Getting A Sugar Momm Chapter 16: Trust

Chapter 16: Trust

She smiled and brushed her thumb across my cheek.

"The food was too fresh, darling. Nobody in Velham has bread that soft. I knew sothing was off about you from the first bag you opened. I just didn’t know what, and I decided I didn’t need to know yet. You’d tell

when you were ready, or you wouldn’t."

"That’s a lot of patience for soone who ripped a vault door off."

"I contain multitudes."

I laughed, really laughed, and she laughed with .

Then her expression shifted, it turned softer. Sothing almost uncertain in it, which on her face looked wrong, like a language her features didn’t usually speak.

"I owe you sothing back," she said. "For this. For what you just did."

"You don’t—"

"I do. But here’s the problem." She took my hand, slow, and threaded her fingers through mine. "I can’t. Not yet. Not because I don’t want to. Because I can’t rember."

I went still. I couldn’t understand what she ant by that.

"My mories are ssy, darling. There are holes in them, big ones. Whole years I can’t account for. I know I’m strong. I know how to fight, how to move, how to break a man’s ribs with a shove. But I don’t know where I learned any of it. I don’t know why I was alone when I found you."

Her grip on my hand tightened, just a little.

"I’ve known sothing was wrong for a long ti. That’s part of why I spotted you so fast. I recognised the look. Takes one to know one."

"Zero..."

"But here’s the thing. Since you showed up, since I’ve been around you, pieces are coming back to . Slow. Little flashes. A na I didn’t know I knew. A face. A room. I don’t have it all yet, and I’m not going to lie to you and fill in the gaps with guesses."

She lifted my hand and pressed it against her chest, over her heart, and I could feel it beating steady and strong under my palm.

"So I’m asking you to be patient with . The sa way I was patient with you. When I rember, I’ll tell you. All of it. Every piece. I promise."

"Zero, you didn’t even have to—"

"I wanted to." She smiled, and it cracked into sothing watery at the edges. "You trusted , sugar boy. That’s not a small thing. I don’t take it lightly."

I pulled her in and hugged her, my arms around her and her face against my shoulder and the faint shake in her breath that she was pretending wasn’t there.

"We’ll figure it out," I murmured into her hair. "You and . Whatever’s in those gaps, we’ll find it."

"Mm." Her voice was small. "That sounds nice, darling."

"You’re allowed to be the one being taken care of sotis, you know."

"Don’t get used to it."

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

She pulled back after a long mont, sniffed once in a very undignified way, and imdiately glared at

like I was the one who’d made her do it.

"If you tell anyone I got emotional in a bank vault, I’ll break your ribs."

"Who would I tell? You’re my only friend here."

"...That’s very sad, Lukas."

"I’m aware."

She laughed again, and the tension in the room broke like a clean snap.

"Alright. Enough feelings. We are rich and surrounded by rotting paper and I refuse to die of radiation poisoning in the middle of a romantic mont. That inventory of yours, pack everything in it."

We got to work.

I pulled open the inventory screen in my mind and started stacking gold bars. Each one vanished with that sa weird magic-trick feeling, the air closing around empty space where a very heavy brick of precious tal had been a second ago. I got through the full row of forty-three and started on the smaller half-kilo bars.

Zero loaded the silver into a canvas sack she’d liberated from one of the Black Snake corpses. Then the jewellery case. Then a few of the sealed deposit boxes we cracked open with the sword. Most were empty or had useless paper. Two had more gemstones, loose and unset, which went straight into the inventory.

The alloy bar and the wrapped key stayed in my inner pocket.

By the ti we were done, the vault was picked clean of anything worth the weight, and my shoulders ached just from the ntal load of cataloguing it all.

...

We started back toward the stairwell.

The corpses of the Black Snake crew were where Zero had left them, and she stepped over them without breaking stride. I followed. Sohow it felt easier on the way out than on the way in.

Maybe because my pockets were heavier and my ribs were lighter.

We were two blocks out from the bank, back in the slightly-less-murderous air of District 11, when Zero broke the silence.

"So."

"So."

"Harem novels."

"Oh no." I have a bad feeling about this.

"Oh yes, darling." Her grin was audible without even looking at her. "You said it yourself. Wish-fulfilnt brainrot for insomniac n. And what is the number one feature of wish-fulfilnt brainrot for insomniac n?"

"I don’t want to answer this question."

"Many won."

"Zero."

"A harem of won, so would say."

"Please."

She stopped walking. So did I, because I wasn’t an idiot. She turned to face

with that slow, unrepentant smile that ant I was about to be thoroughly cooked.

"Tell , sugar boy. When you write your little wish-fulfilnt stories, how many ladies does the protagonist usually end up with?"

"...Varies." I scratched my cheeks and answered.

"Range."

"Like. Three to, I don’t know, many."

"Many." She nodded in understanding

"Many is a word I said, yes."

"Mm-hmm."

She started walking again, arms swinging, very pleased with herself.

"Here’s the thing, darling. I’ve been thinking about it."

"That’s never a good opener from you."

"You’re going to be travelling. Back and forth. And you’re a cute boy with trust issues and fresh bread, which is a very devastating combination, and you’re going to et won. On Earth especially. Pretty ones. Smart ones. The kind that carry business cards."

My stomach did a small, suspicious flip, "...Why do you say it like you know sothing."

"I don’t know anything. I’m just saying. Statistically."

"Statistically."

"Statistically, you are going to end up with at least one wife on Earth. Probably more. And you know what, darling? I’m fine with it."

I stopped walking again, too shocked by her words. "You’re fine with it?"

"Completely fine." She turned, walking backwards now so she could face , her hands laced behind her back. "I’m not a possessive little thing, Lukas. If so clever Earth girl wants to share my sugar boy, she can earn her spot. I’ll even be nice. Probably."

"Probably."

"Ninety percent nice."

"That’s not a comforting number."

"I don’t offer comfort, darling. I offer terms."

She was grinning, enjoying herself far too much, and my chest was doing sothing complicated. Because under the teasing there was an actual offer, and under the actual offer there was sothing rarer, which was a woman telling

she wasn’t going to make

small to keep .

I didn’t know what to do with that.

So I did the only thing that felt right.

I caught her wrist, pulled her in, and kissed her.

I cupped the back of her neck and kissed her like I’d been aning to for a while and had just finally gotten around to it, and I felt the exact second her smugness cracked and her hands ca up to fist in the front of my jacket.

When I pulled back, she was the one breathing harder.

"Terms accepted," I murmured against her lips.

"...Oh."

"What, no coback?"

"Give

a second, darling, you short-circuited ."

"Noted for future reference."

Her cheeks were actually flushed. I filed that away as one of the greatest victories of my life, top three, right under killed a D-rank and ate a full al that wasn’t instant noodles this week.

"Co on." I started walking, tugging her gently by the hand. "Let’s get ho before anything else decides to show up and ruin our mont."

"Mm." She fell in beside , quieter than before, still a little flushed. "Ho."

"Ho."

The word sat nicely between us the rest of the way back.