Tim’s eyes go flat. “Look, I don’t care about your drama. She pays me, so I’m going to have to report this.”
“Please.” I hate that I’m begging a stranger for access to my own child, but for Milo, I would crawl if it meant keeping him close for one more minute. “I can pay you too. Whatever you want. If you could just…let me see him here. At the park. For a little while. Maybe every other day. I’ll pay you whatever you want. My sister would never know.”
Tim studies me, and I swear he’ll say no.
Then he shrugs. “Fine. But I want five hundred. Every time.”
My mind goes blank. “What?”
“That’s what I want.” His mouth twitches. “Can you do it or not?”
Five hundred dollars might as well be five thousand…but Milo’s grip tenses around my hand, and I already know the answer.
“Okay. Five hundred.”
I hate the thought of using the card Kirill gave me, but this isn’t for me.
“You can send it now. For today.” Tim crosses his arms.
“Yeah. Okay.” I fumble in my bag for the card, fingers clumsy. “I just need to add the payment method to the app.”
He watches the whole time, impatience written all over his face. When I’m finally set up, he gives me his number and I send the money, nausea creeping up my throat as the confirmation goes through.
What will Kirill think? Will he even notice five hundred when he spends millions like it’s nothing?
Tim checks his phone, and his expression eases for the first time. Then it hardens again.
“We don’t have a lot of time before I have to bring him back.”
“Okay.”
Neither do I. If I’m late for Lev, Kirill will fire me, and I can’t lose this job.
Glancing over at the food truck, I ask Milo if he’s hungry.
“Ice cream.” He grins, and of course I can’t say no.
When we wander over, hand in hand, he orders a giant chocolate cone.
“Can you actually eat that?” I grin.
He takes a huge lick, then snorts when it smears across his nose.
I reach out and wipe it with my thumb. “I think the ice cream is eating you.”
“I don’t care.” He laughs, already consumed by it.
“Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s sit over by the bench.”
“Okay, Mommy.” His whole face brightens like I just handed him the world, and I have to blink fast to keep myself together.
We settle on a bench, and Tim drops onto the one across from us, phone in hand, glancing at us from the corner of his eye and trying to look serious. But the longer Milo talks, the more his expression softens, like it’s hard to stay cold in front of a kid this sweet and funny. Chocolate smears at the corner of Milo’s mouth, and I shake my head with a giggle.
“Hold still.” I use a napkin to wipe it clean.
God I miss this. The little things. Like helping him tie his shoelaces, cleaning up after him, reading him bedtime stories. I just miss him so much.
“Mooom,” he mumbles, the cone dripping down his fingers and onto his wrist.
