23. Valentin

TWENTY-THREE

Valentin

A fter the most profound sex of my life, I wake up alone. For the first time I wanted someone to stay, to wake up with a head of hair in my face, and a warm body pressed against mine. But Dani will only ever leave. Dragging my ass up, I get in the shower and wash her away.

She didn't even leave a note or try to wake me up before she left. Something I'd be thankful for with anyone other than my little artist.How the fuck do I miss someone I never really had? It's been like this since I was a child, a couple of years older than my own son is, if he told me he was obsessed with someone and found the one person for the rest of his life I'd think he's crazy, that he's too young. But that is what she is.

I can't escape her mentally, so I do it physically and leave all memories of Dani locked in my room. Viktor is running through the hallway when I step out and he grabs his backpack from his room. I might have fucked up a lot of shit, but I've got the cutest kid. Stopping before his bedroom door he looks up at me and tilts his head to the side.

I turn his face to the right position with two fingers against his temple. I'm biased but he smiles widely and becomes cuter as he asks, "Do you need one of your cuddles?"

The thing about growing up with him means I'm not what a normal father should be, there were no rules or enforced bedtimes and he's probably more mature than me. Picking him up in answer, I grab his backpack in my other hand, and he wraps his arms around my neck.

His mumbled complaint comes as I walk towards the stairs.

"You know I'm not a baby anymore and you don't have to carry me."

Kissing his hair, I don't let him go as we go downstairs and agree.

"I know little man. You're all grown up."

He's going to be a teenager in a few years, and I'll have new reasons for heart palpitations every time he leaves the house.I don't want him to grow up, I hate it and he won't need me anymore.

I lower my voice and walk slower as though that's enough to stop time. "Are you going to be a shithead when you're a teenager?"

His shoes hit my knees as he shrugs, and I lift him higher, so he doesn't fall. "Tali said you were one so I might be."

Tali opens his stupid mouth as soon as he sees me and makes an announcement for Inessa's benefit.

"Watch out, he's in one of his moods."

I hold my middle finger up, and Viktor turns to look at them, giggling to himself as I curse. "I'm not a fucking toddler."

My language earns a stink eye from the lady of the house like she's not married to the worst of us. My pride comes to my defense, hardening his voice and his stare as he says, "Stop bullying my dad or I'll tell the guards where your snacks are."

I should find it emasculating or some shit, but I kiss his head in gratitude and throw him on the sofa while he gets into his favorite hobby of arguing with Tali.

He grabs Viktor's shoulders and picks him up, so they're face to face as he concedes, "Don't threaten my snacks or I won't share them with you anymore." He looks at my hands and sends him away with a bullshit excuse. "Go pick which car you want me to take, the keys are in my room."

The kid is too intuitive, he looks between us gauging whether I need him to fight for me. Deeming me safe, he runs off. He's incapable of walking anywhere when he thinks we're talking about anything important, and he always runs full speed like there's a chance he'll miss anything.

Seeing that the littlest ears are out of range, Tali nods to my hands and asks, "Want me to go find him or we still waiting?"

We haven't been given rules not to discuss shit in front of Inessa, but Vlad's controlling ass would end up losing his shit if she found out he killed her family member before he was ready for the rest of the world to find out.

I focus on whatever shit he's using my son as an excuse for rather than spilling family secrets.

"Nah I'm good, where you going?"

He hesitates in answer as he rubs the back of his head with guilt dripping off him. "Vik wanted to do some art shit, so I thought I'd take him to Dani's."

His projects take up the entire wall in his room, little figures made out of random shit he finds when there's a studio set up for him to turn into whatever he wants. I hate the fact I'm excited, I'm getting the perfect excuse on a silver platter and clear my throat of any emotion before I say, "I'll take him."

Tali narrows his eyes at me and tries to get me to change my mind. "You sure?"

Fuck him when he can spend time with her whenever he wants, I'm the one who'll have to search for excuses.

"Yeah, he's my kid."

And Dani's my woman .

There won't ever be someone who replaces her. It was always meant to be my little artist by my side and if she can't take that place, no one will.

Viktor's smile stretches from ear to ear as he stands in front of Dani's door. My legs are pressed against his back, and I keep my hand on his shoulder as he knocks. She's like an infection coming into people's lives and mutating their cells until she's written within their DNA. He's already hooked from the little time they've spent together and shaking with excitement as he waits for the door to open.

she sees me. Her face falls and she quickly looks down focusing on my son rather than me.

"Hey, I thought Tali was bringing you?"

He doesn't pick up on her not so subtle dig at my presence and shrugs full of innocence. "My dad's better at drawing than Tali, he made me a dragon once."

Babbling about a picture I had to trace, he follows her inside and I stare at the wall.

If I look in her direction I'll lose all my thoughts. Even in my periphery she's stunning. There are flecks of paint on her neck and cheek from whatever she was working on, deep purple and burgundy that make her skin glow. She's redecorated since I was last here, one side of her apartment in front of the large windows has been cleared out opening up the space with her commission sat on the easel. There are no sculptures but it's almost like we're teenagers again and I'm dropping off some random item as an excuse to see her work.

Viktor shouts over to me, forcing my attention to the occupants of the room. "Dad, I forgot my clothes."

There's no reason why he'd need a change of clothes and I took them out of his bag. Dani turns away refusing to look at me, and he points to his t-shirt. "I don't want to get paint on it. Can I have yours?"

