I Don’t Want To Be A Wife!

The Mafia

“This is a misunderstanding,” Nicholas said as his mother was in front of them with a mischievous smile on her face.

“Oh honey, you do need to worry about anything.” His mother said and chuckled, then turned around to look at Layla and smile, which got Layla a bit scared because she knew that smile meant: ‘You are getting married to my son and having his kids.’

“Mrs. Senou, it was a dare, I didn’t kiss him because I want to, and I hated that, Nicholas is like a brother-bad comparison since she wants to make her brothers fall in love with each other but let’s ignore than- and I would never consider him as anything more than that.” Layla expressed her dislike for Nicholas some more with Nicholas nodding and agreeing with her.

“Of course, I understand.” Nicholas’s mother said with a bright smile and then wandered off to a jewelry store, to look for rings.

“She doesn’t understand, does she?” Layla asked with a sigh, as she stared at her friend’s mother picking an engagement ring.

“No, she does not.” Nicholas clarified and sat down to eat his fries with tears in his ears, which got the fries saltier than they were but he didn’t mind, his life was over anyway.

“Kill me.” Layla said as she sat down next to the sobbing Nicholas.

“Do you want kids in the first year or the second?” Nicholas asked with a chuckle mixed with irony and sadness.

“We are not getting married.” Layla said and looked around for Leonard and Lucas, who just went to buy ice cream but still haven’t come back; she needs her brother with her, she wasn’t getting out of this on her own.

“Yeah sure, tell that to our future kids.” Nicholas added in a mocking tone.

“I am not getting married to you.” Layla repeated, determined that she wasn’t going to marry Nicholas no matter what, even if he became the love of her life, she won’t marry him. (We will see about that ;))

“I don’t think we will have a choice and side note, my mom’s family side has connections with the mafia.” Nicholas dropped a news bomb on Layla and quietly continued to eat his fries as if he said nothing.

“Excuse me what? And you tell me this now?!?” Layla was shocked, to say the least, things got even muddier now, this was going to be a hell of a trip to get out of.

“You don’t expect to tell you on the first day, do you?” Nicholas added, he tried to do that before and got bullied for it and made fun of because of it, and some kids’ parents, the parents of the kids who bullied Nicholas, got killed randomly because of that, so he promised himself not to tell anyone unless they are close to him or he needed to tell them, in this case, it was more of the latter.

“Yes, I do.” Layla replied as if it was the most obvious thing ever, forgetting by that, the logic and the reason why he couldn't just tell strangers about that.

“What did you want me to say? ‘Hey, give me a pen, and also my grandpa is involved with the mafia, haha.’ you wouldn’t have even looked in my direction again if that happened.” Even imagining it made Nicholas want to dig a hole and die in it because just thinking about it made him cringe and imagine what that would lead to.

“True.” Layla said and understood why he hide it, anyone would distance themselves from someone who say stuff like that, be it a lie or the truth, it didn’t matter, the people who said that were either weird, psychos, the real deal or just joking.

“Now what? We plan our honeymoon?” Nicholas said and hoped for Layla to say no, and luckily she did, telling him that they shouldn’t give up that easily.

After a few minutes, Layla finally came up with an idea to make Mrs. Senou forget and not even consider them dating.

“I have a plan, your mom hates gay people, right?” That was obvious by the way she acted and how much she wanted Nicholas to be straight, maybe not hatred but a strong dislike.

“Not hate hate, she just doesn’t want me to be around them.” Nicholas knew his mom didn’t like gay people, not because she wanted to but because everyone in her life wanted her to believe that they were bad people and harmful to others and him, her only son.

“Same thing, anyway, my brother is gay or bisexual or whatever, so you are going to make it seem as if you are dating me to hide the fact that you are dating Lucas.” That was the perfect plan and Layla was amazed by her ability to come up with that in such a short period, anyway, we are not here to talk about her ego, we are here to stop a marriage from happening.

“How the f**k am I going to do that?” Nicholas swore for the first time in days because of his inability to believe that this plan could work, he needed to have a great script and amazing acting to make this work.

“I don’t know, but we will figure it out, don’t worry, just don’t lose hope.” Layla said to try and motivate Nicholas and not lose him in the battle of trying to get forced to get married.

“I will try.” Nicholas said and looked down at his empty plate, with a sad face, Layla to cheer him up with some of her fries, but he didn’t like them so she proceeded to hug his face awkwardly, because she wasn’t used to comforting people, to try and make him feel slightly better; and just then, Lucas and Leonard came back.

“Layla, Nicholas, what are two doing? People are staring.” Lucas said as he put down the ice cream for the both of them and sat down.

“Lu! You are final here, I missed you and Nicholas did too!” Layla went straight to acting mode and tried to put on her best performance, to hopefully win the award of staying single until her late twenties.

“Okay?” Lucas was confused and just ate his ice cream in response, not asking any questions.

“Let him hug you.” Layla suddenly said and pulled him up, making him stand and doing the same to Nicholas who was slightly confused as well.

“Why though?” Lucas asked and looked at his little sister and tried to understand her motive from all of this.

“Yea why?” Nicholas asked too and earned a glare from Layla, who pulled him down a bit, to talk in his ear.

“Go, pull him closer and put your hands on his waist, your mom is leaving the store and she has to see that.” Layla whispered to him and because he had nothing to lose, other than being disowned by his mother and her family, he got up, apologized to Lucas, and pulled him closer to him by his waist.

And because Nicholas was taller than Lucas, the latter fit right into his arm, Nicholas made the hug seem as sensual as possible, based on the mangas and resources he had before, while Lucas was just standing there and wondering what was going on, and why was Layla glaring at him and telling him to stay as if he was a dog.

Leonard, who was watching from the sidelines, was amused by the situation and it got even more amusing when a middle-aged woman ran to them after she saw her son hug a man; she pushed them away and stood in front of her son, between Nicholas and Lucas, and asked what was going.

“Oh mom, this…this is nothing….umm, I…he…it’s not what you think.” Nicholas was a great actor and nailed the ‘getting caught’ role that he adopted.

“Who is this?” Nicholas’s mother almost screamed. She was horrified to see her handsome son in the arms, or more like holding another man in his arms, it was not appropriate and in public too! What if someone saw them and one of her family members knew? Nicholas’s life would be over.

“That’s my brother, Lucas and he is gay.” Layla said with an innocent smile, much to Mrs. Senou’s horror.

Lucas didn’t expect to be outed like that in front of a stranger but here he was, being looked at by a mother as if he was the most disgusting human being on this earth for seemingly being gay.

“Nicholas, let’s go.” Mrs. Senou pulled her son away without saying anything and dragged him away, while Layla and Nicholas celebrated this because this meant that their plan could work, this was her reaction from just a hug, imagine if Nicholas stayed over and a photo of him and Lucas was posted on Layla’s social media with the caption: cute love birds.

Layla’s imagination on how to make Mrs. Senou believe her son was gay because she was running wild and she made sure to take notes on every idea she got, which got confused looks from Lucas and Leonard, who both stopped caring about the fifth sentence Layla wrote, and focused on their ice cream and Nicholas’s too, that they shared, as good business partners would.