Broken

“No,” I said, standing up. “By forcing you to relax on this vacation, even if it is the last damn thing that I do. I love you more than anything, Austin. You know this. Part of my job as your wife is seeing when you need an intervention and being the one to step in and force that intervention.”

I looked down at him, feeling bad for yelling at him and not being more understanding of everything in his life that was so stressful. I bent down and wrapped my arms tightly around him, wanting to make things right. I loved him, I wanted him, and I needed him.

“I miss you,” I whispered into his ear.

He pulled back and looked into my eyes, sadness inside of them. I knew that he never wanted to make me feel that way or make me feel like I had to do something that drastic to get his attention. We really needed to start listening to each other and really hearing, not just nodding and saying okay.

“We need to reconnect because we haven’t spent time very much together recently,” I said. “We go and go and go, and we don’t slow down for anything. I know that you are an important man, and there are many serious issues that fall on your shoulders, but that doesn’t mean you are doomed to a life where all you do is work. This is the perfect time to remind yourself why you work so hard in the first place. This is the time to reconnect with me, with yourself, and with the people that legitimately consider you a friend, and not a friend of a convenience like so many people in your life.”

He sat there staring at me, his eyes going from angry to knowing. I could tell that he was really t

aking the time to think about what I was saying. I knew he knew that a life outside of work was important, but he needed me to remind him of that. He needed me to say what we were both thinking. If he continued to work like that without reprieve, he would end up alone and cold at the end of his life. I loved him, but I couldn’t spend the next eighty years wishing he would notice me. He went to open his mouth to reply, but the sound of stomping drew our attention. Jason came storming from the back, through the room, and toward the door, dragging Kristin behind him. I was a little thrown off, but Kristin had a smirk on her face, so I knew there wasn’t anything seriously wrong. We sat there and watched as Jason grabbed their coats and turned toward us.

“I need to talk to my wife alone,” he said frantically.

I shook my head and watched as they stormed out of the door, the cold air bursting in and causing the flames of the fire to dance around wildly. I shivered, pulling my arms around my body, and stared at the closed door. I couldn’t even start to think what might be going on with them. They were just in the other room and nothing had happened. Knowing them, they were fighting just so that they would have the excuse to have make-up sex. My mind twisted and turned through everything that could possibly be going on, but before I got too far down that rabbit hole, Austin’s voice brought me back to our conversation.

“There is something that I have been holding back from you,” he said, looking down at his hands.

“What is it? You know you can tell me anything.” I tried to get him to make eye contact with me.

“I’ve been working all the extra hours on these cases because I have been trying desperately to get a promotion,” he revealed. “It requires a lot, but once I have it, the workload will go down a lot. I want to start a family with you, and in order to do that, I need to know that we have stability. This promotion will bring job security, regardless of who is in office. It will bring financial security that will only go up from that point, and it will allow me to feel comfortable knowing my family will always be taken care of, no matter what. That is why I’ve been putting in the extra hours.”

“What?”

I was completely overwhelmed by what he had just revealed to me. I had no idea that he was thinking about having a family with me. I thought I was the only one with that on my mind. I figured that everything he did was to further his career, not to further our relationship or our family. I leaned in and threw my arms around his neck, squeezing him even harder than before. Everything was starting to make sense to me now. The longer nights, the extra workload, it was all a pathway to a better life.

“I want all of those things, too,” I said, choked up. “But we are here now, and I want us to enjoy this vacation, not continue to keep looking past where we are standing, especially if you are going to go right back to working just as hard when we return home.”

“I understand,” Austin said, nodding his head. “You are right. They know I am on vacation. They don’t expect anything from me, and if I keep pushing through the present, I am going to reach the end of my life and not remember what and who got me there to begin with. This promotion is important, but I promise you that I will try harder to be present during our trip.”

“Thank you,” I said, hugging him again. “I just want all of it to be worth it, you know? I want to know that we will be okay so that when we get to that place to start a family, we are still there as partners, not strangers.”

