Chapter Eleven
Sixtine
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit or something?” I ask Bellamy.
“No, I’m fine! Where would I sit anyway?” she answers, gesturing at the crowd around us.
I laugh. “Okay, fair enough.”
The four of us are at an underground club, pressed against the ring as we wait for Phoenix’s fight to start. Tristan, Rhys, and Rogue are off somewhere getting us drinks.
My husband is a law school graduate, just like I am, and he splits his professional time between Sinclair Royal, the law firm we started with Bellamy, and Blackdown, my father’s weapons company, and yet he still finds the time to fight.
No, he makes the time.
It’s a way to relieve stress for him, to clear his mind and wipe the slate clean after a hectic day.
He also says it’s some of his best thinking time. It’s hard for me to argue with him when his most brilliant ideas seem to come after he’s stepped out of the ring.
Being a supportive wife, I come to each and every single one of his fights, even though I can hardly bear to watch them. I usually have to look at them through the hands I have clamped over my eyes, flinching any time his opponents throw a punch or a kick.
I’m lucky though, because Nix is good.
He’s great even.
Actually, he’s the best.
I’m not just saying that because I’m biased.
Even when he’s physically outweighed in a matchup, he seems to find a reserve of strength and will to beat the living daylights out of the other guy.
When I asked him once how he does it, he told me it’s because he refuses to lose when I’m watching. So I come to every game to make sure he never does.
He did ban me from ever being a ring girl again though, so I watch dutifully from the sidelines, cheering him on as loudly as I can.
“Plus,” Bellamy adds with a conspiratorial grin, absentmindedly rubbing her belly. “You now need that chair just as much as I do.”
I place a hand on my own stomach. “Do you think he’s going to be excited when I tell him?”
“Are you kidding?” Nera chimes in. “I’m legitimately afraid that I’m never going to see you again once he finds out. That man is going to lock you up in your house until the baby comes.”
I laugh because it very much is a possibility with Phoenix. But something else niggles at me.
Unlike his friends, Nix hasn’t been pushing me to have kids. He says he’s happy with it being just the two of us. I don’t want him to be disappointed that that’s about to change.
The crowd moves and a man trips backwards, jostling Bellamy in the process. I grab her by the arms, stabilizing her, and am about to yell at the man when he suddenly lifts right off her.
“Touch my wife again and this face will be the last thing you see before you die,” Rogue seethes, appearing as if from nowhere.
“I-I’m sorry,” the man stutters in response. “It wasn’t my fault–”
Rogue shoves him off like he weighs nothing and turns towards Bellamy without giving the man a second thought.
She gives him a small pout.
“I really don’t think it was his fault specifically. He stumbled into me.”
His hand comes to rest possessively on her belly as he pulls her into him.
“I can threaten the whole crowd with the same punishment if you prefer,” he offers sweetly.
“Okay, no .”
He presses his lips to her temple. “Speaking of which, how are you doing with the crowd? Is your anxiety okay? Any shortness of breath or racing heart rate?”
Bellamy suffered from panic attacks when I first met her in Switzerland. They’ve mostly abated since, but Rogue always keeps a watchful eye on her in situations that could cause her stress, looking out for signs that one might be brewing.
Ever since she got pregnant, he’s been even more overprotective.
“Nothing,” she replies with a smile. “I’m totally fine, don’t worry about me.”
“Worrying about you is my default setting, sweetheart.”
“Well, reboot your factory settings then.”
He chuckles warmly and presses his chest against her back, wrapping his arms around her and holding her snuggly.
The lights dim suddenly and the crowd goes wild.
Moments later, Phoenix’s opponent, a guy named Blade — I’ve already judged him to be a douchebag based on his name alone — skips down the walkway towards the ring.
I don’t spare him a second glance.
He’s not who I’m here for.
My head turns towards the other end and I watch as my husband emerges. Where his opponent chose to wear a robe, bedazzled shorts with his name on them, and over the top gaudy gloves, Phoenix comes out wearing a pair of simple black shorts, matching gloves, and nothing else.
His only accessory is the ink covering his body. It wraps around the dips and valleys of his muscles, blanketing his entire chest and a large part of his arms.
There were twenty-seven tattoos dedicated to me when we graduated from RCA.
He’s up to forty-six now.
