Chapter Twenty-four
Three days later
But people can also love you quietly, without fanfare or noise; sometimes, this is when love is the most powerful, and the most life-changing.
For the first time, Ice and Vixen were together in his bed. Ice was in boxer shorts and lying on his side facing her, holding her hand. She was all tucked up in her little pillow fort, looking warm and happy in one of his large t-shirts, if maybe a bit sleepy from their long shower together. That beautiful face was serene, those amazing eyes were his personal little night sky, those lips pink and slightly swollen from Ice’s tender kisses.
As he gazed at her, it occurred to him – yet again – that he knew everything truly important about this woman, everything that really counted. He had years of small details to learn, he understood that , and with a jolt, he realized that he wanted to have the years to learn them – he wanted years with her.
He wanted a whole lifetime together, for him to find out everything that made Vixen Vixen , to unroll the days and weeks and months that had somehow all added up to this woman. This brave, fierce, strong, sexy-as-all-fuck, incredible woman. The last woman that he ever thought he could or would be serious about – and now the last woman that he ever wanted to be with.
“Ice? You OK?”
He started at the note of worry in her voice, and knew why she was a bit unsure around him. He and Cain had returned just that day from disposing of Derrick Bale, and Vix had taken one look at him and known enough to not ask why the others had come back to Denver two days before … but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t concerned.
“Yeah, baby,” he said, tightening his grip on her small hand, gave her a reassuring smile. “Just thinking.”
“Ahhhh.” Vixen blinked at him innocently. “Is that why you look like you’re in pain?”
“I swear,” he growled. “As soon as that neck brace is off in a few weeks, I’m gonna be making you pay for all these smart-ass remarks that I can’t do anything about right now.”
“You keeping a list, handsome?”
“You know it… and it’s getting longer by the day.”
“I just bet it is.”
They smiled at each other, and then Vix’s eyes widened at something behind him. He was already rolling over, every sense on edge, wondering what she saw, when she pointed at Ice's bedroom window.
“Look!” she said, clearly delighted and not at all worried about anything. “ Snow ! Lots of it!”
He looked over his shoulder and sure enough, there were big fat flakes coming down, swirling in the wind roaring down from the mountains, illuminated white and bright in the moonlight. And as Ice stared at the snow, he was a bit surprised at his reaction. Or rather, his lack of reaction.
Normally, the sight of heavy snow made his heart sink way down into his stomach, because wild snowstorms and deep snowfalls meant that Christmas was definitely coming, and really fucking soon. Ice knew how calendars worked, of course, and so he knew that Christmas was in nine days – but since he’d learned over the years to studiously ignore that fact, he’d kind of been on automatic pilot with this Christmas too.
But seeing Vix all curled up in his bed, all thrilled about the snow that was sure to keep her housebound at his place for a week at least for her safety, Ice’s heart didn’t sink at the thought that Christmas was almost upon him. In fact, he wanted to celebrate it for the first time in twenty-nine years – and he wanted to do that with her .
That was when he decided to share another big truth about himself; maybe the biggest one that he had.
“I’m going to go get something from the living room,” Ice said to her as he got to his feet. “Do you need anything from the kitchen? Some water? Green tea that I brought home special for you?”
“Did you really?”
“I did,” he affirmed. “I dropped into a mini-mart while you were having a nap, grabbed a few essentials.”
“And green tea is essential?”
“It sure as hell is,” he growled. “It is because it’s for you .”
“Awww.” Vixen blushed, a bit surprised how touched she was that Ice had picked up a simple box of teabags for her; it’s not like it was the Hope Diamond, but somehow, it felt way more special, because he’d been thinking about her little needs and likes. “But no, thanks. I’m good.”
“OK, baby.” He kissed her palm, dropped her hand back on the mattress, loving her delicate fingers. “Back in a minute.”
He went into his living room and using the moonlight to guide his steps, he went over to the large cabinet in the farthest corner. He opened the bottom drawer, the one that he never touched, the one that he pretended didn’t exist, and took out the two small items.
