by T. L Smith
That’s where we stay for two days, takeout and no words discussed, just silence and sleep.
Chapter 20
Milanka
Connick stayed even when he shouldn’t have, he should have left when I told him to. He feeds me, cares for me and looks after me, even when I don’t ask for it. I’ve been waiting for the questions to come. But he still hasn’t asked any.
I’m feeling better today, like I want to move. My boss, I’m sure, will be worried where I am. Harlin told me she was going to tell Serena, who in turn, was going to let my boss know I’m sick. My mind and body have needed time to heal, not just from the feeling of the loss. It’s the emotional torment that you put on yourself.
Wasn’t I good enough?
Was it something that I did?
Is this my sin, from all my wrongdoings?
For treating my body badly, instead of how they say it should be treated like ‘a temple.’
It couldn’t be that. Could it?
Rolling over to face Connick, I see his eyes already on me. He’s waiting for me to talk first, for those words to leave my lips.
“You can leave now. I think we’ve both have spent enough time in bed.”
“Are you getting out of bed, Milanka?” He’s still shirtless. I forget how tragically beautiful this man is, even when I’m mad at him, hate him, loathe him. I still see him.
“Yes, I cannot stay in bed forever. I feel better.”
“So can we talk now?” he asks me.
I sit up, and he does the same.
“Ask.” My hands clench in my lap as I wait for the barrage of questions I know are coming my way. I deserve them. Instead, he starts with surprising me with his hands touching mine, holding and squeezing them.
“How come you didn’t tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
He lifts an eyebrow at me. “Don’t play me like a fool, Milanka.”
I drop my head and focus on our hands as I answer him. “It was a shock when I found out. Then we started talking again. I planned on telling you the next day, but then…” I trail off in thought as his hand squeezes and doesn’t let go.
“Even if you thought I didn’t want kids, Milanka, you have to tell me these things. Do you understand?”
Even though his words don’t penetrate through me, I nod my head. He pulls me back down, so my back is on his chest as he kisses my hair. We stay that way not moving, until I know I can no longer remain in this bed for another minute. Pulling myself up, he follows, dressing straight away. I don’t comment on it because Connick should go now, he has work to do, and staying locked away in my hidey place isn’t going to get that done.
After making a coffee, he walks out dressed to kill like he hasn’t been in bed with me for two days straight. He looks like he’s just arrived from a fashion show.
“What do you need?” He sits down to do up his shoelaces and I refuse to answer, rather I just watch him. He looks up and smirks.
“I need things to go back to normal.”
Connick nods his head, stands and walks over to me. His hand touches mine softly. “We have never been normal, Milanka.”
I touch his face. “I know. But we can try?”
He nods his head. “Don’t expect too much. Normal is something I’ve never been.”
I nod my head as he leans in to kiss my forehead, then he walks out, shutting the door behind him. I go to the window, watch as his car leaves, then go straight back to bed. Not intending on leaving there today.
A loud bang wakes me up later on. Checking the clock, I realize I’ve been asleep for a good four hours. Climbing out and walking to my door, the bang comes again, followed by a voice. Pulling it open quickly, I see Serena standing there with a sad smile on her face.
“Did I wake you?”
Shaking my head, I walk back to the kitchen and attempt to make coffee. My cell is sitting next to it, and with a glance I observe several missed calls, messages, and some are even from Connick.
“I wanted to see if you wanted to get out. You’ve been locked up in here for days. Some fresh air will do you good.”
“I’m not in the mood today, Serena.”
“How are things with him? I take it you told him?”
Closing my eyes, I manage to pour the coffee. “I had no other option but to tell him.” Serena’s lips droop, and I know she’s sad for me. I can’t handle that, too much sadness. “He stayed for two days, I had to lie to get him to leave today.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “He cares.”
“Maybe.”
My cell starts ringing, Connick’s name appears on the screen. “Hello.”
“I’m about to leave. What do you want to eat?”
“I’m eating with Serena tonight. Maybe tomorrow night?”
He goes quiet, and Serena looks at me skeptically.
“Do you need anything?”
“No, thanks.”
We hang up, and the minute we do, she starts with more questions.
“I didn’t know we had plans?”
“We don’t.”
“Mils, you can’t do that. Don’t push him away.”
Deflated—that’s how I feel. I just want to go back to sleep, forget, heal.
“I just need to sleep… by myself tonight.”
She nods her head slightly in semi-agreement, and then fills me in on her and Von. He’s been trying to win her back. Plus, trying to have her go back to work. She tells me she won’t, but Serena loves that bar. Every shift she was always smiling, and I know without a doubt she loves working with him. She tells me she won’t, but I’m pretty sure she will.
Serena ends up leaving, and I go straight back to bed in an attempt to sleep my troubles away. It’s better than my other options. At least with this I have full control of my body.
