Getting A Sugar Momm Chapter 28: An Important Decision

Chapter 28: An Important Decision

I sat down on the steps of the safehouse and patted the spot beside .

Zero raised an eyebrow but ca and sat anyway, tucking one knee up against her chest, the sll of brick dust and her sweat and the faintly sweet thing her hair always had going on hitting

at the sa ti.

’Side effect of dating soone who can level walls. The sweat slls nice. Man, am I such a pervert that the sll of my girlfriend is turning

on?’

"Alright," I said, ignoring my useless thoughts. "Storyti."

"Mm."

So I told her.

I told her all of it. About waking up on Earth that morning and calling the only person I had on that side, my aunt... Mom’s best friend, not blood, important note, I clarified, because Zero’s eyebrow had done sothing dangerous, and how Mira was, by the way, not a normal aunt.

Mira ran a significant portion of the city’s underworld. She had a man nad Renner who could move gold through private collectors at an eight percent commission. Mira had taken one look at a five-kilo bar over lamb chops and quoted eight hundred thousand USD for it without blinking.

Zero’s other eyebrow joined the first one. "That seems like a lot."

I nodded. "It is. Previously, I only used to earn around four thousand dollars."

Zero blinked in surprise. "Babe, you’re so rich then."

"I know, right?" I grinned at her.

"Of course, you deserve all of that."

I kept going and told her about Renner walking into the back office, examining the bar, calling it preserved gold, slipping it into his jacket, and walking out without a single piece of paper in either direction.

I told her about the three hundred thousand dollar bonus he’d handed

for goodwill. I told her how Mira had then driven

forty minutes out of the city to a colony called Riverstone Park, where the houses had koi ponds and the lawns had paid grass guys, and how she had bought — loaned, I corrected, because that mattered to

—

a one point three million dollar place with a swimming pool that backed onto a river.

Zero was very quiet through all of this. She watched

the way she watched a zombie clear a corner. Listening, fully focused.

I got to the pool.

I told her about the agent thinking I was Mira’s kept boy, about Mira playing along because it amused her. I told her about Mira slipping on a wet flagstone and

yanking her wrist and us both going in.

I told her about the kiss.

I didn’t dress it up. There was a mont in the water and a mont in her mouth tasting faintly like wine, and a mont her hand was on my chest and another one where it was lower than that, and I told her all of it because Zero had asked for everything and because lying to her felt physically wrong, in a way that surprised

a little.

When I finished, she was quiet for maybe five seconds. Then she asked, "Do you like her?"

I let out a breath. "Yeah. I do."

"As a person, or—"

"Both. As a person, definitely. As a..." I gestured vaguely at the air. "She’s beautiful, Zero. I’m not going to pretend she isn’t. She’s very beautiful, and she’s smart, and she’s terrifying in a way that’s, uh, doing so things to , frankly. I really have a thing for insane won. And she’s been quietly looking out for

since long ago. I don’t know how to not like her."

"Will you be with her, then?"

I thought about it.

"That depends on her, not . I’m pretty sure she likes

back. The kiss wasn’t a mistake on her end; she made that clear. But she’s a thirty-six-year-old who watched

grow up calling her Aunty, and I think she’s going to want to take her ti figuring out if she’s actually going to do this, and I’m going to let her take that ti. So... maybe. Probably. I’d like to."

Zero nodded once, like she was filing it.

Then she leaned over and grabbed the front of my shirt and kissed . Deep. Tongue and teeth and one of her hands sliding up the back of my neck into my hair, holding

in place. Long enough that I lost track of which lung was supposed to be working.

When she pulled back, her forehead rested against mine.

"Good answer," she whispered.

"...Was there a wrong one?" I asked weakly.

"Yes. Lying. Even a little. I would have known, and I would have been very annoyed."

’Bullet, dodged. Reward, generous. Brain, lted.’

Was there an AI in my brain? Because my thoughts were turning chanical.

"Noted."

She stood up and stretched her arms overhead, the undershirt riding up just enough that my brain stopped working a second ti in two minutes. Damn it. She’s so beautiful, and her boobs—

"Feed ," she said.

"...Yes, ma’am." I chuckled. "That was a paynt for the food?"

She smiled mischievously. "Perhaps. I can show you more."

And that gave

enough motivation.

...

The kitchen in the safehouse was small but clean. I had brought a cooler recently with most of the basics — flour, butter, eggs, two onions, garlic, a chunk of decent cheese, half a loaf of fresh bread, and the most important ingredient of all, real spices that hadn’t been sealed in a vault for years.

I made grilled cheese, three of them, with caralized onions folded into the cheese and a little garlic butter brushed on the outsides of the bread.

It was a war cri, in the best way.

Zero watched

cook from the counter, chin propped on her palm, and made absolutely no effort to hide that she was staring.

"What?"

"You have very good hands," she said, smiling.

I pretended not to notice the hidden aning. "Thank you."

"For cooking."

"...Sure."

"For other things, also."

I almost dropped the spatula and sighed. "Zero."

"What. I’m hungry. I’m allowed to think about both kinds of hungry." Zero showed

a pure, innocent face.

’I am going to die in this kitchen, and they will find

with garlic butter on the spatula and a smile on my face.’