Chapter 31
Melanie
Once the boys had recovered sufficiently, they explained that they decided to come home a day early. My parents had arrived back from Florida this afternoon, and we were having everyone over tomorrow to celebrate their return.
The reason for their early arrival was apparent when they each dragged in two bulging bags of laundry.
While Tanner headed straight for the washer to start a load, Garrett made a beeline for the refrigerator.
Ryan and I trailed after him, watching in bemusement as he started pulling various containers out and peering inside until he found what he wanted.
“Ooh, meatloaf,” he said, shooting me a satisfied grin as he spotted the leftovers from last night’s dinner.
“There are some mashed potatoes in the yellow bowl,” I pointed out, and he pumped his fist.
“Yeeessss, real mashed potatoes, instead of those nasty cardboard paste flakes they serve on campus.”
“I smell Mom’s sauce so they must have made something Italian tonight,” Tanner hollered from the laundry room. “If there’s any left of whatever it was, I call dibs.”
Ryan leaned against the counter behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He tugged me back until I was resting against him, then lowered his head to whisper in my ear.
“They’ll be busy for a while. Maybe they won’t notice if we sneak upstairs?”
Tanner hurried into the kitchen just then and flashed us a warning look as he snatched up the dish containing the leftovers of our chicken parmesan dinner from this evening.
“Watch those hands, old man, there are impressionable children in the room.”
I laughed, loving the ease with which Ryan and the boys were interacting these days.
There had been a few tense moments, but once they’d learned that I’d forgiven their dad for being so neglectful and absent and had seen the changes in him firsthand, they’d quickly fallen suit.
We’d never told Tanner and Garrett about what happened in Las Vegas, and we never would.
Only Jen, Mark, and Kim knew the true circumstances, and that was the way it would stay.
Having Ryan volunteer on an accessibility project two weeks ago had further helped cement their renewed relationship.
Ryan had come home tired and covered in bits of sawdust, with callouses on his hands, in a better mood than I’d seen him in days.
He’d had a great time reconnecting with the boys while helping to build a ramp and widen doorways for a Marine veteran whose debilitating injuries in Afghanistan forced him to rely on a wheelchair these days.
We ended up watching a movie with them, as they worked their way through their laundry as well as all of the leftovers. When they decided to put a frozen pizza in the oven as the movie ended, Ryan and I called it a night.
“Good God, I think I have indigestion just from watching those two,” Ryan muttered as we entered our bedroom. He rubbed his stomach with a grimace. “I remember the days when I could do that. Now, pizza at eleven o’clock at night would give me heartburn until dawn.”
I laughed as I closed – and carefully locked – our bedroom door. “Oh, you poor old man. Does that mean you’re too tired to have fun?” I waggled my brows comically, and Ryan lunged for me, lifting me up by the waist as he twirled me around.
He sat me on my feet as I tried to stifle my laughter so the boys wouldn’t hear, keeping my body pressed against his as he circled his hips against mine.
“I’ll never be too tired for that, sweetness, I guarantee it.”
It didn’t take long before I was on my knees, face down with my head buried in my pillow to muffle my moans as Ryan pounded into me relentlessly. He bit back his groan as his body shuddered, triggering my own orgasm as well.
He shifted to the side and collapsed on the bed next to me, his chest heaving as he grinned up at the ceiling.
“How was that for an old man?”
I rolled over and leaned up to press a quick kiss to his lips before sliding out of bed.
“Ten out of ten. Would highly recommend.”
He snorted and tapped me on the ass as I headed into the bathroom to take care of necessary business. He followed a minute later and turned on the shower before grabbing a towel.
“Join me?”
I nodded, and he reached for a second towel as I clipped my hair up out of the way.
When we finally made it back to bed, he was hobbling slightly, and I couldn’t stop snickering.
“It’s not funny, sweetness. I think I may have pulled something with that last move. Damned slippery tile,” he grumbled.
I bit my lip in an effort to compose myself, and he rolled his eyes before shaking his head fondly. I slid in next to him and carefully curled into his side.
“Poor baby, I’m so sorry. Would you like me to kiss it and make it better?”
He considered it for a moment, then whipped the covers back and pointed to his groin. “Yes, I really do think that might help,” he answered in a serious tone. The teasing sparkle in his eyes gave him away though.
