Preg-Not

38

"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.