Reduced to Ashes

by Kay Gordon

  I watched Evan tuck his cream colored dress shirt into his suit pants and smiled when he sat next to me to put on his shoes and socks.

  “What time’s the game tonight?” I asked as he unrolled the black socks he’d taken from the drawer.

  We were going to our second hockey game that night except instead of alone, we were bringing our friends. Dominic and Becca were leaving the kids with Ruby and Keith, Owens was bringing his very pregnant wife, Christos and Kelly were going to be there, and even Ty and Vincent were joining us.

  I was super excited. Watching hockey games on TV had kind of become our thing and I loved it.

  “Seven,” he replied just as something fell out of his sock and hit the ground. When I bent down to grab it, Evan quickly shook his head. “Shit. No, Tor. Wait!”

  His protests were too late, though. I grabbed the small object and sat back up slowly as I inspected it.

  It was a ring. Not an overly fancy one, but one I recognized instantly. The gold band was studded with diamonds and a large, round one sat in the middle. It was beautiful.

  I turned my head and looked at Evan in confusion. “This is my mother’s ring.”

  “I know,” he replied with a sigh. “We’re just meant to be unconventional, aren’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shifted off the bed and sank down so he was on one knee in front of where I was still sitting. He gently took the ring from me but kept my hand in his, kissing the top of it as he did.

  “I was going to do this tonight, in front of all of our friends, but I think I like this better, just you and me. Your dad gave this to me a few weeks ago when I asked for his blessing. I thought I tucked it in the navy socks.” He sucked in a long breath and I just stared at him, completely frozen with the realization of what he was about to do.

  “Victoria Rose,” he started, still keeping my hand in one of his. “You’re my best friend and the love of my life. I can’t imagine not having you by my side as my partner. Nothing would make me happier than if you’d become my wife.” He opened his other hand so I could see the ring again. “Will you marry me?”

  It was kind of funny. At that very moment a year before, I’d decided that I probably wasn’t going to end up married. The thought of opening up to someone, to trusting them enough to have a relationship, had been scary and unappealing. Now? Well, let’s just say I was really glad things had changed so drastically.

  I swallowed back the emotion and nodded my head rapidly. “Yeah, Ev. I’ll marry you.”

  “Good.” He slipped the ring onto my finger and we both stared at it for a moment. Suddenly, we were surging together, meeting for a kiss that blew every kiss before it out of the water.

  “I’m glad you didn’t do it in front of everyone else,” I mumbled against his lips as my fingers started undoing the buttons on his shirt. “I want my fiancé to make love to me right this second and that could have been awkward in the middle of the hockey rink. You’re going to be late for work, Coleman.”

  He chuckled and let me push the shirt off of his shoulders before doing the same with my robe. “I can’t think of a better reason for being late.”

  Yeah, neither could I.

  Epilogue

  Evan

  Five and a half years later

  “Where’d they go?” I tapped my cheek with my finger and let out a long hum, like I was thinking hard.

  On the king-sized bed in front of me, soft little giggles could be heard. And because neither of them could stay still to save their lives, the sheet they were hiding under shifted with toddler impatience.

  “I don’t know,” Victoria said, a smile stretched across her beautiful face. “Maybe we should just take a nap since we can’t find them.”

  More giggles.

  “I think you’re right, Mommy.” I leaned in and pressed a long kiss to my wife’s soft lips. “Let’s lie down.”

  Carefully, so we didn’t squish our children, the two of us laid down so that the two little lumps were in the middle of the bed, still squirming and still giggling.

  At the same time, we both attacked the kids by tickling their armpits and stomachs with our fingers. The belly laughs those two could give were some of my favorite noises.

  I pulled the sheet down to expose the faces of our two-year-old twins, Natalie and Nathan.

  When we first found out we were having twins, Victoria insisted that we weren’t going to give them matching names. She said she hated how predictable it was when she was a kid. When she made it further along in her pregnancy, however, she had a change of heart and said that she didn’t really hate it. She loved the special connection she had to her brother.

  Both of our kids had the same blonde hair their mother did but their eyes were so unique. Natalie’s were bright blue with a large ring of green in the middle. Nathan’s were the opposite, his mother’s bright green with a ring of blue in the middle. They were gorgeous.

  “Now you?” Natalie asked, holding her little finger up to point at me and almost shoving it in my nose. “Dada and Mama hide?”

  “No, pumpkin,” I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Now you guys nap.”

  Nathan was laying on the other side of his sister, next to his mom, and a pout immediately formed on his small lips.

  “No nap. I no tired.” The last part was said on a yawn and both Tori and I chuckled.

  “If you take a nap, we’ll go to Aunt Kelly and Uncle Nick’s for dinner. How does that sound?”

  “Play wif big kids?” Nathan asked, his little voice full of excitement. When I nodded, his sister sat up and started crawling to the foot of the bed.

  “Okie. Nap!”

  With Nathan in my arms, Tori and I followed Natalie down the hall to the room the twins shared.

  We were still in the same house that Victoria had owned when we got together. The neighborhood was amazing, very family friendly, and we’d even had a chance to get to know some of the neighbors. It was the perfect place to raise our kids.