He never tells me when he’s going to get one done. They just appear and I discover them when we’re naked in bed or making love in the shower.
I’ll trace each new tattoo with my finger and tell him I love it, because I do.
I think it’s one of his favorite things, watching me come across a new tattoo. He always stares obsessively at my face, taking in the delight that etches itself into my features.
There’s no memory too small for him to immortalize on his body. He has a plumeria flower on his hip simply because he had a bouquet of them delivered to my office on our first day and I stuck one behind my ear and walked around with it in my hair all day. He slipped out of a meeting and I saw the fresh ink that night when he fucked me on the dining room table.
He’s slipped out of many more meetings since that day.
My mouth waters as I watch him approach. He doesn’t even spare a glance for his opponent.
No, he stares at me instead.
“If you weren’t already pregnant, that look alone would get the job done,” Thayer whispers to me with a laugh.
I blush and smile sweetly at my husband. He exhales deeply, his chest settling with ease like seeing me alone brings him peace.
“Is that your girl, Sinclair?”
Phoenix’s jaw tightens. His gaze drags slowly over to his opponent.
“Quit while you’re ahead, Blade,” he suggests, his tone managing to remain even.
In a move that shows years of boxing have dulled Blade’s cognitive abilities down to that of a primitive cave person’s, he slinks over to where I’m standing and shrugs his robe off, dropping it insolently on the mat in front of me.
“A souvenir to remember me by, darling,” he swaggers arrogantly.
I throw him a disgusted look.
Nera emits a world-weary sigh, shaking her head pityingly. “We’re about to witness a murder.”
Blade crouches so his face is level with mine. His forearms rest on the ropes as he leans towards me.
Rhys puts a protective hand on my shoulder, glowering at the man in front of me, his stare daring him to come closer and see what happens.
But I know what this is.
It’s an intimidation tactic. Nothing more than a psychological trick from Blade to mess with Phoenix’s head before their fight.
This isn’t about me.
Phoenix watches the exchange silently, his entire body so tense it looks like it’s going to snap.
But he doesn’t intervene.
He knows I’m well protected and that nothing’s going to happen to me.
Blade continues. “Make sure to close your eyes, darling. I don’t want you to watch when I KO your boyfriend.”
I take a step forward, pressing against the ropes. I hear Phoenix hiss in warning, a sound that lets me know I have ten seconds to wrap this up before he does intervene.
“Enjoy your last few seconds of consciousness, Blade .” My gaze lifts to Phoenix and I give him a conspiratorial smile. “I hope you like bedtime stories because my husband is about to read you one.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Blade flinch. His gaze pings back and forth between us, taking in the way I look at Phoenix and the way he stares intensely, unflinchingly back.
He turns away, his steps markedly more uncertain than when he first swaggered over to me.
“Well,” Bellamy says, clapping her hands. “The good news is this is going to be a quick one, which means we can get food after. I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry?” Rogue asks, alarmed. “What do you want? I’ll get it for you now.”
She places a hand on his chest. “Chill, babe. I can wait.”
“But you don’t have to. Tell me what you want. Noodles? Tacos? Fries? A Burger? What?”
“Seriously, I don’t—”
“Chicken wings?”
“ Christ . Just pick something, B, you’ve set him off now. You know he won’t stop until he brings you food,” Thayer says with a sigh.
“Um… it’s random but,” Bellamy says, “I’m kind of craving strawberries and nutella.”
“Strawberries and nutella? Done,” Rogue answers, pulling his phone out of his pocket and typing as he starts to walk away. “Tristan.”
“I’ll look after her, mate,” Tristan answers without needing additional prompting.
The girls and I are laughing at Rogue’s over the top protectiveness when the sound of a first punch pulls our attention back to the ring. We watch as Phoenix unleashes a flurry of merciless hits on his opponent.
Blade takes a dazed step back, his eyes going unfocused. Instead of finishing him, Phoenix backs away.
“Don’t make it this easy for me,” he taunts. “Fight back a little.”
Blade pushes off the ropes and goes for a jab hook combo that Phoenix easily weaves away from. Blade comes back with four more punches, every single one missing their target. He throws a desperate kick, but Phoenix puts up a shin to stop him.
The secondhand embarrassment I get watching Blade punch at the wind is almost crippling. For my own sanity, I can’t watch a second more of this.
