“Real.”
He grinned and lifted both hands. “A’ight, a’ight.”
He was still laughing when he disappeared. Theory led me to the middle of the room to center seats. For a while, we ate popcorn, sipped from the same soda, and watched people whose Houston accents were nowhere near authentic. I loved this shit anyway.
I settled deeper into the seat beside my wife while the movie played. Right around the scene where Lyric softly quoted: “Come live with me, and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove…” Theory shifted beside me, then climbed directly into my lap, her back to my front.
My hands automatically spread across her thighs.
“A’ight. This my type of carrying on,” I murmured against her neck.
She kissed her teeth. “Boy, hush.” But she giggled softly, her voice sounding kind of nervous again.
Interesting.
She leaned back against my chest, then reached for my hands, settling them on the hem of her top.
“Lift it.”
My brows rose immediately. “In this fine public establishment?”
“Nobody’s here.”
“Real ass somewhere lurking.”
“He know better. Plus, Mikhail and Juvie guarding the door.”
I smiled slowly. “You got a lotta faith in these niggas.”
She looked over shoulder and smiled at me softly. “I have a lotta faith inyou.”
“Ay, what you romance writers call that warm feeling I get in my chest when you say shit like that?” I asked, trying to play off that that was exactly how I felt. My fingers slid beneath her shirt carefully. Warm skin and the metal of her waist chain met my palms, then I dragged it over my wife’s head, already anticipating what we were about to get into.
Then I saw the bandage stretched across her back.
I froze. No new hurt was allowed to her, not on my fucking watch. Not ever again. Had she been hiding this? Was this the reason for the nervousness? The disappearing all week? The secretive behavior? That warm feeling I had just been talking about was suddenly a different kind of heat.
“Theory…”
“Take it off.”
“Baby—”
“Man, just do it!”
Slowly, carefully, I peeled the bandage away, and when it was gone, my breath left me on a rough exhale.
The fresh, lightly-greased tattoo stretched beautifully across the center of her back, not low or hidden. Butterflies and flowers curled around delicate skulls in swirls of colorful ink. It made no sense, but somehow… it just did. And in pretty script, right in the center were two words:Mrs. Sidorov.
My hands went still against her skin.
Onscreen, Lyric’s soft voice continued talking in its exaggerated southern twang, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat. Theory shifted nervously in my lap. “Say something.”
How the fuck could I when my baby was telling me that she was choosing to settle in with me and this life, represented inskulls and a Russian Bratva name entwined with the butterflies and honeysuckle she loved?
My brilliant, stubborn, complicated wife was choosing my violent, stubborn, complicated self. She moved restlessly, waiting for my response, I knew. I cleared my throat, found my words.
“You put my name on you,” I said hoarsely.