As he turned to go back to his bedroom and to Vix, he caught his reflection in the massive window, the one that he’d stared out of for so many nights after his parents had emerged out of his past and into his present. The one that he’d gazed out of while drinking coffee and waiting for the sunrise over the Rockies, just holding on minute by minute, cup by cup. Alone.
Ice stared at himself for a few seconds, stared at the stars and the snow, and realized that if the dream came that night, it wouldn’t happen while he was alone. She would be here, and if he couldn’t go back to sleep, she’d get up with him. She’d sit in that massive leather chair with him, and she’d drink her sweet coffee, and she’d watch the pink and violet dawn break over the mountains, witness the golden sun touch and warm the icy caps. She’d listen if he wanted to talk, or she’d hold his hand if he didn’t.
That was when he knew that he was doing the right thing. Maybe for the first time in a long, long time.
He returned to his bedroom, then sat on the mattress carefully, cradling a small box in each hand.
“Vix?”
She heard it in his voice, and right away her sleepiness fled, those incredible eyes wide awake, alert. “Yes, Ice?”
“I want to show you something. Two things, actually.”
“OK.” She carefully adjusted herself, sat up a bit straighter. “What are they?”
He opened the first box, and handed it to her. Vix blinked down at what was sat in it, confused for a few seconds, but when it came to her, she gasped, tears springing to her eyes.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked. “Is it OK if I take it out?”
“It is, and it is.”
Vix turned the box over, carefully dropped its contents into her palm. She cradled the item like it was the most breakable thing on the planet, like it was as precious as the Hope Diamond; the truth is that it was far more precious than that.
The Matchbox car wasn’t bright-red anymore, its sheen had faded over its decades in the box. That box had been stuffed into trash bags when Ice had moved from foster home to foster home, then it had been jammed into the corner of his backpack when he’d lived on the streets, then shoved into drawer after drawer as he’d moved from apartment to apartment. With every move, he had contemplated throwing it away, and he’d never been able to do it – but he hadn’t been able to open the box, either.
“Oh, my God, babe,” Vix whispered. “You’ve kept it all this time?”
“It was the last thing my Mom gave me,” he said, then cleared his throat. “I have one more thing from her.”
He opened the second box, and this time, he removed the object himself. He hadn’t laid eyes on it for almost thirty years, but it was more beautiful than he remembered. Clearer, brighter, more pure.
The same color as her eyes .
“I brought only two things from my life in Montana,” he told Vix. “That car, and this .”
He held up the ring: silver with a bright green stone, his mother’s only piece of jewelry, the only thing that she’d somehow managed to keep hidden from Ice’s father when he’d been on a rampage to destroy everything in sight, or to sell things to buy alcohol. She’d told Ice once that it had been her mother’s ring, and she’d been determined to save it from the father of her child, even if she couldn’t save herself from him, in the end.
Ice vaguely remembered sneaking down the trailer hallway, had only an unclear memory of sitting next to his mother’s body. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been dead when he did this, had no idea how long he’d sat there with her, but he did remember being completely unable to look at anything except her hand, flung out and covered in blood and shining with a soft, perfect green light.
At that point in his life, Ice had never stolen anything… but he had taken the ring off her body. It had felt like he was saving some part of her – a really good part, maybe a part that she hadn’t been able to save herself – and since he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing for her in life, he thought hazily that maybe he could do this much for her in death.
Then he’d put the ring in a box, and dragged it around his little world, and never looked at it again… until tonight.
It wasn’t a traditional engagement ring, he knew that. It wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t modern, it wasn’t what a little girl might dream of when she thought about wearing a ring for the rest of her life. But it was the most genuine, most honest thing that Ice had to offer – and so he offered it to her.
Ice sank down to one knee beside the bed, his mother’s ring in his palm, and he asked Vix a question, one that she accepted with a single word breathed on a sob. He slid the ring onto her finger, marvelling at the perfect fit, as if it was meant to be hers, to be worn only by her.
For better or worse, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, Vix was it .
For as long as she ’ d let him be.
Let it be forever .
**