I stand up and walk toward the sandbox. “What is it, Lenochka?”
“You are the wolf now, Daddy. You chase. Me and Bianca will run away.” She giggles and dashes toward the other end of the playground.
I turn to Bianca who is standing a few paces away, watching me with a question in her eyes. I take a few steps until I’m in front of her, bend, and whisper in her ear. “Run, my little lamb.”
She tilts her head up at me, her lips widening in a mischievous smile, then turns on her heel and runs to Lena, who is hiding behind the slide. I take the first few strides in their direction, and when Lena sees me coming, she yelps and dashes to the left, giggling. I run after her. It takes me less than ten seconds to get to her, and she squeals in delight as I scoop her around her middle. I place a kiss on her cheek, then hold her under my left arm and turn toward Bianca.
There is a smug expression on her face as she watches me, but it transforms to surprise when I run toward her with Lena laughing madly under my arm.
“Faster, Daddy!”
Bianca dashes toward the kid’s house on the other side, and she is rather fast. However, I’m faster and my strides are much larger. I catch up with her just a few feet from the playhouse, grab her around her waist with my free arm, and pull her against me. She is laughing, I can’t hear it, but I can feel the way her chest moves under my arm. I lift her from the ground and carry them both to the small coffee shop across the street from the park.
I am still laughing as the double sliding doors open and Mikhail carries us into the coffee shop. A few people around the room look up at us in surprise. An older couple sitting by the window smiles and turns back to their teas and cakes. On the other side of the shop, a middle-aged woman sitting with another lady gawks at Mikhail’s face without shame, then nudges her friend with her elbow and tips her head in our direction. The nerve some people have.
Mikhail lets me down, and taking my hand in his, walks toward the cash register.
“Coffee, no milk?” he asks, and I nod. He remembered I drink my coffee black.
“Daddy, I have to pee,” Lena whispers.
“Just a second, Lenochka.”
Mikhail orders a coffee for me and orange juice for Lena, tells the cashier to make it to go, then hands me his wallet. “I have to take Lena to the bathroom.”
Holding the wallet in one hand, I point to myself with my free one, offering to take Lena, but Mikhail shakes his head.
“It's okay. I'll take her,” he says and leads Lena toward the restrooms.
I prepare the amount shown on the register and look up to find the guy on the other side watching me while he’s pouring the coffee. He casts a glance toward the bathroom, where Mikhail just went in with Lena, then back to me and smiles. I don’t reciprocate.
“Your dad is a really scary guy,” he says and nods toward the bathroom.
I roll my eyes. Seriously? Mikhail might seem a few years older than thirty-one at first glance because of the eyepatch and scars, but it’s more than evident that he can’t be my father.
“You think he’d let me take you to a movie or something?” The barista leans forward and winks.
Is this guy for real? He’s barely seventeen, if even that. Idiot. I place the money on the counter and turn just as Mikhail and Lena exit the bathroom. I size him up, noting the way his black jeans fit him perfectly, and how his black sweater molds to his rock-hard chest and stomach, remembering how it felt to be pinned against the wall by that magnificent body last night.
“Ready to go?” Mikhail asks when he arrives at my side.
I smirk, take Lena’s juice from the counter and give it to her with the straw. Then, I place my hand on Mikhail’s chest, and collecting a handful of fabric between my fingers, I pull on his sweater. His face is expressionless, but I catch slight confusion in his eye as he bends down. When his face stops a few inches above mine, I raise on my toes and press my lips to his.
It was meant to be a quick kiss, but the moment I feel his mouth on mine, all reason flies out the window. The next thing I know, I’m clutching the back of Mikhail’s neck while he crushes me to his body. My feet dangle above the ground, and we are kissing like there’s no tomorrow.
“Yucky!” I hear Lena exclaim and my eyes snap open.
One impossibly blue eye is regarding me with such intensity that, for a moment, it feels hard to draw breath. I don’t remember anyone looking at me like that, ever.
“Ty luch solntsa v pasmurnyy den’， Bianca,” he says into my lips, kisses me again, and slowly lowers me to the ground.