I made an excuse for the next night, then the following night. I went back to work yesterday and told him I was working late and that I needed to rest afterward. The night before I had told him I was with Serena again. That was a lie, but the last one wasn’t. Work is a good distraction, it helps keep me focused, and I actually love everything I’m doing. Coming home is like locking me up after a wonderful day. I remember it all the minute I step back into my house. So each day that I go to work, I try to stay a little longer. Before I realize it, it’s been five days since I’ve seen Connick. I should have realized he wouldn’t let me go much longer without seeing him, so when I come home, he’s waiting at my door for me, with a bag in hand and his driver sitting out front.
“You don’t like coming home, do you?”
I shake my head. I love this place. It’s the biggest I’ve ever had, yet now it feels the smallest. I open the door and he follows me in with his bag.
“Pack this full of everything you need. You’re coming to my place to stay. We can sort everything out here later.”
“What do you mean… sort it all out?”
“Exactly what I meant, you’re moving in with me. Now pack, so we can go and have dinner while it’s still hot.”
“I don’t want to live with you, Connick.”
He looks at me like my words don’t compute. Did I stutter?
“Why not?”
“This isn’t normal…” I wipe my hands around in the air, “… we need to pace it.”
“Fuck pacing it. You hate it here. I hate you being here… by yourself. Get your shit and come to stay with me, Milanka. Easy.”
“I’ll stay, but I won’t move in.”
“Fine, pack your shit so we can go. A cook is preparing our meals.”
“You should have cooked.”
He laughs at my words. “Maybe you should have cooked for me.” He winks at me, but my face stays the same, and he realizes it’s too soon for those words because he gets nothing out of it. His face turns back to straight, hiding his emotions as he passes me the bag. Taking it from him quickly, I walk to my room and pack lightly, enough to last me a few days. He grabs it, feels how light it is, b
ut doesn’t comment.
Then we drive to his home, where there is indeed a woman cooking our meals. They’re ready as soon as we enter. My last decent meal was with him at that Japanese restaurant, since then I’ve been snacking on things. I’m not in the mood to eat much more than that. The food tonight, though, makes my stomach growl, and I can’t help but eat as much as possible. Ribs and vegetables, followed by chocolate mousse.
“Your appetite is back.” He notices so much, it scares me how observant he is.
“Tell me about your family, Connick? About your mother?”
He places his spoon down from his mousse and turns to face me. “Why?”
“I want to know. Tell me, please.”
He nods his head. “She was beautiful… my mother. I don’t remember too much about her, she died when I was a child. She had little to no family at all. My eyes are from her, my skin. I thank her for that because if I were like him, I would be like Derrick. And I despise Derrick.” He notices my wince at the mention of Derrick’s name, and he gives me a half-smile. “She worked in a bar, much like you, when my father met her. He never married her, but he loved her. He tells me all the time that she was it, she was the one who held all of him. He doesn’t speak of her around my stepmother, she hates her. She hates that my mother was it for him and that she could never measure up to her.”
“Do you miss her?”
“I miss that I didn’t have her, yes.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
His lips smirk, but then he drops it. “You don’t want kids, do you?”
“No, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want this child.” My head drops in shame.
“I don’t want kids, Milanka, but if that’s what you want. We can compromise.”
“I don’t think I do… ever again.”
“Tell me why… and I will never bring it up again.”
We haven’t moved from our seats at the table. Instead, we sit there with empty plates in front of us, having a conversation that isn’t leading straight to sex. It’s so unlike us.
“Because I don’t want to be like her.”
“You could never be her, you two are completely different,” he says it as if he means it, but doesn’t he understand a part of me is already her?
Chapter 21
Connick
Milanka sleeps like the dead, still as still can be, and she never moves. When I lay my hand on her during the night, she doesn’t even make a noise. When I get up and get ready for work, she doesn’t stir.
Her alarm goes off on her cell when I’m dressed, and she reaches for it with her eyes closed. Kissing her on the cheek, she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me to her. Milanka pulls me down, so my body’s on top of hers, and I have to do everything in my power to not get hard. I think of dead dogs, grandmas, but it’s no fucking use. A simple touch from her drives me mad, but she isn’t ready for me yet. She needs to heal. Her body was put through so much, as well as her emotions. She releases me, so I stand and walk out to make her a coffee. I’m buttering the toast as she walks in and she smiles.
“I think I want to marry your bed.”
My hand freezes as well as my body. She notices but doesn’t comment.
“You made me coffee,” she gushes, placing it to her lips.
Is that something else she wants? Marriage.
Should I have asked her that? Fuck this shit.
“I have to go to work. Your car is out front, and your keys are on the counter.”
She nods her head with her coffee cup to her lips and her eyes closed.
“Bye,” she mumbles, not even paying attention to me. She’s improved. Is that even a word for someone in her position? Improved? Or better. I don’t know which, but she seems happier this morning. She doesn’t have a dark look covering her eyes as she’s had in the past. A simple smile from her, a touch, it’s all I’ve ever needed. Even if she wasn’t happy for the rest of her life, I think I could suffice with just those two things.
What does that make me? Does it mean I don’t love her the way people speak of love?