I cup my hands around my mouth so my words are heard above the crowd. “Phoenix!”
“Yeah, baby?” he answers immediately, keeping his eyes on Blade as he moves around the ring.
“Stop toying with him and wrap it up, please. I have something to tell you.”
Blade’s eyes bulge out of his head at the easy conversation between Phoenix and I, as if he isn’t mid-fight but rather we’re talking while one of us is doing a household chore like taking out the trash.
In a way, that’s exactly what Phoenix is doing.
“Okay, wild girl. You got it,” my husband answers.
Then he takes two steps forward and lands a left hook, quickly followed up by a devastating uppercut, to Blade’s jaw.
His head snaps backwards and then he crumples to the ground, out cold.
The crowd explodes in cheers, hands slapping against the mat as people start chanting Phoenix’s name.
“Like I said,” Nera comments dryly, “A murder.”
“That whole sequence of events cracks the top five of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed,” Thayer says, laughing so hard tears bead in the corners of her eyes. Rhys, standing beside her with his arm draped over her shoulder, is laughing equally hard.
Phoenix walks over to my side of the ring, bends and snatches Blade’s discarded robe off of the ground.
He goes back over to his fallen opponent, snaps the robe up so it’s laying flat in the air, and drops it over Blade’s unconscious body until it covers him like a blanket.
“Nighty night, asshole,” he throws over his shoulder as he walks away.
And then he’s back in front of me, crouching so we’re more or less eye level.
“Hi,” he says, not even slightly out of breath.
I smile. “Hi.”
“What did you want to tell me?”
Our friends, the crowd and the noise all recede into the background until it’s just the two of us staring into each other’s eyes.
I go straight to the point.
“What if I told you that you’re going to be a father?”
Phoenix freezes, every muscle in his body locking in place as my words hit him. His mouth parts in shock.
And then he weaves his upper body past the ropes and reaches into the crowd for me, easily lifting me up and into the ring like I weigh nothing. He sets me down in front of him, his hands remaining on my arms.
Surprised eyes find mine. “Are you saying you’re pregnant?”
“Yes,” I answer with a laugh. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
His gaze drops to my stomach, a look of wonder playing out in his eyes. For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. I can’t gauge his reaction at all.
I’m about to ask him if he’s happy, but the words die in my throat when he does the last thing I expect him to.
He falls to his knees.
His hands grab my flowy shirt and he shoves it up to just under my bra, baring my stomach to him and everyone else watching us.
“Phoenix!” I exclaim, covering his hands with mine.
He ignores me, his face coming towards my stomach instead. And then he presses a soft, long kiss on my belly, right above my navel.
“Hi, baby,” he whispers in awe, speaking directly to my tummy.
I watch, speechless and throat constricted with emotion, as he splays his palm on my skin and caresses it gently.
“I’m your Daddy.”
Phoenix looks up at me from his knees and the expression on his face is so raw, so open, it brings immediate tears to my eyes.
“We made a baby, wild girl,” he says, wonderment filling every word.
I choke on a sob. “We did.”
He looks back at my belly, quietly stroking my skin with his thumbs in awe. He says his next words almost to himself. “I wish Astor was here to see this.”
I run my hands through his hair. “I think he is. He’s looking down at us and smiling right now, I’m sure of it.” My nails rake down his neck. “So you’re happy?”
He nods, looking back up at me. “I’m happy if you’re happy. I want what you want. I could have happily lived the rest of my life with it being just you and me. I didn’t need anything more. But now we have our very own little star and it’s my job to protect her.”
Warmth heats my insides and floods my chest.
“Why are you saying ‘her’? You don’t know that it’s a girl.”
He kisses my tummy again. “Yes, I do. She’s already daddy’s little girl.”
Phoenix jumps to his feet, grabs my face with both hands and kisses me passionately. I’m laughing against his lips at the intensity, at the pure joy coming off him.
He rips his mouth off mine, wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close, and turns towards the crowd.
“My wife is pregnant!” he announces happily.
I hear a loud cheer and when I face away from Phoenix, I see dozens of strangers jumping up and down, celebrating our joy, and I see the faces of my friends pressed up against the ropes, screaming for us with abandon.
My heart is so full.
***