  Each kiddo received a clean diaper, several kisses, and their favorite stuffed animal before being put into their cribs. I followed my wife back to our bedroom and we laid on the bed, listening to our little ones chatter with one another from opposite sides of the room. We both knew the chatter would only keep up for about five minutes before they’d both pass out.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anymore?” I asked Victoria as I rolled over and covered her body with mine. She grinned and ran her fingers through my hair while shaking her head.

  “I’m so sure.”

  Our engagement all those years before had been pretty short because neither of us had wanted to wait. In front of a crowd that included our family, those we considered family, and our friends, Victoria and I were married a year after the fire at Keith and Ruby’s house.

  The memory of my wife in her wedding dress was something I could still picture vividly. Since then, I’d seen her in a dress a handful of times, usually for weddings or formal events we had to attend for work, but her wedding dress had been my favorite by far. The elegance she emanated while wearing it had been fitting only for a woman named Victoria. Even though she refused to admit it, I think she liked feeling girly and feminine for that day. I had certainly enjoyed taking it off her that night as we started our honeymoon.

  It was about a year and a half later that we both decided we were ready to start a family. After a devastating early miscarriage that left us both heartbroken, we found out we were expecting the twins just two months later. The pregnancy was hard on Victoria, though. She hated working light duty at the station and hated being placed on bedrest at six months even more.

  Our babies were born six weeks early by Cesarean section. Natalie came first at exactly four pounds and Nathan joined the world forty-five seconds later at four pounds, two ounces. They stayed in the NICU for five weeks before they came home and they’d flourished ever since.

 
My wife went back to work when the kiddos were three months old and thanks to Warren, Ruby, and Keith, we never had to put the babies in daycare. If I wasn’t at work, they were with me and the same was true for Victoria.

  One of the biggest reasons we’d waited so long to have kids was because she had been worried that she wasn’t maternal enough. It was something she stressed about for the entire pregnancy, too, but I never doubted her. I think her doubts finally melted away when she was able to hold them for the first time in the NICU.

  And what a fantastic mother she was.

  “We make pretty cute babies, though,” I murmured, kissing my way down her neck. She nodded and used her hands to drag my shirt up my back.

  “We do but I’m not going through another pregnancy. I think I just finished losing the baby weight.”

  I rolled my eyes and finished ridding myself of my shirt before doing the same to hers. I looked down at my wife’s naked form and shook my head.

  “I’m not sure this body could get any better.” And it was true. It had taken her almost a year after the twins were born to get back to where she was but she was just as delicious as she ever. Her hips were a bit wider and her breasts a cup size bigger, but I definitely wasn’t complaining.

  She also had several silver scars on each side of her stomach and one thin, fading scar right above her pubic bone. Those were my new favorite parts of her. They proved that my wife had carried our children inside of her own body.

  We used the two hours while our kids napped to make love and laze around in bed. I loved being a dad but I also loved remembering that I was a husband, too. I cherished the time I got with the woman I loved more and more each day.

  Later that afternoon, we ambled through the doors of the Christos household. It was always full of chaos and I couldn’t help but smile when I walked inside.

  Nick and Kelly ended up with three little boys, all two years apart. Elias was six, Jason four, and Peter just two. After Peter was born, Kelly made Nick go and get a vasectomy even though he kept teasing her about trying for a girl. She loved to pretend to be sad about not having a daughter but the happiness in her eyes when she did betrayed her words.

  Nathan and Natalie joined Peter and the three toddlers took off after the bigger kids. My wife reached for my hand and we followed the kids to the kitchen.

  “Hey, guys.” Kelly grinned from where she was chopping vegetables at the counter. Becca was next to her, mixing something in a big bowl. “Drinks and snacks are already out on the patio. Nick, Si, Gan, and Dom are all out there with the kids.”

  Tori stopped to give both ladies brief hugs and offer up her assistance- to which Kelly gave her an emphatic “No.” My wife’s skills in the kitchen definitely had not improved. If it was possible, they’d worsened. Our poor kids would have starved on the days I worked if I didn’t make lunches before I left.

  We stepped out on the patio and were greeted by a chorus of voices. Different children ran up and hugged us, including eleven-year-old Gracie. She and Jade, who was eight, spent a lot of time at our house with us and their little cousins absolutely loved them.

  After a round of hugs and handshakes from everyone except Megan, who was currently nine months pregnant and unwilling to get out of a chair, Tori and I sat down on the covered patio.

  The backyard had a huge play structure for the kids and an in-ground pool with a locked fence around it to keep the little ones out. Natalie and Peter were currently sitting in the shaded sandbox, dumping sand on each other, and Nathan was doing his best to keep up with all the bigger kids on the slide.

  “How are you feeling?” Victoria asked Megan as she reached over to rub her swollen stomach. Megan sighed and shook her head.

  “Over it. I can’t do it again after this.”

  “And you’re not.” Simon came over and kissed the top of her head. “I was good with the girls but you wanted to try for a boy.”

  “Well, he’s coming and so the baby making factory is closed for business.”