Several long minutes later, he released the tight grip he had on my hair and I sat up, delicately wiping at the corner of my mouth as a lady does after swallowing her husband’s cock.
“You made a miraculous recovery,” I observed, arching a brow as I looked down at him lying there thoroughly spent.
“Well, I had an excellent nurse. She’s very skilled.”
“Oh, is she?”
He nodded solemnly, reaching for my hand and threading his fingers through mine. “She’s the best. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
The next day, my parents pulled into the driveway just moments before Mark, Jen and Cody arrived.
Dad brought in a bag of souvenirs they’d brought back for everyone, and Mom carried a chocolate cake – the belated birthday cake she’d promised me.
There was a flurry of activity as coats were discarded, hugs were shared, and souvenirs were handed out.
Ryan and the boys had spent the day helping me prepare dinner for everyone. I’d made a huge batch of fried chicken, with mashed potatoes and gravy, along with homemade biscuits with apple butter. Jen brought her delicious honey-glazed carrots and the green bean casserole that Ryan absolutely loved.
I had a feeling it was a peace offering, since she, even more so than Mark, had been a little slower to forgive him.
While Mark had apparently gotten most of his anger out of his system the day I’d gone to the clinic and he’d almost punched Ryan, Jen had let hers out slowly.
She gave him an earful the day after I’d moved back in, threatening him with grievous bodily injury if he even thought about hurting me again, and then contenting herself with dirty looks and suspicious side-eye glances for the next few weeks.
The ice had finally thawed once she realized what I had already known – his return to his old self was real, not an act designed to placate me.
His remorse was genuine, and I knew, as did our family, that he would go to his grave regretting everything that had happened.
The only people blissfully unaware of any of it were my parents, and I was happy to keep it that way.
Neither of them needed the stress of worrying about something that had already been resolved, and Garrett and Tanner, as well as my nephew Cody had all been in agreement that they would keep it to themselves as well.
Mom and Dad regaled us with stories from their stay with Aunt Carol, keeping us laughing as they bickered back and forth as usual.
“Your dad ended up with sand in a rather unfortunate place, so he refused to attend another beachside yoga class after that,” Mom said.
“I was walking funny for days,” he grumbled.
Mom shook her head, smiling at him fondly before launching into a story about the art class they had taken. While she was distracted, Dad swiped another biscuit and discreetly nudged at Garrett to hand him the apple butter.
“We thought we would be painting bowls of apples or a vase of flowers, but then this old woman came in wearing a bathrobe. She walked up to a pedestal in the front of the room and dropped the robe, and she was naked as the day she was born! Live model classes, they call it.”
Garrett had been reaching for the gravy and almost knocked it over as he stared at her in open-mouthed shock.
Tanner inhaled his bite of chicken and promptly began wheezing, so Jen thumped him on the back.
Ryan dropped his heads in his hands, shoulders shaking as he tried to hide his laughter.
Mark didn’t bother and let out a loud guffaw when he caught sight of his son.
Poor Cody’s face was turning three shades of red as my mother ignored the chaos and continued on with her story.
“Her ta-tas looked like she’d stuffed a couple of baseballs inside a pair of stretched out gym socks.
There should be a law that if you can tuck your boobs into your waistband, you should never, ever go out in public without a properly fitting brassiere, let alone parading around au naturel, as they say. ”
“No one says that, Ruthie,” Dad mumbled around a mouthful of biscuit.
“Besides, if the old gal wants to prance around nekkid, more power to her. It’s better than some old fart up walking around with his nut sack hanging down so low that he’s in danger of castrating himself with every step he takes.
There’s a guy like that at that gym you dragged me to.
That bastard walked around the locker room swinging his – ”
“Joseph Arthur Mulroney, what kind of talk is that at the dinner table? And in front of our grandsons?”
Dad shrugged. “You started it with the saggy ta-ta story. Besides, they’ve got the parts.
They might as well be forewarned about what’s in store for ‘em. Otherwise, they’re in for one helluva shock the first time their balls hit the water when they sit on the shitter.
” With that, he popped the last bite of his biscuit in his mouth and reached for another chicken leg.