Chapter 23 Champion
Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAMPION
The drive up the canyon was gorgeous, the turning maples, bright quakies with the dark green pines standing sentinel behind, but nothing compared to the woman curled up at my right, pastels smearing across her paper as she sketched me.
She was content as a kitten, happy with the gas station hot dogs we’d picked up on the outskirts of the city, happy with her messy colorful fingers and messy bun.
Life was messy, but with Kitten, it was all beauty.
I’d never been so happy, so content, so absolutely feral about touching my wife.
She was so close to me, mine to adore and worship for the rest of her time, however long that was.
Not long enough. No matter what. She’d accepted the dark sides of me.
Even the fact that I could mess with her head, she’d still chosen me without a moment’s hesitation.
She was in it, with me, forever. It made me think that maybe I should be more careful with my life, because if she actually wanted kids, I’d have to be there for them, and her, and this whole future laid out before me filled with everything I’d been avoiding.
Or maybe I’d just been waiting for the one person who made that life make sense.
Sunshine made everything make sense, except for the fact that there was so much space between us.
It was the art that was intruding between all the passionate hand-holding I wanted to be doing. Still, if she wanted to smear pink over a page instead of squeezing my fingers, I could be patient, bide the time until we were parked. But then, I was going to seriously seduce her out of her pastels.
In the meantime, I could enjoy the feel of her glorious machine in my hands. Trixie had outdone herself. She said it was her wedding present, unless Kitten didn’t like it, in which case she’d think of something else.
Jezebel had watched the exchange with calculation, running the odds on whether Kitten would like having her precious Camaro pimped or not.
The odds were good enough that Jezzy hadn’t stopped her friend from wasting her time.
Kitten did like it, more that Trixie thought of her than anything else.
She cared about intentions, so I’d have to be very careful with mine.
I couldn’t do anything that made her feel like she wasn’t my first priority.
And with the end of the season, I’d started wondering how long I should run the games.
Probably at least until I got Trixie settled with someone who could keep her in ridiculously expensive tires.
And Jezebel. What was that bit Pinkie had said about finding her a nice cowboy?
That was an amusing yet terrifying picture.
If Sunshine didn’t object, I’d keep the games running as long as they needed the rough family we’d built over the years.
She wouldn’t. She loved family, even Flowers who had pushed her to become a killer.
She even felt guilty for killing my mother, even though it was clearly in self-defense, but he’d set her up to fulfil her potential and become even harder to destroy in the long run.
It wasn’t enough to cure her, he had to make her practically unkillable.
Good thing I didn’t have to make that choice, because part of me was ecstatic that she’d be harder to hurt.
Now that I was the King of Beasts, I had so many enemies.
I needed her to have every bit of armor she could.
A flickering shadow fell over us as Dirk and Pinkie in the helicopter followed above us. So many enemies.
My Nevada house wasn’t exactly close to the Strip. It was in the Rockies a good ways from Vegas. I’d brought sponsors there from time to time, but I’d gotten it for myself, somewhere I could forget about how good or bad I was and just be.
It was like our camping trip only wilder, bigger, and the house had plumbing and electricity.
When I pulled up the gravel drive in front of the house, lake to the left, big porch to the right, fish jumping as if they wanted to be our supper for the night, Sunshine took my face in her hands and frowned at me.
“What is this? It’s a palace, not a cabin! I’ll get lost and eaten by bears in a house that big.”
I kissed her adorable nose with its smattering of perfect freckles and got out. “The perks of big is that we can both fit in the bed. Come on, Kitten. There’s also a kitchen, and everything you’d need to make me a peach pie. I’m dying to have your peach pie. It’ll be so good with the fish.”
She got out and looked around, drinking in the beauty like anything could possibly hold a candle to her. I loved her too much. My chest was going to break from holding so much emotions inside. I had to go over to her and wrap her in my arms, pulling her close to me.
“Nix, was that a double hammock on the porch?” she whispered.
I squeezed her tight and drank in the feel of her. “Triple. For the dog, and the cat, and the bird.”
She snuggled into me and the world was so bright, perfectly whole, I didn’t know what to do with myself. “This is all yours? Without anyone else for miles and miles?”
Other than Daniel patrolling with his select beasts, and Dirk’s helicopter? “Completely alone.”
She pulled away a miserable amount and then darted towards the lake. At two steps, she pulled off her smiley face t-shirt, flinging it back towards me.
“Can’t catch me!” she cried, glancing over her shoulder with pure mischief in her eyes.
Well, Kittens did like to play. And this was a game that wouldn’t have a loser. But I was playing for keeps. No catch and release in my lake, with my wife.
I chased her. My prize. Who had saved me from my beast, and my mother.
The End