Mateo sighs, pulling her into his arms, and she actually goes. She doesn’t fight him. She throws her arms around him and buries her face in his chest, sobbing.
I desperately want to stealth-walk out of the room and get out of this moment, but I’m not slick enough, so I stay put and twiddle my thumbs.
Eventually she stops crying, but it takes a really long time. I attribute this to PMS since she clearly just started her period. I also assume my chances of getting him in my bed tonight just dramatically increased, though with all the crying, maybe not.
“You’re tired,” Mateo murmurs as he rubs her back. Her exhausted state is clearly his fault, since he hasn’t let her sleep in literally days. “Why don’t you go back up to bed?”
“Give me my phone back,” she demands sullenly.
“Goddammit, Mia.”
She sniffles, giving him a big, blue-eyed, sad-faced puppy dog pout. She’s ridiculously pretty when she cries. I’m starting to see why he’s mean to her. I’m not even into girls and that would definitely work on me.
“You don’t need to make yourself sad,” he states, irritated by this request for some reason.
“I’m going to cry forever if you don’t give me my phone back.”
I have to cover my mouth so no one sees me smiling despite her tears, because this sounds like something Lily would say during a tantrum. But the girl has had a rough… fortnight? Do people still say fortnight? I don’t think so, but they should, and she’s had a really rough fortnight. Plus she’s PMSing, not sleeping, and apparently she’s not pregnant. I need the story there, but I’ll give her this one.
And so will he, apparently, because he heads to his study and comes back with her phone.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, then goes back upstairs alone.
Mateo sighs, rolling his shoulders as he sits back down with me.
“So… did we know Mia might be pregnant?”
“Vince didn’t use a condom the last time he fucked her,” he states, by way of explanation.
“Oh, okay. That makes much more sense. For a minute there…” I stop, nodding. “Okay, good. I thought Vince didn’t want kids?”
“He didn’t.”
He doesn’t explain, and I guess I don’t really need the details of Vince and Mia’s sex life, but that makes a little more sense why she’s so upset. Obviously now there is no longer a chance for her to have Vince’s baby, and even though I can’t imagine Mateo would’ve been excited about it, I guess she wanted to.
“Did you—Were you cool with that?” I ask, frowning.
“I didn’t have much control over it, now, did I?” he asks.
“I just figured your evolutionary, caveman side would’ve been super pissed.”
“Now we’ll never have to know,” he says, dismissing the subject. “I’m going to have to go to her room tonight or she’ll spend all goddamn night looking at his pictures.”
“You need sleep,” I tell him, firmly.
“There will be plenty of sleep,” he informs me. “I just have to monitor her phone time.”
“It’s like we have another child,” I tell him.
Grimacing at me like I’m the devil, he says, “Jesus Christ, don’t say shit like that.”
“The ‘daddy’ thing doesn’t do it for you, huh?” I ask, grinning.
He’s openly glaring at me now. “I’m going to put your ass back in the dungeon.”
I can’t help laughing. I don’t think he’s serious, at least. He does flee my company though, to tie up his loose ends for the night and run to Mia’s room. I’m not super thrilled that I can’t even tear him away from the girl when she’s clearly not going to fuck him, but hey, whatever.
—
Friday night Mateo takes us out.
He does it right, too. There are new garment bags and shoes waiting for us in our respective bedrooms, and since I’m eager for some rested-Mia time, I haul my stuff to her wing to get ready with her.
“Have you ever been to a musical before?” I ask her, one eye closed as I brush some mascara on my lashes.
“Nope. Especially not with my sister wife and our shared lover,” she states, dropping an eye shadow brush on the counter.
“We’re just trying all the new things,” I say. “I went once. I saw Wicked with Rodney. It was basically the nicest thing he ever did with me. I don’t think he enjoyed it, but I did.”
“I’m sure you did things you didn’t enjoy for him all the time.”
“Yep,” I agree, nodding. I stop myself just in the nick of time, because I almost asked if she and Vince ever did stuff like that. Nope. Not today, mouth. “Your dress is so pretty,” I tell her, stealing a glance over at her before I grab my lipstick. He got her a sexy, nearly see-through black lace dress with almost no back. She’s really rocking it, too.
“Mateo’s good with the gifts,” she points out.