Page 22 of Baby for the Bratva

She looks up at me, raising a cup of black coffee to her lips. “Um, more than I can count, honestly.”

I laugh. “No job or anything?”

“Oh, I work,” she replies, taking a sip of her coffee and setting it back down. “But if I told you what I did, I’d have to kill you.”

Her eyes are laughing at me, but the rest of her face is dead serious.

I lean back in my chair, studying her for a moment. I’d believe that Yuri was up to no good, but Molly seems too pure to be involved in anything illegal. She’s like a ray of sunshine, or more accurately, the entire sun.

“But if you really want to know, I do some camming here and there. You’d be surprised how many old men want to watch a redhead take her clothes off.”

“Wow,” I reply, genuinely surprised. “I suppose that’s one way to earn money.”

“It’s a good one, actually, but it’s obviously not for everyone,” she says, taking another sip of her coffee. “Lot of creeps out there, and I’ve gotten some downright terrifying DMs, but for the most part, it’s pretty easy money.”

Probably easy for her, considering her striking image, but I can’t imagine trying to act sexy in front of thousands of people. I had enough trouble working up the guts to tease Yuri last night, and even then, I was about to crack when I realized I almost lost his little game.

I got lucky. That’s the only reason I didn’t wake up in his bed this morning.

The rest of breakfast with Molly goes well. We talk about guys, mostly. She has more bad exes than I do, which makes me feel a little better. It’s nice to see someone go through so much hardship and still turn out positive.

After breakfast, I head back to my room. I don’t hear or smell Yuri at all, which is a good sign. Molly told me there was a sauna where the indoor pool is, so that’s where I’m headed this morning. I figure Yuri won’t find me there.

I put on my smallest bikini and some flip-flops, wrapping up in a towel before heading out again. Every time I think about Yuri, it makes me want to see him. Even though he’s annoying and conceited, he has this charm that pulls me in.

Molly warned me not to make that mistake, though. Yuri has to redeem himself before I’d even consider hooking up with him, much less getting myself into a relationship. It’s easy to monkey bar from one asshole to the next, but it’s important that I break that cycle so it doesn’t keep going forever.

It ends with Tyler. No more assholes. No more drama. Just a peaceful existence with the eventual possibility of a guy who treats me well and doesn’t use me for sex.

And I need to stop thinking about men so much. I went through a break up, sure, but that doesn’t mean my entire personality has to be centered on men and what they mean to me. I could take up a sport, start running again, or even start a new career.

For now, I’m going to cook myself in the sauna because that sounds like pure heaven for my muscles. New beds always make me a little creaky, even if they’re comfortable, like the one in my room. My body needs time to adjust.

The cruise ship is just as bright and busy today as it was yesterday when we first left port. It’s as though the shooting never happened. I’m sure the man who was murdered has a family that’s hurting deeply right now, but the rest of the world has already moved on.

Weird how that happens. No matter what, the sun always comes up, and someone out there is having the best day of their life.

I choose to see that as a positive. No amount of suffering can bring down the entire world, and it certainly won’t be bringing me down today. I’m going to relax and find stillness in the heat of the sauna.

The door to the indoor pool is unlabeled, causing me to pass it up several times in my search, but I eventually locate it with the help of an elderly woman who prefers to swim there because there’s no sun. She gives me a brief lecture about skin cancer, and I don’t have the courage to tell her I didn’t bring sunscreen on this trip.

When she lets me go my own way, I wander down the end of the pool, past the changing rooms and the showers, and I find a sauna that looks like it hasn’t been used at all yet. I’m surprised Molly knows about this place.

I’m glad it’s so empty, though. I don’t feel shy as I hang up my towel and slip out of my flip-flops, venturing into the scorching hot room in a bikini that barely covers my important bits.

I remember buying it to feel sexy, but Tyler told me I looked like a whore in it, and I wasn’t allowed to wear it out in public, even when we were together. I guess I see his point, but now I want to wear specifically to spite him.

And I’m not a whore. That’s projection from a man who can’t control his wandering eye.

The wooden bench is nearly scalding when I sit down on it, but I can handle it. Hot baths and even hotter showers have gotten me used to high heat levels. I used to soak until my fingertips turned so wrinkly that I was scared my skin was going to fall off.

These days, I like to imagine I’m a little more balanced, but in reality it’s because I have less free time. Work, chores, eat, sleep, and repeat. That’s my entire existence.

But for one month, one golden slice of my life, I get to go back to the way things were growing up. I have nowhere to go, and I have nowhere to be. If I want to, I can stay in this sauna until I have no more sweat to expel, and then I can take the coldest shower ever and go straight to lunch.

A frozen margarita and as many corn chips as I can fit in my stomach? Throw in some salsa and I’m sold.

I lie back in the sauna, closing my eyes for a moment and feeling the strips of heat across my back from the planks of wood. When I inhale, I can smell the wood with the heat, and it reminds me of summer camp and log cabins. My parents saved up an entire year to be able to send me one summer, and I almost didn’t go because I felt so guilty about how much they had to spend on it.

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