by Amarie Avant
“Serenity used to hate when we ate this stuff. She did her best to feed us real food when we bought, or sometimes stole these noodles. We wouldn’t hear the end of it. She was like the teen mothers you talked to today.”
“Yeah, they all had hard lives,” Mila agreed. “They do their best.”
“She finished her high school diploma at night while working at a fast food place during the day. Isaac and I would sneak and eat this before she came home because we didn’t want her trying to cook.”
Mila’s mouth tipped up at the edges as he spoke of the fond memory.
“But no matter how much Serenity hated it, or how she’d try to bring home some of the messed-up orders, so we at least had some real food, Isaac and I loved this shit.” He began to scoop it out. “Mila, I know what it’s like to struggle. No matter how many billions I’ve made, my stomach roars when I’m hungry.”
Her chocolate brown eyes began to water. “Oh, baby.”
“I can’t promise that one day the stock market won’t crash or that the dollar won’t become more worthless than a fucking peso or what have you. But, baby, you have me.”
She reached out to place her hand over his, but Blake picked up his drink. He let the burn wash down his throat. Fuck, I could use another.
“You are mad, Blake! Talk to me,” she said. Mila sat, spine rigid.
“I am. Honestly, I’ve never been so angry in my life.”
“Keep it coming,” she tried. “What’s wrong.”
“Why do you continue to ask that, Mila? You are too complex. You didn’t allow me to fuck you at first sight. You knew how to string me along—”
“I’m playing you?” Mila scoffed.
“No. But you know my fucking buttons, beautiful . . . but do you really know how much I want to marry you?”
“I’m . . .” She stopped short. Her gaze flickered into oblivion.
“I bet the next thing out your mouth will be that you like what we have. You love me. And we can do this forever. Is that the next words you’re going to say, because honestly, baby, I don’t need that shit.”
She picked up her wine and took a sip. “Blake, don’t cuss at—”
“I love you.”
Mila stood abruptly. “I know that, Blake. And I’m trying here . . .”
Blake’s laugh came out too loud, fake. “Precisely what I thought you’d say. You know I love you. I know you love me.” He sat back in his chair and cocked an eyebrow. As far as her trying, he thought, she wasn’t. She just kept pulling away from him. “Is it trust? I thought we came to an understanding that I’ve claimed you for myself. A real man doesn’t need a harem of women—once he’s found the one. I thought we were both cognizant of my morals… no matter how loose they are in certain instances, I wouldn’t cheat!”
“I know you’re monogamous, Blake, damn.” She placed her hand on her hip. “How superficial do you think I am? If I didn’t trust your ass, there’d be no us! Listen, we had our happily ever after while I ran after you all the damn way to Asia. I would’ve been stupid to try and climb mountain Annapurna if I believed you had less than good intentions.”
He stood. “Then of all the romances you’ve had in the past—”
“What romances, Blake?”
“Warren. The guy you had an arrangement with!”
“Those weren’t romances. My dad made the arranged marriage. I didn’t even know the guy. And Warren was a—”
Blake cut in. “Friend.”
“Yes.”
“Now, I can say that I know. I’m aware Warren loved you more.”
“You’re being an asshole, Blake.” She started to back away from the table.
“I am fucking in love with you, Mila.” He grabbed her arms and shook her. “And I don’t have you, baby! I do not fucking have you.”
“You do.” She pushed her way into his arms, but he didn’t hug her. His thick biceps were locked down at his sides.
“Just tell me, if I ask you to marry me in five years, ten—fuck it—twenty, will you say yes?” He breathed the words into her hair as she cried into his neck.
“Blake, I love you.”
“Just give me a number. Should I propose in the summer? Or your birthday. Or Christmas. Or never. Tell me if it’s never, baby, tell me I’m wasting my time by asking, and I’ll be okay. I promise nothing will change. Tell me!”
