Page 52 of Twilight Tears
The steam is still escaping out my ears, but I already know I fucked up.
Yakov looks taken aback for a single second before he schools his face into an unreadable mask. “Do it by yourself then.”
Without another word, he turns and leaves.
With him gone, I expect the feeling in my chest to ease. I take a few breaths, waiting for relief to come. But it doesn’t.
“Now, I kind of wish I’d gone upstairs when I had the chance,” Mariya mumbles. “That was awkward.”
“God, I’m a bitch, aren’t I?” I drop my face into my hands. “He was worried about me and I yelled at him.”
Mariya snorts. “He has been obsessing over you nonstop all day. I am all about seeing my brother access his inner softie, but it was annoying even for me.”
“I just… I cannot spend the next six months letting him carry me to the bathroom.”
“Especially since you’ll be waaaay too heavy to carry by the end.”
I swat Mariya with the back of my hand. “That is not funny.”
She laughs anyway. “You’re having twins. It’s time to face your destiny. You’re going to be a whale here in a few months. By that point, you might want Yakov to carry you around and do everything for you.”
“Maybe. But I don’t want it now. I just need to feel… normal.”
“I get that, but…” She sways back and forth, teetering on the edge of saying something I know I’m not going to like.
I ask anyway. “But what?”
“I was shot, Loon. Nik is in a coma—” Her voice breaks, but she clears her throat quickly. “There has been an avalanche of shit that Yakov can do nothing about. But you and the babies? He can do something about that. He can protect you and the babies with everything he fucking has. Right now, that’s all he has.”
“Wow,” I say finally. “That sucks.”
“What does?”
I look at her. “You just confirmed I really was being a bitch.”
“Correct,” Mariya chuckles. “But between you and me, I think he’ll forgive you.”
I wake up to the sound of the front door opening.
Mariya went to her room hours ago, but I decided to wait up for Yakov. I assumed he’d come home for dinner, but dinner came and went without any sign of him. Then I figured he’d come home once hospital visiting hours were over, but one glance at the clock tells me they ended hours ago. Probably around the same time I finally gave into exhaustion and fell asleep.
If he went somewhere aside from Nik's hospital room, he really must be mad at me.
There are footsteps in the entryway and I quickly wipe the drool from my chin and run my fingers through my tangled hair.
Yakov walks past the living room quickly. He's little more than a blur. No sign he's going to stop.
When I clear my throat, he jerks to a stop and spins to face me. His face is unreadable. “You should be asleep.”
“I was,” I admit, gesturing to the nest of blankets on the couch. “I fell asleep waiting for you to come home.”
“Do you need something?” he asks coolly.
“I need to talk to you. I want to talk to you.”
His jaw flexes. The lamp casts his cheekbones in stark relief. “Go to sleep. I don’t want to talk.”
“Then I’ll talk,” I rush to say before he can turn away. “Everything happened so fast, Yakov. One baby and then two. You and me. Everything changed overnight. I needed a second to process it all. Then I got some seconds to process and all I did was sit around feeling like a bitch for snapping at you.”