Pulling up to work, I see him, standing outside, leaning against the glass window. He spots me straight away, a smirk touches his lips as he walks toward my car. Derrick isn’t welcome here anymore, he should know this, yet here he is like we are friends.
“Brother,” he greets me with a smile.
What I want to do with that smile.
If he knew, he wouldn’t be smiling that’s for damn sure.
“What do you want, Derrick?” Locking my car, I make my way to him, intending not to give him much of my time before I walk away.
“I want to work for you.”
“No.”
“Don’t ignore me, Connick.”
Trying to walk past him, he stops me with his hand on my arm. Looking around, I see too many people are here, too many for me to do what I want.
“You will remove your hand from me, Derrick. Now. Or it will be the last time you use it.”
He drops it and scratches his face. “You took Milanka, like she was yours. You took this business as if it were yours. You can’t share at all?”
“I suppose you expect me to share her as well?”
His lip twitches. “Only if you wish.”
I get close to his face. “You will never have her. Ever. She is mine. My business is mine. I don’t want to see you again, Derrick. That isn’t a threat, it’s a promise. If I see you again, I promise you, you may not be able to walk away.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“Who do you have, Derrick?”
“You have your people, I have mine. Is it yours, Connick? Because we both know how much she loves sex.”
“Yes, Derrick, sex with me is what she loves. She loves it when I slide in and out of her. How she tells me I’m the only one for her. How no other men have fucked her as good as me. How does that feel, Derrick? That she doesn’t even think of you. That you don’t even compare to me.”
Derrick spits in my face, then his fist comes up fast as he aims for me, but he misses as I move and he hits midair, throwing himself to the side.
“You haven’t won, Connick. You think you have, but you haven’t won.” He walks away disappearing down the street, mingling in with the crowd of people.
Walking into the office, Cherry looks behind me. “You’ve seen him?”
I stride straight for my office where she follows me in. “Yes.”
“I told him to leave, he thought otherwise.”
“He won’t be a problem.”
“If you say so…” She pauses and waits for my acknowledgment before she talks again. “How is she? Is she any better?”
“She is today.”
“Good. Don’t be a dick anymore with her. I have a feeling it’s the last chance she’s willing to give you,” she states as she walks out, leaving me to my own devices. Milanka doesn’t message me throughout the day. She doesn’t even call. Milanka isn’t a needy woman, far from it. I, on the other hand, have tried to call her twice, with no answer. She mentioned she was going in to work, and she even had the new camera I bought her with her this morning, sitting on the counter with some other things.
My father calls. Derrick, of course, called them or went to them after our visit today. It’s the last thing I want to listen to after the day I’ve had, because all I want to do is get back to Milanka. To see why she didn’t answer me today, to find out if she missed me.
“You know better than to antagonize him. He goes straight to his mother like the little man he is,” my father says.
“He needs to stay away from me. He needs to understand that, Father. I won’t have him around, fucking with my life.”
“He loves this woman you have. Is this it?”
“That’s not only it.”
“Squish it, Connick. I don’t want to hear another word of it.” He hangs up on me, which annoys me when he does it. I quickly think that it must annoy those I do it to as well. I don’t give
it a second thought, though, as I leave the office for the day. It’s tiring sitting behind a desk in front of a computer all day, and this is why I own a gym. It’s on nights like these that I go to the mud track. Nights where I want to talk shit, and listen to them talk shit. But I want Milanka there with me, so I go straight home to her sitting on the steps of my house with her camera in hand. She looks up when I stop, smiles, then lifts her camera clicking it a few times before I reach her.
“Good day?”
“Very good. I love it. Today we met with this couple. She had been attacked one day on her way home from work. Her face was burned so badly that her skin was red and puckered. But when they touched, Connick, you could tell he loves her because he didn’t look at her, he looks inside her. It kind of reminds me of the way you look at me, even when you’re mad, you look inside me, not at me.”
“It sounds like a beautiful day. I’m so glad, Milanka.”
She stands to click the camera again at me. “We have plans tonight. Can you invite some of your friends?”
My hand swings around her waist as I pull her to me. “I don’t have any friends.”
“Fine, I invited Harlin and Cherry anyway.”
I contain my groan of annoyance, but she catches it anyway and laughs into my chest.
“Should we go then?”
She pushes back off me. “Let me change.”
Milanka’s camera is passed to me before she takes off inside. Sitting down on the same step she just vacated, I flick through it, pictures of me first then it goes to the photos she was speaking of with the couple. Each photo is different, yet you can clearly see his love for her. He’s touching her face with gentle strokes across her scars.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Milanka’s voice breaks through, and I stand up in front of her. She’s dressed in tight black jeans with a halter top. Passing the camera to her, Milanka smiles and walks past me to the car. I open the door for her and she climbs in. She’s too busy looking at her camera to pay attention when I climb in, and all I get from her is where we need to go, then she concentrates on her photographs and flicks through her pictures slowly one by one.