Preg-Not part 38

They walked outside, where three guards and the doctor are waiting. Instead of heading for the car, Raelynn circled it.

“What are you doing?”

“Walking.”

“There’s a car right here. There is no need for you to walk.”

She waved him off. “You’ve gotten too spoiled, Kuznetsov. Are you afraid a little Arizonian dirt will ruin your leather shoes?”

“Cleaning the filthy apartment already did that!” he threw at her.

She laughed and sped up in case he wanted to manhandle her into the car.

“Slow down,” he grunted while jogging to her. His voice was gravely, but the palm he placed at the small of her back was gentle.

They were quite the sight with their fancy clothes, and the sleeky black car that trailed after them.

“You should be in the car. This part of town has always been sketchy,” he pushed.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you if someone tries to mug us.”

Maksim blew a breath, tired of her antics. Raelynn only smiled. She figured this was good practice for when he had two exhausting babies to deal with.

His hand moved from her back to her hand. The streets were mostly silent, and the air was cool. She missed this place. As wonderful as New York stopped, it never seemed to stop, and that was exhausting to keep up with.

She inhaled deeply to take in the smell of home. Maksim’s perfume mixed with it, and that made her laugh, because every part of him seemed to be arrogant.

“What’s so funny?”

The question only made her laugh harder.

Maksim stopped, turned, and stared at her with glistening eyes. He leaned until he hovered over her, and suddenly there were three moons in the sky.

She shuddered.

Misinterpreting her heat as coldness, he shrugged off his jacket, dusted it, and swung it over her shoulders.

“Come. You need to eat.”

He led her down the sidewalk, and Raelynn felt something in her belly. At first, she thought it was a twin shifting around, but then recognized it as butterflies.

Something other than life was sprouting inside of her.

When they reached the spot, Maksim held the door open for her. Many pairs of eyes turned to them– two teenagers, one middle-aged man, and two staff members.

Although Raelynn wasn’t wearing any jewelry and her dress was ripped, she still looked out of place. Mainly because of the tall, broad male beside her.

She glanced at his wrist. His twenty-whatever-thousand-dollar watch was still there, competing with the silverwear with its glint.

“Raelynn? Hey, that guy is blacklisted from here,” the manager pointed from behind the counter.

Maksim’s tattoos were so unforgettable that they made it easy to recognize him.

Maksim ignored the comment and scanned the menu with a scowl, probably regretting not bringing along the maid.

“This fried shit is so unhealthy for you and the babies.”

She touched his arm. “Maybe we should order takeout food.”

“Why? You walked all the way here.”

Her eyes moved to the angry manager, and Maksim followed. He replied by tugging the jacket higher up her shoulder and gesturing to the menu.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Let’s go, Mak.”

“Don’t worry about him. I’ll deal with it.”

“No,” she whispered. “Just because you have money doesn’t put you above everyone else. We should leave if we’re unwelcomed.”

“But–”

“Please? It’s okay. We can eat somewhere else.”

Maksim tensed as an inner war waged.

She tugged his hand. “Come on.”

He relented, but not without sending a glare to the register.

“Good to see you, Phil,” she smiled weakly.

“You shouldn’t have gotten knocked up by that pile of garbage.”

She rushed to close the door to stop Maksim from barging back in there.

She took his hand. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

He didn’t reply.

“Is being superior that important to you?” she asked.

“It’s not about superiority. It’s not about me. It’s–” he cursed a word in Russian. “It’s about taking care of you. Why can’t I do it even when now I have all this fucking money?”

She considered his words silently. Then, she reached down and ripped a piece of pink cloth from her dress. She tied a little bow around his wrist, right beside his ridiculous watch.

“What is this?”

“A wish.”

“What?”

“For your sweetness, you get a wish. In the future, you can use it to ask me for anything.”

He considered it. “Anything?”

“Yes, anything.”

He stared at the cute little pink bow, and she wondered if he would rip it off. He proved her wrong by lowering his arm and scanning the dimly lit street.

“Do you remember the Chinese place we used to eat from?”

“Yeah, but I think you’re blacklisted from there, too.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I can be nice if they try to pull some shit there. My patience is running on fumes.”

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting on the sidewalk with ketchup-smeared fingers. Maksim barely ate, apparently too cool for anything other than steak.

“Mmm, this is so good.”

“Really? Because I think I saw the cook spit in your food.”

“No, he didn’t, or you would’ve done something ridiculous like setting the place on fire.”

He shrugged, knowing that he was guilty, and then scanned his men who were parked across the street. As sweet as this night was, it wasn’t forever. Their real life would always come knocking and drag them back.

“We need to leave tomorrow morning. The business… the underworld. I have to go back.”

“Will it always be like this? Will you ever leave it behind?”

He looked her dead in the eye, and answered, “no.”

The spell of the night seemed to break then and there.

“Right,” she cleared her throat and bagged the garbage. “We should get going, then.”

The walk to the motel was short. It was still open, and they had a double-bed room in minutes. She took a quick shower, slipped into the clothes the men bought for her, and sank into her own bed.

Maksim cleaned up after her, and they were submerged into darkness.

She was waken up hours later. Maksim was dressed in a fresh t-shirt and jeans. She liked the casual look on him.

“The flight is in two hours. We have that club gathering tonight. It will be quick. I don’t want to stress you,” he told her as he texted rapidly. He was engrossed by his phone.

The Maksim of yesterday was gone.

“Yeah,” she replied.

One of the twins started kicking, but she didn’t want to interrupt Maksim to tell him that. There was a chance he would prefer to tend to his phone, and it would kill her to see the twins get rejected.

He picked up a call, and she watched him argue over the phone for an hour. He was out of touch; so lost in his anger that he forgot she was in the room.

She didn’t want this life.

But Maksim would never let her go.