Pulling it over my head, I hand it to him despite my argument. "So, it's okay to fuck mine up?"

Nodding with a smirk, he rips it out of my hand uses it as an apron, covering nearly all of his clothes.

I can feel the hard stare burning my face at my cursing, but Dani doesn't open her mouth. He spends too much time around Tali and would pick shit up anyway so there's no reason to censor myself. As long as he uses it in the right context who gives a fuck. Her judgment is unnecessary when he's never even said damn. She doesn't voice it as she shows Viktor different painting styles, and he gives her his full attention.

With my family busy, I go through things to get a reaction. Her habits haven't changed from when we were kids and I find her portfolios stacked against the wall. Picking up the smaller folder, I get to know my little artist again by looking at her designs. Some of them are old, the flowers she started making when we were kids and ended up getting commissions on. They're all her professional work but I know my woman, she has secret projects that portray everything she's feeling in that one singular moment.

Finding the leather bound journal full of concepts, I lean on the back of the sofa and start flicking through it. Each page is an insight into the years she wasn't here. They're filled with eyes, some are hand drawn, some are 3D renders that she made of an eye with different words making up the whites of the eyeball.

Sorry

Thank you

Be happy

Be great

One day

Confessions and wishes are present in every image. The journal is old as fuck, there are sketches from her very first designs and I smile, remembering how she dragged me around to search for the right pigment shades that matched her vision. Flicking to the front, there's text wrapped around different parts of a face. One I recognize and will never forget because I see it when my eyes close.

It's all jumbled, Dani's eye crying in the top right of the page while her lips are further down towards the center. The proportions are right, but features are missing, hidden behind vines that the words scroll out from. They're all curvy and take too long for my brain to fully fit together to form them.

My mother always looks at me when I speak.

The book is ripped from my hand and Dani looks afraid as she whisper hisses, "Don't go through my things."

She didn't say shit when I was moving around and looking at her portfolio, but whatever is on that page has her scared. Hooking my finger in her pocket, I pull her closer and look over her shoulder, making sure Viktor's busy. His nose is nearly touching the canvas as he sketches something, and I keep my voice low, so he doesn't get distracted as I whisper against her ear, "Entertain me and I won't have to."

Whatever is within the pages she's hugging to her chest has my full attention. She doesn't react to my offer and picks my wrist up, moving my hand away without loosening her hold on that journal. Dani never spoke about her mom; I knew she was sick, and it was the one topic we'd allow her to bring up only if she felt like discussing it. Even Vlad, the heartless bastard, never mentioned anything to her when he took over her tuition so she wouldn't be forced to change schools.

She crosses her arms over her chest protecting her innermost feelings and moves away from me. She's fucked up by getting my attention. The image in front of me is more than a dream, it's too close to everything I've wanted. Watching Dani with her hair thrown up in some messy style, paint on her skin as she leans over Viktor to show him whatever he was asking for help with is going to haunt me. It's the image of everything, not what I want or need. Just everything. My woman and my kid.

They both smile at each other and my chest aches. It's warm and weird, not pain but not good. They're a hologram of what could have been. Picking a random book from Dani's shelf, I look over the top of the page like a creep. Viktor lights up under her attention, just like me, we both love being under her warm brown gaze.

Dani looks up and blushes, fuck me. She's killing me with her beauty. The longer I stare at her the more exquisite she becomes. She's the personification of one of her sculptures, little things hidden in the surface, and you need to study them to understand the importance of what's in front of you, but you know as a whole how significant she is without having the understanding.

Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes widen when she sees the cover of the book I'm holding. She stomps over to me and grabs the book out of my hand. I smile having her attention and my voice is lighter like the old me who was owned by her.

"You're like Mrs. Taylor, confiscating everything I hold."

She relaxes at the memory of the old bat who hated me. Viktor joins the conversation and wipes his paint covered fingers along my t-shirt not giving two fucks that I'll have to put it back on.

"Who's Mrs. Taylor?" Folding the t-shirt up his body, he digs in his pocket, pulling out a piece of licorice he stole from Tali and smacking his gums as he looks at us, waiting for an answer.

I look back to Dani and she's staring at my chest, her blush deepening to red, and I flex being a little bitch to keep her attention on me. She turns around without meeting my eyes and clears her throat before answering, "She was a teacher at our school, your dad always used to argue with her."

Her throat bobs on the word "dad" like it caused pain.

Viktor starts peppering her with questions and she answers them all easily. He's my favorite kid, even if there's only an option of one, because each question forces her to talk about me. It's all there in her head waiting to be recalled and I lean against the wall getting lost in the melody of her voice.

"What was my dad like when he was my age? Did you know him since he was a baby?"

Her smile gets wider with each memory, and she softens telling us both new information.

"Hmm, the first time I saw him he was younger than you, I think. He had a black eye and a cut on his lip from fighting someone the day before, all the kids in the playground were scared of him."

She's not lying, and I know which day she's talking about.Some little cunt was taking the piss out of Tali for his obsession with eating 24/7 and pushed him over on the first day of school. The marks on my face were premeditated so I wouldn't get in shit with teachers and could gain their sympathy.

Len had spent three years training me and I was pissed at Vlad for breaking his promise that I wouldn't have to fight after we'd moved when it was the second day of school, and my knuckles were red again. The first punch I threw out of my own choice.

Fucking hell. It was a lifetime ago.