Page 32 of Pawn

Marcus nods. His nervous hands have steadied. He is leaning forward on the counter with his elbows on the marble and his eyes on the board, the focused intensity of a boy who does not give a single damn about the Sicilian Defense but cares enormously about the girl explaining it.

I watch from the kitchen. Filing. Clean. Harmless. Genuine. The nervous hands did not become fists. The eyes did not drop. The boy stood in a doorway with three Rivas brothers staring him down, and he did not run.

Romeo appears beside me. Leans against the counter. His voice is low enough that the living room cannot hear it.

“You’re welcome,” he mouths.

I ignore him.

He mouths it again. Slower. The grin so wide it is practically audible.

I pour my coffee and ignore him harder.

The Coffee War

Nova rounds the corner with her hand on her belly and her eyes locked on the coffee maker with the single-minded focus of a woman who has identified her objective and will not be deterred by terrain, opposition, or the laws of God.

Romeo sees her coming. I watch his body shift — the grin dropping, the posture changing, the man who was silently mouthing jokes at me two seconds ago transforming into the man who read four pregnancy books in one weekend and has opinions about caffeine that nobody asked for.

He moves toward the coffee maker. Casual. The feint of a man who thinks he is being subtle.

“Babe, I made you that tea—”

“I don’t want the tea.”

“The peppermint one. The one you said was—”

“I said it was tolerable. Tolerable is not a compliment, Romeo. Tolerable is what you say about a hotel pillow when you’re too tired to ask for a different one.”

She reaches the counter. Her hand extends toward the coffee maker. Her fingers close around nothing.

The mug is gone.

Her head tilts upward. Slowly. The motion of a woman who already knows what she is going to find and is assembling her response before her eyes confirm it. The mug — her mug, the oversized ceramic one with the chip on the handle that she refuses to replace because it was the first thing she bought for this kitchen with her own money — is on the top shelf. The shelf she cannot reach at thirty-one weeks without a stool.

The shelf Romeo moved it to.

“Romeo.”

His name lands in the kitchen like a judge’s gavel on a bench. The single word carrying the calm of a woman who has carried two siblings since she was eighteen, managed this household through a war, held this family’s emotional architecture together with her bare hands while armed men guarded the elevator — and will not, under any circumstances, be separated from her one remaining vice by a man whose dietary expertise peaked at burning scrambled eggs so badly that Tomás asked if it was a science experiment.

“The pediatrician—” Romeo begins.

“Fuck the pediatrician.”

“She said—”

“She said moderate caffeine is fine. One cup. I am asking for one cup. I have been asking for one cup every morning for six weeks, and every morning the cup migrates higher and higher up the shelving unit like it is trying to escape the atmosphere.” She turns to face him. Thirty-one weeks pregnant. Magnificent. Terrifying. “If you touch my coffee one more time, I will end you. And I don’t mean that in the cute way. I mean I will physically remove you from this kitchen, and you will not return until this baby is born and old enough to confirm for herself that her father is an idiot.”

Romeo holds his hands up. Full surrender. The gesture of a man who knows the war is lost and chooses to live.

“I’m getting the mug down,” he says carefully.

“Yes, you are.”

“Because I love you.”

“Because you want to survive the afternoon.”