did so herself. "I guess I'll just get that then. Looks like you're a bit more popular then I was starting to think you were!"
Maria and Eli turned their heads from their spot on the couch, their faces twisting into an absolutely horrified expression as the door opened to reveal Ivan. He had his typical smile on his face as he entered the apartment. "Hello everyone!"
The twins finally woke up the moment Maria, Antonio, Francis, and Eli all let out a small screech of terror.
Author's Note: One more chapter left guys then I will be doing an epilog… maybe/mostlikely