We sat there staring into each other’s eyes, finally feeling like we were back on the same page. It had been a while since I felt that kind of connection to him, and I was glad that we could talk things out without screaming, or tears, or anger. I really did want a family with him. After a few moments, Austin raised his head and cocked it to the side as if he were listening for something. I looked at him funny.

“What is that noise?” he asked.

I lifted my head and waited to hear whatever it was he was talking about. Suddenly, I heard it too, an almost rhythmic pounding coming from the side of the house. It was strange and slightly alarming because that was where Jason and Kristin had disappeared to. I stayed alert for several more minutes, listening to the sound, watching the Scotch shake in my glass. I looked back at Austin and shrugged my shoulders, a look of concern still on my face. I slowly stood up and straightened my sweater, feeling the chill that was seeping from the still broken front door. I walked over to the window and looked outside, but all I could see was a blanket of white coming from the storm out there. I looked to the right and squinted, seeing what looked like the edge of Jason’s coat sticking out from the corner of the porch. That was strange. What the hell were they doing out there? It had to be in the teens, if not colder.

I looked harder and realized that the jacket was moving in and out of my field of vision. I stopped, listened, and watched for several moments, trying to get the connection. Suddenly, with wide eyes, I brought my hand up to my forehead. The coat was moving in and out at the same rhythm as the pounding against the side of the house. I looked again and waited to nod my head, noticing that with every push forward was another loud thud. Oh my God. I had to be wrong. There was no way they were doing that in a blizzard on the front porch. What was I saying? If anyone would think that was a good idea, it would be Kristin and Jason. Immediately, I started laughing, walking away from the window and covering my mouth. Austin looked over at me with confusion.

“What’s so funny? Is the house falling down? Did the abominable snowman finally make its way here through the blizzard?”

I shook my head and laughed even harder at Austin’s comments. I couldn’t believe that I was about to say the words that were on my mind. Only in my life, and only with Kristin and Jason, would something like this actually come to mind. Anyone else on earth, I would assume was being attacked by a bear, hit by a falling tree limb, or something else equally as horrifying, but nope.

“I think that the sound we are hearing is Jason and Kristin banging outside on the patio,” I said through giggles.

“No way.” Austin chuckled. “That is ridiculous. It’s like minus ten degrees outside.”

He walked over to the door and stood there for a second before opening up the door slowly. I watched him as he shook his head at me and began to crane his head out of the doorway. There was no way I was going to miss this, so I grabbed my jacket and scurried over to the open door, shivering as the cold air hit me in the face. If Kristin and Jason were doing it in a blizzard on the front porch, it was unquestionably one fuck that was going down in the history books.

Chapter 10

Austin

I swung the door open and looked back at Jessica, who was laughing and pulling on her coat. Slowly, I craned my head around the corner, feeling her run up next to me. I almost fell flat out in the snow from what I was staring at. Jason and Kristin pressed against the side of the house, and clear as day, he was fucking the hell out of her. Both their bare skin was bright red from the wind and the snow, but that wasn’t going to stop them from reaching the finish line. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to fuck in a blizzard on a porch. However, Kristin seemed to be in heaven. Her hands were clutched against the wood, her knuckles white from holding on so tightly, and her moans were constant, rolling along with the rhythm of his hard thrusts. The porch was shaking every time he slammed his dick into her, and little drifts of snow would fall from the roof and swirl around their half-naked bodies. They showed absolutely no sign of being cold at all.

I blinked several times, thinking that maybe I had hit my head, or maybe they were not fucking on the porch during a blizzard, but no, there they were, plain as day. My eyes widened, and I turned, looking at Jessica, expecting to see the same baffled expression on her face. My mind went wild, and I couldn’t even begin to think of what she would say if I tried to fuck her in a snow drift. She was much too put together for that. Jessica was standing there right beside me, watching them fuck, but instead of being completely shocked, or even surprised at what we were looking at, she looked amused. She literally looked like this was no big deal and it happened all the time. These crazy kids were at it again. There was a slight smirk on her face, and she was shaking her head, obviously wanting to laugh.