Page 68 of Phoenix
As for the bar, I know he went to the site today, to have one more look before the place is cleared for development. Just in case there was anything left behind. He has no regrets, but I think he does feel pangs of guilt every now and then. I hope for his sake they eventually go with time.
There are no customers today as we’ve closed for our wedding day. Jake is training to be a chef, alongside our head chef, Marco. I’ve learned to be more comfortable with him, but it took a while, simply because he’s a stranger. Lou is four months pregnant, while Izzie welcomed a baby girl a couple of weeks ago. Both she and her husband, Theo, look exhausted, but so happy. And to help them out, I go to walk Stella once a day, aka my go-to therapist. I might even get myself my own dog one day.
As I reach the top of the aisle, breathing through the anxiety of having lots of pairs of eyes on me, I reach out for Warren’s hand, and he turns to face me with a beaming smile. He looks as relieved as I do to finally be here together, making promises to love one another through thick and thin, like we already have been. The officiant begins the ceremony, but I don’t listen straight away. Something has caught my eye, a single cloud, one with no particular shape to anyone else but me. To me, it’s Stanley. Tammy was wrong that day, Stanley isn’t a silly childhood myth, he’s real. He’s always been real to me, perhaps not physically, but in my mind, he’s kept me going through everything. Even on the worst of days in that basement, in my terrifying nightmares, even in the most dangerous of situations, he has always been there. Why should he not be here on my wedding day?
“What are you looking at, Niamh?” Warren leans in to whisper inside my ear and I giggle. He pulls back and smiles with his teeth and dimples.
“Stanley,” I whisper back, and point to the cloud behind him, “my other hero.”
“Looks like a blob,” he laughs.
“That’s ok,” I smile back at him, “I can see him for the both of us.”
“Don’t ever change, baby,” he whispers before kissing me, “I love you, all of you, even Stanley.”
“And I love you, Warren.”
Epilogue
Warren
Cradling this small human being inside of my arms, which feel much too big to be doing such a thing, I can’t help rocking him from side to side. It just seems to be the natural thing to do. I never thought this would happen to me, that I would be this lucky to have a beautiful wife who I am so in love with; I sometimes have to pinch myself to make sure she’s real. Being the Phoenix felt like a curse for most of my life; it had come from something that plagued my nightmares and my every waking thought. But had it not been for the Phoenix I had become, I never would have met my dragon, my soulmate, my Niamh. And now she has given me the most precious gift of all, a son. More than that, she’s given me a new purpose to live for.
“Warren,” she whispers as she sneaks in to see what is taking me so long to put our child to bed. Parents find the lack of sleep almost torturous in these first few months, but I’ve never slept that well. I was lucky if I could get more than a couple of hours without waking up in a sheen of sweat and my mother’s name upon my lips. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that since having Riley, I’ve never slept so soundly.
“Warren, he’s sound asleep, what are you doing?” she asks with a soft giggle, one that is a million miles away from the frightened ghost of a girl I met on that stormy night.
“Just watching him” I reply with a contented smile. “Can you believe I was once this small?”
“No,” she says without a breath, making us both laugh.
“Apparently I was a dinky little thing,” I tell her truthfully, “less than six pounds.”
“Aw, that’s so cute,” she teases as I place our precious bundle inside of his bassinet.
“And now?”
“Still cute,” she laughs as I take her inside my arms, raising my brow over her sass. Sass. I love that she now has sass. I like to think I gave her that sass.
“But also manly, right?”
“Sure,” she says, shrugging her shoulders and walking toward the door, so I rush out to follow, ready to do a little teasing of my own.
“Oh, really?” I question as we pull the door to on our son, leaving it open so we can always hear him. She simply shrugs again before offering a taunting grin. “I’ll show you manly, baby.”
Without another word, I haul her over my shoulder and begin marching us toward our bedroom just next door, all the while she laughs. I then let her down on our bed and begin pulling off my clothes, enjoying the look on her face as she watches intently. We’ve only just started having sex again, since the birth of Riley, and we sure as hell have been making up for it. I guess being able to withstand the sleepless nights works out well for both of us. She knows I’ll see to him during the night, and I get my beautiful, sexy wife wanting my body again. We’re a team, her and I, and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
“You gonna strip for me, baby, or do you want the Phoenix treatment?” I ask with a devious smirk on my face.
“Well, seeing as you’re being ‘manly’ and all, I guess I should go for the Phoenix,” she says, using her foot to keep me back for just a moment; she can see the hunger in my eyes. She also knows that when she removes that foot from my chest, her little summer dress is going to be ripped to shreds. Panties too. “Just watch the chest, Warren, these bad boys are extremely sensitive.”
“Nah-ah, you have to call me Phoenix tonight,” I utter as she removes her foot and I move in toward her ear. “Of course.”
“Good boy,” she teases, “Phoenix.”
“Showtime,” I whisper before the fun begins.
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