  Simon and Megan had two daughters, five-year-old Elizabeth and two-year-old Abigail. For a period of time, she, Kelly, and Tori had all been pregnant at the same time and it was anarchy. As much as I loved all the kids, I was kind of happy to see the madness stop. Noah would be the last baby in our group of friends and I was really okay with that.

  “Are Vincent and Tyson coming, Lieu?” Nick asked as he sat down with Abigail cuddled in his lap. She adored her Uncle Nick quite a bit.

  Victoria shook her head. “They’re helping my dad and Donna put up some misting system for their garden.”

  Vincent moved up to New Hope as planned and right into Tyson’s apartment. The two got married about two years later in a small ceremony that included Warren, Victoria, and myself. For a little while, they kicked around the idea of adopting a child but ultimately decided against it. Instead, they devoted themselves to being the best uncles our kids could ask for.

  Warren met his girlfriend, Donna, four years before when she had a clogged drain at her house. Despite thinking he’d never love again, he fell head over heels for her. They weren’t married, but she moved in with Warren a year after that. Victoria and Vincent both loved seeing their father so happy.

  As for my parents, they were completely uninvolved with our lives. They never forgave me or Victoria after Tristan ended up with another ding on his record due to that video. That was okay, though. Our lives were full of people who loved us and we didn’t have precious time to waste on those who didn’t add to it.

  Dominic sat down next to me with a beer in his hand. “Messer called earlier and said they picked up McGuire trying to head into Mexico. He’s being transported back here now and should be ready to interrogate tomorrow.”

  “Excellent.” I knocked my bottle against his with a grin.

  Work was just as busy as ever. Every time we eliminated one drug problem, another popped up. Sludge never made its reappearance but something was always in its place. We were working on closing down a cocaine distributor who had moved into New Hope about a year before. We were close, I could feel it, and I knew bringing in a big player like McGuire could turn the tables.

  Victoria had a breakdown about a year before when I’d been shot on the job. It was a warrant execution of a meth lab and we hadn’t been expecting bullets to actually fly. They did, though, and two hit my vest while one went through and through on my shoulder.

  In the hospital, my wife begged me to quit. Told me to go get a job at Walmart because she and the kids needed me. It took a few days for her to calm down and once the emotions settled, she realized that asking me to quit my job was like me asking her to quit hers. We both loved our professions and neither of us was ready to let them go.

  Victoria was promoted to Lieutenant of her company six months before. Captain Stevenson retired and Simon Owens was promoted to Captain, although he tried to get Victoria to apply for it. He claimed the lieutenant position should have been hers all those years ago but she wasn’t having it. I was proud of her either way.

  Nick manned the grill and an hour later, we all sat down to eat at the two huge patio tables that were set up. I watched Victoria help Jason make up a hot dog but when she placed it in front of him, he looked up at her warily.

  “What’s wrong, Jase?” she asked as she crouched down to look into his eyes.

  “Is it really a hot dog, Aunt Tori?” the four-year-old asked with so much skepticism in his voice.

  Nick and Kelly both burst out laughing and everyone looked up at them in confusion. Nick shook his head and pressed a kiss to his wife’s temple.

  “You’ve scarred him for life, Kel.” He glanced over at the rest of us and laughed again. “Kelly tried to pass carrot dogs off as the real thing. They looked just like hot dogs but obviously weren’t. Jason hasn’t recovered yet.” He reached out and ruffled his son’s brown hair. “It’s a hot dog, dude. I cooked it myself.”

  Jason let out a relieved sigh.
“Oh, thank goodness.”

  Victoria pressed a kiss to the little boy’s head and made sure the rest of the kids had food on their plates. Nathan and Natalie were currently exchanging pieces of food, making some sort of weird barter that only they could understand, and I grinned at their little ketchupy faces.

  When my wife finally sat next to me, I leaned over and brushed my lips against hers. She just offered me a grin and bit into the hamburger I made up for her.

  Everyone had finished eating and we were watching the kids run through the sprinkler when Megan gasped.

  Simon shot up like a jack-in-the-box and kneeled in front of his wife almost instantly. “Megs?”

  “I think my water just broke,” she said told him quietly, placing a hand at the side of her large stomach. “Oh, yeah. That’s a contraction.”

  “Time for the hospital.” Simon turned to where the kids were. “Elizabeth! Abigail! It’s time for Mommy to have the baby. Come give her kisses before we go!”

  The little girls came running towards the patio and Kelly stood up to rub her sister’s shoulders. “I have a bed upstairs if you want to be an adventurer.”

  “Shut up,” Megan laughed while somehow managing to groan at the same time. “You’re the only one weird enough to have a baby at home.”

  “Hey, that wasn’t on purpose. The rest of the boys were born at the hospital,” Nick defended with a grin on his face.

  Elizabeth and Abigail both hugged their mom tight and I saw tears in Megan’s eyes when she let them go.

  “Be super good for Uncle Nick, okay? He’ll bring you to the hospital to meet your brother as soon as he’s here.”

  Simon scooped his girls up at the same time, holding them to his chest in a tight hug. He kissed each of their heads and murmured something we couldn’t hear before setting them down. Once the kids were on their feet, he ducked down and lifted Megan into a cradle hold.