𝐍𝐨 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐨 𝐃𝐢𝐞

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

["It's a love story, baby just say yes."]

❦

Four years later

I was looking at myself in the mirror adjusting my hair when I felt two familiar arms wrap around me. Her hot breath made the hairs on my neck stand up almost making my body melt in place.

"Hello handsome," Maria whispered in my ear. "Looking good. Are you ready?"

I smile to myself as I spin to face her.  "Not before I'm done with you."

Even now, as I kiss her for the thousandth time, the sensation is so strong that it feels like it's the first. Just before I started to take her clothes off, the door to our room opened wide behind me followed by loud laughter and screams.

"Mom, mom, the twins brought the crickets and grasshoppers in again!"  Ivan complained, jumping into Maria's arms and making her laugh loudly and cheerfully.

"Daddy, look what we got," Yaroslav shouted, running into our room with his fingers wrapped around a big, fat grasshopper.

Immediately after him, Vladimir rushed in, screaming happily when I picked them both up in my arms and spun around.

The twins were completely different in appearance, but the same in discipline.  Yaroslav's hair was blonde, like Ivan's, and Vladimir's was brown like Maria's.  But when they were born, it was hard to tell them apart due to their dark eyes, which only changed later in their second year.

Holding both boys in my arms I told them. "What did we say about grasshoppers and bugs in the house?"

"But Daddy, Uncle Dimitry, and Uncle Sergey told us that we need a pet. A-and we just found this one and h-his name is Sasha." Yaroslav said, extending his hand to Marinka who was looking at him in admiration. "Look, Mommy!"

"Impressive." She commented as if analyzing the creature in Yaroslav's hand.

"Thanks, they learned that from us."  Now the other two stupid twins appeared at our door.

"I think I specifically forbade bringing insects or anything that doesn't walk on two legs into the house." I shot them a look at which they only smirked between themselves.

"Common now Aaron, you know what they're like. Just let them have fun."  Maria put one hand on my shoulder.  "You've been trying to enforce that rule for four years and you know for yourself that no one is going to follow it."

Exactly. After four years, it's hard to introduce any kind of rule when you have an eight-year-old son who likes to bring wild ducks into the house and two three-year-old boys who follow him with fists full of insects they found in the bushes. I'm just wondering what this two-month-old girl we have will be taking in.

"Sir, I'm so sorry. They just slipped out of my hand and ran. I couldn't catch up with them." Sonya ran into the room out of breath, looking at Vladimir and Yaroslav in my arms.

"It's okay Sonya." I breathed out glancing once more at Maria. "I think we can break the no-animals-in-the-house rule. But as long as they're animals you find in the yard and not by the stream."

Maria gave me a satisfied smile before turning to Sonya. "You can get the boys to change. We should be leaving soon."

As the boys left the room, along with everyone else, and the door closed behind them, I took the opportunity to steal another kiss from my wife.

We've been married for nine years, we've had two weddings and it still feels like it was yesterday.

Right after I fulfilled Maria's dream of moving to live in Russia, we got married once again promising each other eternity. And I keep that promise every day.

Now we have a new life. The foundation I started nine years ago, Little Angels, became a business, but our old job did not fail either. Maria is already teaching the boys how to handle a knife and in a few years, I will be teaching them how to shoot a gun.

"So, no more no-animals rule huh?"  Maria smirked, kissing my neck once, slowly. "Does that mean I can bring my pets in too?"

I smile, bringing her head to my chest.  "You can bring your animals too."

"Even my tarantula?"

I chuckled. "Even your tarantula."

Life has become easier now that I have a person to spend it with. Of course, this story will be told for a long time.

And so Romeo and Juliet had their happily ever after.

The end

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