Mila
Her eyelids closed tightly on the sting of flowing tears. Blake needed an answer. He craved it deep within his bones. It was evident in the way that he finally clutched her to him, holding her in a bear hug. Despite his declaration that they didn’t have to marry and that he’d be okay, Mila’s throat was too constricted to respond. She was afraid that, regardless of his words and intentions, she would slowly lose Blake. Nevertheless, she cried streams of hard tears into his chest. Vivid images roamed through her mind:
Losing her best friend, Warren.
Warren in a casket.
Her torpedoing through their wine cellar, drinking all the good wine and polishing off the bad, cheap stuff for company as well.
And then her mind was inundated with thoughts of how happy her father was when he secured what should have been her perfect life. An honorable arranged marriage that she blew to shit for college and a Master of Business Administration.
“Mila, tell me!” He held her at arm’s length, searching her eyes for a response.
Blake’s thumb glided across her cheek, catching a tear before it could fall. Then he kissed her forehead, and said, “I’m not hungry, baby. I’ll be heading to the office early tomorrow morning.”
***
The words he uttered outside were the last ones he spoke to her before they lay in their large four-poster bed. Blake’s back was to her, and with a custom bed so large, he was damn near a mile away. Mila knew that he wasn’t asleep. He was thinking, and so was she. He wanted something ironclad. He wanted them to be a team, and she did too. Marriage was supposed to be a guarantee that each party would stick it out through tough times, and damn it, Mila knew Blake had no plans of running if things got bad. She had no intentions of running either.
“Let’s get married.” She spoke up, saying it into the dark of night.
Silence.
His stubbornness stung Mila to her core. It took a while, but she fell into a fitful sleep.
“Joojin!” Five-year-old Mila screamed at the top of her lungs. Sweat clung to her skin as she sat squished between Yasmin and Lido. For the first time ever, Yasmin wasn’t jabbering off as usual, and Lido didn’t have a smirk on her face. Neither of her older sisters acknowledged her, nor did her parents, as their 1992 Mercedes moved at a snail’s pace in traffic. Again, she shouted for them to stop. “Joojin, joojin—stop, stop. Fadlan—please!” She begged, tears streaming down her face.
Lido grabbed her cheeks. “We can’t save them.”
Mila looked out at the Somali mother’s blistered feet, caked with blood and mud. The woman had her toddler slung to her chest and all she owned in a small sack on her back. Mila was too young to understand. Her mom had told her to grab her teddy bear after her father said that they could only take a few pieces of clothing.
They left in a hurry. And now the sun was scorching their eyes, and the back of the car dragged from the trunk being filled with . . . all they now owned in life.
“Why can’t we save them?” Mila asked.
“Gabadhayda—my daughter!” Her mother shouted, and then her voice tapered off to a more respectable level, the one her reserved mother was known for. “We do not have room in the car for others, Gabadhayda.”
***
Mila awoke with a start. Out of instinct, she reached for Blake, but it was just past seven a.m., and he would be fighting traffic on Interstate 10, almost to his office by now. With her business, she didn’t need to be to work until midday, preparing for the youth who got out of school early.
A little while later, Mila was in the bathroom. The walls and floors were Veneti
an marble. Fresh lilies were on the counter before her. She turned on the shower, and then looked at herself in the mirror. Mila fluffed her hair. She had enough new growth to chuckle at herself. “I need to get these edges touched up, or Blake might run.”
She stopped mid-laugh and considered the group of girls that met with her last night. Of course, she didn’t really believe he’d leave due to a hair mishap. Hell, a little water had her sporting a natural, and Blake loved it. But the teenage ladies she was now working with needed to feel beautiful.
“I’m going to have a pageant,” she told herself. “Some sort of modeling competition.”
Mila moved from the heated tile of the bathroom to the plush carpet of the bedroom as she headed to her cell phone. She snatched it up and dialed Veronica.
“Good morning, Veronica.”
“What’s wrong?” Veronica asked. She seemed to be wide awake.
