27. Twenty-seven
Twenty-seven
October 2022
Phoenix Campbell
W e laid Archie’s body to rest yesterday. Jasper, Alice, Niamh and Will joined Cee and me as we said our goodbyes. And Alice is staying with us for a few days. It’s nice having her here; Alice lived next door to me for most of my life, and I’ve missed having her close by. She’s currently lying on her front on the living room floor, trying to entice Magnus into chasing after a ball of tinfoil. Magnus seems less than impressed since he’s already investigated the foil and is fully aware no food is contained within it. I never saw myself becoming a cat person, but I’m quite enamoured with this particular fluffball. I also love how he turns Cee into a total marshmallow.
“Where’s Connor?” Alice asks. He was gone when we got home from a run in the woods.
“He’s out working on some secret project he won’t tell me about.”
“Why’s it a secret?”
“No idea; he won’t tell me. He’s been working on it for a few months; that’s all I know.”
“You are such a guy. I don’t know a single woman who wouldn’t have found out exactly what he’s up to.” Alice raises an eyebrow at me, silently asking permission to investigate this.
“Nope. Contain your nosiness. He’ll let me know what it is when he’s good and ready.”
“Ugh. You’re so annoyingly mature and reasonable. It’s boring. What happened to the guy who spent years sleeping with the enemy in secret?” she asks, trying to bait me. I sigh.
“He ended up engaged to his boyfriend’s sister and had enough drama to last a lifetime. Things with me and Connor are finally in a good place again, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts.” I laugh lightly.
“Are you ever going to tell him what your mum did?” I groan because I just want to leave the past in the past, and everyone seems to insist on dragging it back up again.
“I thought about it not long after we got married. But then, eventually, we ended up sorting through things, and now it feels like I’d be picking at a gnarly scab. Also, Connor is hot-tempered. There’s nothing to say he wouldn’t lose his shit and end up outing my mum, and there’s nothing to be gained from that.”
What I don’t tell her is how even though I genuinely believe it’s for the best Cee doesn't know what my mum did; keeping the secret from him eats at me, especially since my conversation with Jasper last month. I can’t help but think that when we started over with a clean slate, he should have known the real reason we ended up there in the first place.
“I want to join your pack,” Alice says, and my jaw drops.
“What? But your parents? Your brother?” I ask, stammering and gobsmacked.
“I have family in your mum’s pack. I have family in the Eastwood pack. But my best friend is in this pack.” I swallow the lump in my throat. Alice is practically a sister to me at this point, and as much as I think it will cause some tension with my mum if she leaves, I can’t deny I wouldn’t love having her nearby again.
“Are you sure, though? Me and Connor don’t currently have the greatest track record for pack members…” She gives me a wide-eyed look and smacks my shin closest to her.
“Jesus, Nix, that’s dark. I can’t stay in the Lake District. I know you’ve decided to put the past in the past, but I don’t want an Alpha who will abuse their power.” She looks determined, and I know she won’t budge on this. I feel guilty for being the one who told her what my mum did.
“Alice—”
“No, don’t ‘Alice’ me. Your mum broke the law, Nix. She Alpha Ordered her own son into getting married, and I’ll keep your secret, but I can’t live under her thumb when I know the truth.” I don’t argue with her because I know there’s no point. Before I can respond, though, the front door slams shut loudly, and I wince.
Cee doesn’t come into the living room right away; he clatters in the kitchen. His lack of a greeting doesn’t bode well for me. This probably makes me a terrible person, but I’m kind of hoping Alice's presence will keep him at a simmer rather than boiling over.
“Babe, there’s leftovers in the fridge for you,” I shout, testing the waters. He appears in the doorway, and his eyes look ablaze with fury.
“Keep your leftovers. I hope you fuckin’ choke on them, Phoenix!” I visibly flinch at the use of my full name, which is never a good sign, and he stomps back into the kitchen.
“I should probably leave the two of you to talk,” Alice says, petting Magnus’ head and getting up from the floor.
“Don’t leave on my account, Alice. Doesn’t sound like there’s anythin’ Phoenix and I could talk about that you don’t already know more about than I do,” Cee spits, reappearing again. He’s a pacer when he’s mad, and I get the impression he doesn’t feel the downstairs of our house is sufficient room for this endeavour.
Shit, I knew, deep down, I just knew this would bite me in the arse one day.
“Leave while you still can,” I mouth at Alice, who quickly makes her way upstairs to grab her stuff.
I take a deep breath to try and steady myself. The only thing I can do is tell him the whole truth and hope he can forgive me. He promised he didn’t have a foot out of the door anymore, but I’m still worried it wouldn’t take much for him to leave.
I say a quick goodbye to Alice and find Cee in the kitchen, time to face the music. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, a tight grip on the granite worktop.
