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"Down boy."
He is so damn cute when he acts all possessive and protective like this. I remember the way he scowled at the doctors when they asked him to leave me in that little hospital room and the way he would bark orders at them so they would 'tend to me'. It does funny, beautiful things to my heart that he hasn't changed.
Suddenly, Fay is no longer in the room for me.
Or on this planet, really.
I could pass her on the street every day for the rest of my life and she would still be nothing to me.
I won't waste any of my energy on hating her one moment longer. Hatred is stupid anyway. Hating someone is like taking a spoonful of poison every day all the while thinking to yourself that somehow the object of your loathing will be the one dropping dead in the end as you do it even if you’re the one feeling sick.
Like I said, stupid. And I'm not stupid. I'm someone who's been through enough, lost enough. I'm someone who's ready to be happy.
I hear a door slam closed and that's when I know she's actually left.
My dad's now sitting on his sofa with a befuddled Diablo on his lap and Phillip's talking to him.
I leave them to amicably chat about football and our plans and go up to my room to throw some of my things in an overnight bag.
When I get back downstairs about ten minutes later, I hear my dad as he brews tea in the kitchen, while Phillip is still in the living room, looking out the window with a pensive expression on his face, the big Himalayan cat now slumbering on my man's feet and purring away.
He turns toward me a second before I call his name, sensing me even if I was being utterly quiet.
I smile at him and he smiles back as I sidle up to him, cuddling under his arms, our eyes onto the fluffy flurries of snow falling on the white blanket covering my dad's garden.
"What are you thinking about?" I ask.
He looks down at me, squeezing me a little closer to his chest. "I was thinking that I'm never letting you go again, baby."
I sigh, my grin growing bigger. "That's real good, love. I would never want you to."
He bends a little to kiss my temple, one of his hands tracing warming patterns on my lower back.
We stay just like that for a while, silently watching the snow as it covers the pumpkins and all the Halloween decorations over and around the neighbors' houses, all the orange, purple, and black frosted white.
Phillip chuckles to himself.
"What?" I ask, my fingers stroking his large, muscular shoulder.
"I was thinking that my Chief's either going to be happy I found you or end up ruing the day."
I giggle. "How so?"
He turns slightly around, careful not to jostle the cat, and cups my face in both hands. "I've got tons of vacation days that he's always hounding me to use and now I'm going to finally take him up on it and who knows when he'll see my face again at the firehouse, I'm pretty sure he might come to regret encouraging me to live a little."
We both laugh at that and then his lips are pressing down on mine, kissing hard and fast until my dad calls us for tea and cookies, breaking the spell that our love always seems to waive around us.
Chapter 8
PHILLIP
Two weeks later…
I stroke my wife's back as she rocks back and forth and round and round on my lap, driving me completely insane in the process.
My wife.
I can't believe it's true.