“I’m hosting a pageant for inner-city youth; can I count on you for—”
“Mila, dude, seriously,” Veronica huffed.
“What?” Mila stopped meandering around the bedroom. Her mind was in a flurry, and she needed something to fixate on that was not getting engaged. Something to keep her busy, and she knew this was just the thing. “I’m hosting a pageant and—”
“It’s not even noon. I thought something had happened. Like Lido was hurt or something but a pageant?”
Mila almost smiled. Out of all the times Veronica said she was done with her sister, the woman still gave a damn about Lido’s welfare.
“Well, you should turn your cell phone off if you don’t want to receive calls before a certain time. And hell no, I’m not calling about Lido. She can handle her own screw ups. I’m calling you about teen girls whose self-esteem plummets and skyrockets on—”
“Yes, I’ll help. Adios.”
The call went dead.
Mila shook her head, put the phone down, and headed toward the bathroom. A cloud of fog was already beginning to rise. She felt like today would be one of accomplishment, and that after she brainstormed her new idea for her organization, she’d speak with Blake.
Things had become tense between them. Blake was always very understanding. That was until she denied all his proposals. Didn’t he know how important he was to her? He was her everything.
She started back toward the cellphone, maybe she’d tell him to pack for Vegas.
They could be married by tomorrow night. Mila sighed and decided that all of Blake’s displays of romance deserved better than a call with her saying, “Babe, gas up the jet. Let’s get this over with.”
While many people today thought less of marriage, Mila did not. It was something that she desired, and the only man she saw by her side through it all was Blake.
Instead of picking up the phone, Mila determined that a nice, hot shower would help her plan everything.
The pageant.
The apology to Blake.
The spilling of her guts that he was the best thing in her life, and they both knew she’d lived through so much.
Blake was that perfect slice of cake, draped in rolled fondant, tasting buttery sweet. Their lives would continue to transition for the better. Yes, there would be conflict, but with compromise and love, Blake and Mila could get through anything.
Blake
Blake drummed on the steering wheel as he sat in a parking lot on Wonder View Drive. It was hell getting out of Hollywood Hills in the morning. No wonder he chose his beach house in Santa Monica when his schedule required him to get to work in the morning. He’d woken up an hour late and stared at Mila’s sleeping frame for a while before dressing.
Now, he’d been sitting in the same spot for almost thirty minutes. There had to be a downed power line or something.
His cell phone rang. It was Isaac. Since traffic didn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon, Blake welcomed the conversation. He pressed a button on the radio, which connected his phone to his car. He answered.
“Who woke you up at the crack of dawn?” Blake said as soon as the call connected.
At the sound of his best friend’s chuckle, he was no longer angry with himself for leaving Mila this morning without saying goodbye.
“Actually, it’s the crack of dawn where you are, B, and something told me you’d be up already. I’m on my first break at lunch, and guess what I’m doing?”
“Searching for that one stripper you were crazy in love with way back in the day when there was not even a hair on your balls—”
“Ha, bro, I distinctively remember it was you who was head over hills with that broad. And yes, as long as it’s taking Mila to agree to marry you, I think I’ll be able to find . . . Sweet Georgia.”
Blake scoffed. “That wasn’t her name.”
“Damn, let me tell you how this was supposed to go. It all was to start with me picking a name out of my ass, which I did, and you would say, ‘No, her name was Bambi.’ ”
Blake rubbed a hand over his face as he laughed. “Yeah, that was her name. Bambi. You remembered. You were in love with those big ass boobs of hers.”
“And I found those titties. They’ve been modified, so no falling anytime soon—”
The call beeped, and Agent Taylor’s name came up on the radio screen.
Isaac continued. “Hey, you know, Mila might not be one of those marrying types. You two are golden, marriage or not.”
Blake hadn’t gotten around to checking Agent Taylor’s voicemail last night. With his sour mood, he considered letting her call go to voicemail again, but instincts warned him that this was a call he needed to take.