“Babe, can we sit down and talk? I don’t want to fight with you,” I say, desperately trying to reason with him. I can’t go back to the way things were in the spring.
“Would you have gone through with it otherwise?” Cee asks, and he’s seething, pacing back and forth across the small kitchen.
“The marriage? Of course not.”
“I thought…I really thought. Fuck. How could you keep this from me?”
“At first, I physically couldn’t tell you. And then after, it seemed cruel to, when it wouldn’t really change anything.” I try to keep my voice calm, like I’m trying not to spook a cornered animal. I see some of the fight leave him, and his shoulders droop; he looks deflated, which is somehow worse.
“I really believed you when you told me you loved me.”
“Huh? I do love you, babe; I’ve loved you for five years. I’ve never loved anyone else. This doesn’t change how I feel about you at all.”
“So you love me, but you wouldn’t have married me?” He sounds so broken, and I don’t understand why. I get him being pissed at me for keeping this from him, but I don’t see why it’s making him question my feelings for him. My feelings for him have never wavered, not once.
“I don’t understand why you think that. I told you years ago I wanted to marry you, that never changed. It broke my fucking heart when we got married, knowing you didn’t want to be there.” I’ve never told him that before. How horrific it is to finally marry the love of your life while knowing they wished they were anywhere else but there. His brow scrunches up in confusion—him and me both.
“You aren’t makin’ any sense! You literally just said you wouldn’t have married me if your mum hadn’t Ordered it.” His voice is raised, and he sounds exasperated, which, now I’m catching on, is understandable.
I’m an idiot…
“Oh fuck. No. Baby, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think that.” I try to bring him into my chest to hug him, but he grips my arms and keeps me away. “My mum didn’t Alpha Order me to marry you . She Ordered me to marry Niamh.” I see the moment the revelation sinks in, and he looks up at me through teary eyes. His bottom lip trembles slightly, and I hate that even for a second, he thought I hadn’t married him of my own free will.
“Nobody made you marry me?” His voice is quiet, barely more than a whisper.
“Nobody. And I know it wasn’t how we planned to get married, but I have never regretted a single day I’ve been able to call you my husband,” I tell him, and this time, when I try to hug him, he lets me. I press my lips to his forehead and inhale his scent. How can I ever be surprised by his fiery temper when he’s always smelled like a storm brewing.
I pull Cee towards the living room, but when I take a seat on the sofa, he sits on the far end with his knees pulled up to his chest. Cee's five foot ten and muscly from a labour-intensive job, but he looks small and vulnerable curled up in the corner. It makes my chest ache. I want to reach out and comfort him, but he’s chosen space, so I know I need to respect that.
“You still should have told me,” he says in a quiet but firm voice.
“You’re right, I should have.” I go on to explain why I’d chosen not to, not wanting to break up my family. I explain how even after me and Alice looked through every book we could get our hands on, we couldn’t find a way out of it. He looks even more surprised when I tell him how we sought out Noah to see if there was a spell to undo it.
“You let me believe you’d given up on us. I thought I wasn’t enough for you.”
My stomach drops at his words. I really hate myself right now.
“I’m so sorry. I hate that I made you feel that way. But I hope you believe me when I tell you that in my whole life, I’ve never wanted anyone but you. I love you so much, and I know it’s my fault you doubted that, but I will show you every single day until we’re old and wrinkly and can’t get it up anymore.” He lets out a small wet laugh but then looks cross with himself for it. “Please come here. We’ve been through too much for this to be the thing that ruins us. Please come here and let me hold you?” My voice is needy, but I can’t bring myself to care. There’s a knot of anxiety in my stomach threatening to make my dinner reappear, and I know it won’t settle until he’s back in my arms. Cee shakes his head, and a tear slips from his dark lashes, rolling down his cheek.
“I need to process this, and I can’t just wrap myself up in you to put a temporary plaster on it. The year we were apart was the worst year of my life.” His breath hitches, and guilt sits in my stomach like a heavy stone. “I was so depressed some days I didn’t even make it into work, Phoenix. And now you’re tellin' me all of that was for nothin'? There was no good reason we weren’t together durin’ that time.”
“I tried to reach out to you. You wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t answer the phone, ignored all my texts,” I try to reason with him.
“If I’d answered the phone, would you have told me the truth?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I say, trying to be as honest with him as possible. I never intended to tell him, but sometimes I think I would have eventually if it was the only way to get him back.
“Fuck. Somehow, it’s worse to know that.” He gets up from the sofa and wipes his wet cheek with his sleeve.
“Are you going to bed?”
“No, I’m goin’ for a run. I need some space to think and clear my head.” The pit in my stomach grows a stem that tangles in my throat until I’m choking on it.
“You’re not going to leave me, are you?” I ask, hating how pathetic I sound. I can’t lose him over this.
I only just got him back.
“You’re my husband,” he replies, but that doesn’t really answer my question.