23. RED WINE BEFORE BEDTIME.
"I'mma kill this boy." Cookie muttered underneath her breath as she trudged through the mansion corridors. "Lucious!"
With frustration brewing through her entire being, Cookie rounded the corner and stormed into the master bedroom to complain to her husband. Lucious took in his wife's annoyed appearance as he lounged back in their King-size bed, warmed by cotton bedsheets, indulging himself with expensive red wine and popcorn as he entertained himself with a horror movie on the television. Wrapped in a thin satin robe, Cookie walked to her husband with her fluffy pink sliders slapping on the wooden flooring and shoved the phone in his face, ignoring his grunt of annoyance and gesture toward the television. Cookie sucked her teeth, prompting him to reach over to grab the remote to pause his film, so he could pay attention to what had gotten his wife so riled up.
Lucious took the phone from Cookie's hold and read the title aloud. "Is playboy Hakeem Lyon following in his Father's footsteps?" Lucious' eyebrows kissed together in confusion. He glanced up at Cookie in questioning, but she rolled her eyes and gestured for him to continue reading. "A source close to the Lyon family," Cookie scoffed. "Claims Hakeem Lyon has an illegitimate cub on the way." Lucious squinted at the screen with shock before looking up his wife, whose arms were crossed around her body as she paced up and down the room. "Is this real? Have you spoken to the boy?" He questioned.
She snapped her head in his direction. "No," she snapped. "I haven't spoken to your son, and conveniently, all my calls to your children are going straight to voicemail." Cookie smacked her teeth and threw up a hand. "What's with Lyon men?" she questioned, aloud. "Do y'all not know how to use condoms, stupid?"
Sensing that he was about to get bulldozed by his wife's anger over their childish son's actions, he grabbed a clean glass that had been waiting for Cookie once she'd finished completely some last-minute paperwork for Bossy Media. He poured the red wine into the glass and extended it toward Cookie as a peace offer. Cookie pursed her lips, but took the glass and gulped down the rich, expensive red liquid before sinking onto the bottom of the bed. Lucious tilted his head to the side and observed his mentally exhausted wife. Hakeem better pray that this baby news is lies because Lucious wasn't sure if he could save his youngest son from a broom beating. The news that he'd gotten Anika pregnant had been bad enough, considering she had been his Father's ex-fiancée and almost stepmother at the time, but another unplanned, messy pregnancy was insane and unfortunately, straight up Hakeem's alley. Just another reckless situation that would have the Lyon name mocked.
"Baby?" Lucious called out to his wife. Cookie glanced at her husband over her shoulder with an arched eyebrow. "Get in the bed."
Cookie kissed her teeth. "I need to sort this shit out with the PR team, Lucious. Preferably after I talk to your dumbass son."
"Why are they always just my children when they do some foolishness?" he asked, incredulously, with a chuckle.
"Because it's your bad genes coming to the surface." Cookie retorted before she rose to her feet and rounded her side of the bed. Lucious smiled, lovingly, at her and patted the bed in gesture for her to come and sit down, which she reluctantly did with the wine glass still tightly clutched between her fingers.
"We'll deal with it tomorrow, baby," he promised, setting her phone down on the bedside table. "It's midnight, Cook. You can't do anything today." She opened her mouth to protest. "Let Hakeem sort this mess out. He's not a little boy anymore. He's a grown-ass man. Let him handle his shit. Stop babying him, woman."
