Page 29 of His Smile
“I didn’t know you could drive.” She expected to see Moscawhen they exited the elevator to the front of her building. Instead, there wasa large black extended cab truck parked at the curb.
Holding onto the steering wheel with one arm lazily drapedover the top, Roman gave her a questioning sidelong look.
“I mean, you own a dealership full of fancy luxury sportscars. I just assumed you would drive one of those.” When she pictured Romandriving, she imagined him stepping out of a sleek midnight blue car with coolscissor doors that opened straight up from the car’s frame. Rahina never onceimagined a large pick-up truck.
Roman gave a chuckle filled with self-mockery. “I used to,trust me. When I was younger and more reckless, I would race through town withmillion-dollar cars that held me only inches from the ground. But I soon grewtired of folding myself in a position where I could suck my own dick to get inand out of the goddamn car.”
A sudden surge of laughter hit her battered heavy heart withunexpected force, bringing tears to her eyes. “No,” she pleaded through herlaughter, holding up one hand towards him. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts toomuch to smile and cry all in one night,” she breathed, trying to catch herbreath.
“And you want to continue crying?”
“Yes,” she pouted, turning to stare out her window, knowingher words made no sense. She wasn’t ready to give up on her sadness just yet,everything she had worked for the past few years shattered today by a simpleannouncement. Eventually, in a small voice, she asked, “How did you find out?”
“It was not hard to figure out. From the moment you woke upand until you got to the tryout, you sent me twelve messages all detailing yourexcitement and nervousness. When I did not hear anything from you after thetryout, I began to suspect something went wrong.”
“I could have been out celebrating,” she said dryly, turningback to the window when she felt more tears threaten to fall.
“As I called you, I had Mosca pull up the Nadia girl’ssocial media page,” blessedly he didn’t finish his sentence. She didn’t want toknow what Nadia posted in celebration to her new position at the company.
Leaning heavily back into her seat, Rahina stared directlyahead past the swaying windshield wipers wicking away the rain. Silence settledbetween them with only the sound of the rain and constant flick of the wipers.Streetlights reflected off the wet road as he turned the truck left at thegreen arrow while tail lights of other cars refracted through the rain-soakedglass. She wanted to talk and joke with him like normal, but no words came outof her mouth. All she could feel was numbing disappointment and shame for evenletting Roman see her like this. This wasn’t how things were supposed to turnout.
Eventually, the truck slowed to a stop and Rahina lookedaround. Ahead of them she watched as one of four garage doors opened. It was sodark and rainy out she could hardly make out the rest of the house. Pullingonto the clean, shiny flooring, Roman parked the truck and clicked for thegarage to close behind them.
“Wow,” she mouthed silently, following his lead and steppingdown from the dripping wet truck.
On either side of them sat two shining black vehicles. One,his custom SUV she rode in when she tagged along to pick him up from theairport, and the other was a large polished black Maybach sedan.
“If your goal was to take my mind off my tragic day byreminding me how poor I am, well then I must inform you it's only slightlyworking,” she grumbled looking tiredly from the sleek cars to Roman.
“Do not worry, there is more. In my second attempt, I amgoing to introduce you to my dogs, and we will both see if they attempt toattack you or not.”
“Sounds…exciting?” her voice went up at the end withuncertainty as she followed him to the side door.
Stepping into a small hallway, there was another doordirectly ahead of them and what looked to be a staircase at the end of thehallway. Roman laid his hand on the doorknob and waited. Behind the door, theycould both hear paws clicking against the floor and excited panting breaths.Opening the door, two gray shapes moved with blurring speed towards them.
“Sidet!” Roman’s abrupt baritone command stilled the dogsimmediately forcing them to sit attentively in front of him.
“I kind of want you to speak in Russian all the time,” sheadmitted with a wry tired smile, just a spark of her normal mood flaring upbefore withering away again.
Catching his amused smile at her admission, she let him pullher gently in front of him to face the two massive pit bulls. Shiny gray coatsand large sweet eyes stared at her with eager contained curiosity.
“That one,” he reached around her and pointed to the one onthe left with the white paws and white markings around the face. “is Genghis.And the other,” he pointed to the other one on the right that was pure slategray. “Is Hannibal.”
“They’re beautiful,” she wanted to ask if they bite, but sheknew a man like Roman didn’t have two big beautiful cuddly lap-dogs aspit-bulls.
Patiently the dogs continued to stare at her and back up toRoman as they waited for his next command. Reaching around her, Rahina had tosuppress the urge to shudder as she felt his warmth hug her as he guided one ofher hands out towards the dogs. Tentatively the dogs looked to Roman and thenback to her before leaning towards her hand with sniffing exploration. Rahinasmiled as Hannibal gave her fingers and Roman’s a welcoming lick. Romanmurmured something deep in Russian near her ear, and both dogs relaxed fromtheir positions and began enthusiastically licking and nudging her in pure wantfor play and affection.
“Oh, you’re just two sweet babies,” she cooed at them,scratching each one behind their ears.
“God,” he groaned, grabbing her bag off her shoulder andcarrying it down the hallway with him. “You are one of those?”
“One of what?” she followed, both dogs trailing alongsideher as she walked.
He shook his head, giving her a mock-disgusted smile beforeflipping on a light switch. “The voice.”
“Oh, you mean the baby voice!” she laughed. “Are you tellingme you don’t baby talk your dogs?”
“Hell, no.”