Blake finally tuned into the conversation and said, “Isaac, I have a business call coming in.”
“Okay, then I’ll keep my words of wisdom.”
“Nah, bro, you might be right. But, I’ll call you later as long as Bambi isn’t part of the discussion.” He clicked over to the next conversation seconds before it went to voicemail and said, “Good morning, Special Agent Taylor, what do I owe the displeasure of speaking to you today—”
“Baldwin, we have a situation,” she replied. Her voice was stern, not her usual snarky self.
“We? The last time the FBI had a situation, I was accused of allowing terrorists to use my social media site to—what was it—fund their acts of terrorism and sponsor weapons dealings. You tied it all to my ex-wife. Trust me, Diane’s probably behind anything of interest to you.”
“Listen, Welsh is out of prison.”
“Todd Welsh? That fucking shit who helped Diane frame me, so she could try to steal my company? That little douchebag was a good coder at best! I should’ve fired him . . .” Blake pinched off the end of his ranting and cleared his throat. “And again, let me segue into the fact that the last time the FBI had a situation, I had to work hard as fuck to get myself out of said situation. Who let him out?”
“He escaped, Baldwin. Todd Welsh broke out of a maximum security in Huntsville, Texas.”
“Guess we can only hope the fucker goes after Diane. She should be sitting in there next to him. When was this? I’m going to assume it was last night when I was being too much of an ass to Mila to answer the phone.”
“No. The Texas Rangers were on the case forty-six hours ago.” She sounded dissatisfied. “Baldwin, one of Diane’s servants is dead as of last night when I first called you. Diane is out of the country. He also accosted a maid. She’s going to survive, but she told us that she gave him your addresses. We sent a car to your beach house.”
A tiny, incessant ringing went off in Blake’s ears, it echoed with Agent Taylor’s words. “Where are you—”
“Fuck where I am. What about Mila! I can handle myself, but she’s at home, alone.” He growled.
“Which home is Mila at? Baldwin, please keep calm.”
“My home in the hills.”
Cynthia spoke in the background, barking the orders to have units sent to his home. “Listen to me, Baldwin. Welsh isn’t the same tech nerd that went to jail three year
s ago. Patrol units are en route, where are you?”
“On my way.” He tried to inch his way out of the lane, but there was no slack to be given. “There’s fucking traffic from here to the freeway unless there are cops already on my street—”
He hung up to stop himself from stating the worst. Blake started honking. The old fucker in the red Convertible in front of him flipped him the bird.
“Call Mila,” Blake ordered. The phone rang and rang.
“Move the fuck out of the way,” Blake shouted, knowing it was useless. With a BMW on his ass, he did the only thing he could.
The automated voicemail came on as his body lurched forward. He rammed into the back of the convertible. In a millisecond, the BMW behind him had a concave front bumper as well.
“Call Mila,” he ordered once again.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” A guy in a suit shouted from behind as he rammed forward again. As the call again went through the routine of connecting, his custom-colored Aston Martin was all but ruined. He slammed back again until there was enough space to whip the front end around. The oncoming traffic was at a halt, but not as bad as the traffic headed toward the freeway.
He would get home in five minutes—and that was because he would drive like an asshole the entire way.
Mila
The shower felt invigorating. It cleansed her of the nightmare that she’d lived through a thousand times over—wondering if the young Somali mother and her child had made it out of their home country alive.
As she got out and wrapped a towel around herself, Mila could have sworn she heard the sound of footsteps. They didn’t have live-in servants here. This was the home that Blake used to get away when there was no time to really leave Los Angeles County. The maid/chef that was employed here, usually came midday to ready dinner and do light cleaning. She sat at the vanity, applying lotion to her body, and put on a set of lilac-colored panties and bra. She then started to deal with the tangled mess of her hair.
Mila pressed her hand against the mirror and wiped at the condensation. An unwelcome dose of adrenaline slammed into her. Mila’s entire body went rigid.
