MIA|PRESENT DAY|“Charlie will take care of the sales and the venue. Go home, MAE”WITH A SCRUTINIZING LOOK, HER HANDS REACHED over to mine over her glass desk, running a creasing thumb on my palm.I gave her a small tight smile. Work was the only thing keeping me sane and home well home was just one apartment filled with things Elise had bought over the past months and it didn’t really feel like home.“Okay”, I said curtly, she stood up from her chair walking around her desk and leaning down to hug me.“I’m not trying to get rid of you, you know that right? You deserve a break, sis. You need a break from all of this”“I know”And she was right. Kissing the top of my head, her heels clicked against the floor as she went back to her seat.Then with that business look she posed for magazines on many occasions, she leveled me with,“I’ll see you later?”“Yeah, and please make sure Charlie doesn’t mess this up”“I will, take care”Picking my bag from the seat opposite mine, I struggled
FLAMES“SIT”As soon as I stood in the doorway closing the door behind me, the mutt came running, clawing my pants at the seams.His eyes wandered to the shopping bag in my left hand and I barked another order knowing very well he wouldn’t listen to a damn thing.“Stay” He barked and I picked him up with one hand setting my bag somewhere on the ground.Training Thunder on the dos and don’ts had escaped my mind a long time ago. He didn’t pee or poop in the house thank the fucking gods for that.We had established some sort of system together. He didn’t leave me and I fucking didn’t leave him either.He was the only fucking good thing going on and I guess deep down I was the only person he gave a fuck about.Setting him down on the couch and escaping to the kitchen to get his bowl, the metallic container had barely touched my fingers when my phone buzzed in my pants.Geoffrey Culkin aka Jeff never called if shit hadn’t gone sideways on my end.And on occasion, it was either my men had
FLAMESI WAS BLOODY RUNNING TO MY CAR TOO.CRAZED, OUT OF MY FUCKING MIND, PISSED, CONFUSED.The phone I had dodged somewhere on my passenger’s seat rung. Traffic gained on us, the Audi sedan changed lane and I was two fucking cars behind to catch up to her.Fucking Mia Tonelli.I came to a stop the minute the red light shone from the traffic post picking my phone with hands shaking and that was a first.I might have been angry at the situation, probably angry too at myself for chasing after a woman I swore never to chase the minute she left my fucking life but I was anxious and with the anxiety came the realization that she was two times her weight with a baby bump of what?Five? Four months?Around the time we weren’t together?She was carrying a fetus in there not that pregnant women carried canon balls in them in the first place but the question was…Shit.Was the kid mine? I might have not have liked the idea. Might have not wanted to chase after a woman under the hot sun across
MIATHE COPS MIGHT HAVE RETURNED MY CRUSHED BEYOND REPAIR PHONE. PROBABLY ASKED ME IF I NEEDED ANY ASSISTANCE BUT what I needed so bad was to run away.Then Alessandro had caught up to me in the parking lot and no matter how hard I tried running he caught up to me but the most heartbreaking thing of the day was the way he looked at me, the way he said what he said, how happy he was when I told him he wasn’t the father.And that moment right there I wanted to tell him he was the father instead, to watch his reaction as he realized well surprise surprise we were having a fucking baby.The tears I had shed when I got into my car were so bitter, I felt like I was drowning in a pit of lemon sours.It hurt in my chest, it hurt in my muscles and it hurt that no matter the time and distance, Alessandro Petrakis was in my heart.Taking the elevator to my apartment had been so difficult, I had to lean against the walls taking short breaths to even out the melancholy circulating my body the way
FLAMESTRACING HER BACK TO HER APARTMENT WASN’T A PIECE OF CAKE BUT Holy had done it and while I absorbed every little information in her life, revelations were made, surprises I didn’t see coming assaulted my mind threatening to turn my whole world upside down.But the bloody surprise of them all, was fuck…fuck, fuck, fuck, I was going to be a father.A father to her kid and she’d straight up lied to me like it was nothing.The minute the gringo with the beige suit left her apartment, I was already up in her little fancy elevator making my way up with the mutt in MY hands.I wanted her to see us when I confronted her about all the shit she had done to us.I wanted her to feel that we were better than okay after she left us.And most of all I had brought this dog with me because I didn’t trust myself around her.I wouldn’t kill her and the urge was there but at the same time I didn’t trust myself enough to act right around her.There would be some ugly revelations, there would be some
MIA“I’VE BEEN CALLING YOU SINCE FOREVER, Chen said everything is alright but he is Chen he’ll say just about anything to cover for you. What’s going on Mia? Do I need to take the first flight back home because I cannot risk anything happening to you or my baby niece or nephew”Elise rambled on and on, I was practically biting my nails torn between telling her the truth and not telling her.“Um I lost my phone, so sorry for not calling you. How’s Singapore?”“Everything okay?”No. fuck no.“Y-yeah I’m in tip top shape Lise, don’t worry about me”“Okay so about Singapore, I think I might stay here for a while. I don’t want to bore you with the tiresome details of what’s going on here but the bottom line is, everything’s a mess. See you in a week two and hey, take good care of yourself”“If anyone can fix the mess there it’s you. Take all the time you need; your nephew and I will be on my couch waiting for you”She laughed and with a few jokes here and there she hung up.Whatever anxiet
FLAMESTHE MOST EROTIC SHIT I HAD SEEN IN MY LIFE?WELL, IT CERTAINLY WASN’T A PREGNANT woman licking icing from a cupcake.“You come here a lot?” she asked snagging another cupcake from the box, taking the paper off carefully before she stuffed her face with the small cake barely chewing it.I didn’t come here a lot.Hell, the only time I had come here was with Lucy and Molly in their attempt of trying to make me alright after the woman seated across me practically tore my heart from my body.“No”, I answered.She wiped her cheeks with the napkin entirely missing the white frosting at the edge of her lips. If I so much as stood up from my chair and leaned over I could practically wipe it from her face with my tongue but that would be torture.Torture for me because she was a fucking no go zone.I didn’t feel shit for her anymore, all I cared about was my little monster growing in her belly.“Ooh”, she pouted, “well care to tell me why you were following me?”It wasn’t following, it w
MIAIF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME this was the welcome reception, I was getting maybe I would have stayed home instead of entertaining the absurdity that was living with a man who had warmed his way back to my heart with a simple gesture.“I’m sorry”“And?”“You are not a bitch”The kid lamented; I ruffled his hair cheekily taking a seat on the white sheet covered bed.“And you are not a bad kid, Jace. Does that mean we can be friends?”Jace scooted even further near me, his tiny hand resting on my tummy.“Only if he’ll be my friend too”, he quipped, I chuckled.“Of course, but you gotta promise me something”“Anything!” he grinned jumping on the bed with his knee length brown cargo shorts and a spiderman themed t-shirt.“You won’t be like your uncles. No bad words and no swearing like a sailor. Do you promise?”“I promise, Aunt Mia!” he squealed and I hugged him just because.This kid was a survivor too. His parents were gone but he was still mellow and living life like how a normal kid