Page 82 of His Virgin Vessel

Chapter Thirty

One Year Later

I looked in the mirror and was quietly surprised, though not wholly displeased, by the man staring back at me. I used to automatically distrust men in suits, and now I was one. I'm not wholly displeased with that either.

"You won't get any more handsome, the longer you stare," Corinne said, bustling in efficiently, wiping paint from her hands.

"You don't know that," I replied.

"Sure, I do. You know why?"

"Because you know everything?"

"Because you couldn't possibly be any more handsome than you are." She kissed my cheek.

I kissed her back. "I couldn't be any happier than I am, either."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe if you let me..."

"You're not getting a bike."

"You get to carry on with your hobby."

Corinne leveled a look at me. "That better be a slip of the tongue, because the painting currently drying in our living room was a one-thousand-dollar commission, buddy boy."

"It's nice when you can make a hobby pay." Sometimes it was still fun to push Corinne's buttons.

"Because this is your day, I'll let you off," Corinne said, heading for the door. "But you watch yourself with the 'H' word."

Painting was not a hobby. It was Corinne's profession, and one at which she was doing increasingly well.

I took one last look at the mirror. A lot could happen in a year, and there were trade-offs that we made. Trading in the bike for an SUV was one I was pleased to make because of the development that had necessitated it.

"Anthony!" I called. "Are you ready to go?"

"Tell Daddy you're ready to go," Corinne instructed our son as she held him in her arms. "Tell Daddy you're ready to go."

"Daa!" yelled Anthony excitedly.

"I'm calling that a win," I said. "He's only one syllable away from Daddy."

"I'll get him in the car."

The only thing that I could remember Corinne being wrong about (or at least admitting that she was wrong about) since we had been married was the gender of our child. 'I must have been thinking of our next one,' had been Corinne's comment. I'd never been sure what sort of a father I would be. I still wasn't really sure what sort of father I was, but I was enjoying it far more than I had expected. There was a sharp turnaround between a life of fighting, drinking, and going to jail, and a life of early morning feeds and diaper rash, but I think the stresses of my former life were actually a good training for the stresses of fatherhood.

Corinne strapped Anthony into his car seat as I started the car. I did miss the bike, and, when our household finances allowed it, I was getting another one, which I would then get rid of before Anthony was old enough to start begging to be allowed to ride it. No son of mine was getting on a motorbike. They were nasty dangerous things, and, pretty soon, you end up in a gang of some sort.

"Good luck!" Joseph yelled from the doorway of Fiona's. I was not sure exactly when it had happened, but he seemed to have moved in there. Fiona insisted he was just a live-in bouncer, and that anything there was between her and the man who was twenty-two years her junior was purely sexual, but that excuse was fast wearing thin. I wasn't sure about wedding bells ringing, but it had ‘relationship’ written all over it. Every now and then, Fiona and I would get a drink and wonder at how two confirmed singles like us had ended up like this. We all have to go sometime.

# # #

Arriving at the stadium, I waved to a few classmates who waved back. It was displacement activity, really, I was starting to feel uncharacteristically nervous.

"Do you want to head on in?" Corinne asked. "I've got to go find our seats."

"Hello there!" Before I could answer, Brian Dugas strode up, with Risa beside him. He kissed Corinne, ruffled Anthony's hair and saluted me. I returned it as best I could. It was still not a gesture that came naturally to me. I've been told that my salutes always come across as sarcastic. I'm not even sure how that's possible.

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