He isn’t cuddling me goodbye.
He’s showing me he has the strength to choke me out if I was a real intruder.
“Pew-pew. Die, dada, die,” he stutters through a mouth full of spit and sleepy, drooped lips. “I tilled you.”
“Killed. Youkilledme,” I correct, aware he hasn’t got a grasp on his K words yet. “And good job. You hit my jugular before I had time to respond. I almost swallowed my Adam’s apple.”
My praise means nothing to most, but to my son, it is as if I lassoed the moon for him.
“Where are you going?” Matteo asks while rubbing a hand over his tired eyes which aren’t hazy enough for him not to recognize I’m dressed in my ‘work’ clothes. “Can I come?”
“Not this time, buddy.” I scoop him off my neck before folding down the bedding and placing him back into bed.
I’m a hard ass gangster, but even I can admit his dropped lip cuts through me like a knife. He wants to be a part of the industry he was born to rule so badly he’s willing to pretend he is older than he is just on the hope I’ll give him a chance to prove himself.
“But I promise you can soon, okay?” I tuck him in before pushing his almost black hair out of his eyes. “But for now, I need you here taking care of mama and sissy for me. We can’t let anything happen to them, can we?”
He shakes his head. “And, and, and.” He stutters when he’s excited. “Not baby brother, either.” The ‘baby brother’ part of his comment clears away half the spit in his mouth.
After wiping his saliva from my face, I arch a brow. “Do you think mommy is having a boy?”
“Uh-huh,” he answers without delay, proving what I’ve always known. He is like me in every way. I also believe Roxanne is having a boy. My belief is so firm, I already have the perfect name picked out for him. “Fien will be angry.” Matteo screws up his face before roaring like a bear, replicating his sister’s angry face to perfection.
“Sissy won’t be mad. If she is, we might have to tickle her into submission.”
When I hold out my hands in preparation to tickle him until he pees his pants, he screams blue murder. He hates being tickled. I don’t blame him. It’s the most emasculating thing in the world. He may only be three, but even he doesn’t want his reputation ruined by his father’s unkosher parenting.
“All right, all right, calm down,” I say when his screams ramp up to a level that would wake the dead. “I’ll save my tickles for Fien.”
Matteo wipes at his sweaty brow before plopping his backside onto his bed. “Phew, ‘cause I need to go potty.”
When he charges for the attached bathroom, I spot a stalker I’m stunned he missed. Usually, not a mountain full of candy steals his devotion from his mother when she’s in the room.
“Let me guess. You threatened to tickle him, didn’t you?” Roxanne saunters into the room, her hips swinging more when she notices my thirsty watch. When my half-smirk answers her question on my behalf, she pulls my hands away from my body, then slips onto my lap.
“Don’t fucking tempt me,” I growl under my breath when she moans about the reaction my body had to her seductive walk. “Our son is in the bathroom most likely peeing all over the seat, and our daughter is asleep in the room next to us. I don’t have the time nor the privacy needed to work through all your kinks.”
Roxanne smiles during the first half of my statement, coos at the second, then straight-up pouts throughout the ending. “I didn’t come here to tease you.” The whine her words are delivered with reveals she’s lying. Alas, her wish for me to see sense through the madness is stronger than praying our son falls asleep in the bathroom. “I just wanted to remind you to look at Nikolai like Fien did Matteo when he was born. The connection is there somewhere.” She holds her hand over my heart. “It’s just buried really, really,reallydeep.”
“Deep enough to ever find?” I ask before I can stop myself.
My kids have made me weak.
My wife has made me weak.
But I still wouldn’t change one goddamn thing about my life.
Roxanne cups my jaw like she did while reminding me I’m not fighting alone before nodding. “If you’re willing to dig deep enough, you’ll eventually find it.”
Stealing my chance to reply, she presses her lips to mine. The wish for a murderous bloodbath skates through my veins when she fails to open her mouth at the demand of my lashing tongue. I get why she’s holding back, I can feel Matteo’s beady eyes all the way from the bathroom. I just fucking hate that she’s holding back.
Her lips bring me back from the brink. They could very well be the only thing that will see me coming out of today without the blood of my brother on the sleeve of my dress shirt, so I’m not willing to give them up for anything.
“Matteo, close your eyes.”
Like the good foot solider he’s endeavoring to become, he snaps his eyes shut in an instant. Always one step ahead of his competitors, he doubles his assurance he can follow orders by clamping his hands over his eyes, and even quicker than that, I ram my tongue down his mother’s throat, then kiss her with everything I have.
It isn’t the brightest idea I’ve ever had. Now I have to work out how to exit Matteo’s room without him spotting the tent I’m pitching in my pants, but I’d do it all again in an instant if it gives me the same calm, nurturing effect. My life isn’t anything close to pretty, but Roxanne’s lips on mine remind me that even the most hideous paintings can be seen as artistic when viewed by the right set of eyes.
