Chapter 14 -- Autumn
Summer ended, our lives were busy, and life went on. Jane cut back on her hours at the store, because she had taken a new job; assistant coach for the St. Anne's Lions girls rugby team. She had been in contact with her former coach after the St. Anne's sports banquet, and he had invited Jane to join the coaching staff. Jane's position would technically be an advisor, but she really would get to do a lot of what she did when she played; be the person the girls on the team looked up to.
August turned to September, I was still flying, Jane was fully into her rugby and work commitments, and we really didn't have a lot of quality time together. I'm really not sure whether it was that, or if something was awakened by me. I was at home one September evening, waiting on Jane to get back from practice, standing at the kitchen counter with a mug of tea ready for her. I was also quite naked. It was just a general need for sex that drove me to do it.
She came through the door in her rugby shorts, warm-up top, and with the band in her hair like she used to wear during her playing days. In short, it was the hottest thing I had ever seen. Jane wasn't paying a lot of attention, so when she finally saw me, she jumped a little, and then laughed "Tom, no way, not now, I smell like shit."
"Okay, so take a shower" I replied. She walked to the shower, I followed her, she tried to wave me off. I won. We washed quickly, then Jane pushed her naked ass against me, and I was inside of her in a second.
As we humped in rhythm with each other, standing in the shower, Jane put her arm back and around my neck "Tom, what the hell got into you?"
"A few weeks of nothing, but" I was grinning "you look really good like that."
Jane stopped for a moment, pulling me a little closer "So, you like to fuck rugby girls, eh?"
I felt my heart skip a beat "Just you, my dear" and with that, Jane started moving harder and faster, taking my hands and putting one on her hip and one on her breast, and we eventually came together, standing in the shower.
Shortly after drying off, naked and in bed, we were fooling around still when Jane asked "did the outfit really do it for you?" She seemed genuinely surprised.
"Jane, I'm as shocked as you are, and yes, that set something off in me that I wasn't expecting." I was getting a little hard a lot faster than I though.
Jane smiled "Damn, Thomas, where were you when I was in high school." At that, Jane pinned me onto the bed, and we made out until we both decided we needed dinner.
By October, Jane was fully back to her usual self. She had a real drive for what she was doing. I enjoyed it too, going to the games, and being there when she'd come home from practices, sweaty and dirty. Sex in the shower became our standard thing for when I was at home. When I wasn't at home, she'd still send me pictures. It really made a man miss being away.
I was at the game against St. Catherine's, and got to see what the rivalry was about. Around two thousand people crowded the little stadium to watch the game. Jane was dressed in suit pants, a beautiful sweater wrap that covered her perfectly, and boots. My wife was the most beautiful woman there, by a mile. St. Anne's won by 10, and as they celebrated the win, Jane looked out to where I was sitting, and mouthed 'I love you.' I returned it. Jane had her purpose in life, and was loving every minute.
About a week later, we ended up spending our first anniversary of our wedding at home. Jane had the flu, and was laying on the couch, feet propped up on my lap. I looked at her, and even in sickness, she was beautiful. Jane caught wind of what I was thinking, and said "Not going to happen tonight, Thomas. Don't even think it."
"I'm just thinking that I can't believe I married such a beautiful woman" I said, hoping she wouldn't see through me.
She did "Yeah yeah, you're a boob man" at that she lifted her shirt and bra, and I got a show before she covered up and said "and that's all you're going to get for the next few days, babe."
I had enough for now "As long as I get to be here with you, doesn't matter." Jane gave me a brief look of disbelief, but followed by a sweet smile, and she moved to cuddle with me. Anniversary dinner was chicken noodle soup, the movie Top Gun. We'd eventually get to Ray's to celebrate, but until then, this was perfect.
October ran into November, and I was getting more time off between trips. Jane wasn't sad about it, but I had started to see some changes; Pan Am was in financial trouble. It wasn't isolated to just them, as the whole industry was seeing a slowdown, but it was who I flew for, so I was going to have an up-close view of what happened to my airline. It was at the end of a 3-day trip when I got an email from corporate, that they wanted to meet upon the end of the last leg.
I arrived at the office, where it was the usual meeting suspects; HR, base manager, and a union rep. We exchanged a bit of work talk, when HR took the lead. "I'm sure by now that you're aware of the financial difficulties our industry had seen the past six months." I was, and HR continued "As a result of that, and I have to remind you that you've signed an NDA to not discuss items of this nature, Pan Am will be holding layoffs later this month."
Well, it's been a good run. Jane will be happy. "Because of your seniority, however, we are offering you a buyout, along with 6 months' salary. If you take this, you will still-" and I cut the HR person off.
"Yes" I interrupted.
The union rep looked at me like I was taking crazy pills. "You agree to this?" the union representative stammered out, shocked.
"Do you want me to read what else you'd be eligible for?" the HR person tried to reason.
"No, I know how this goes, 6 months' salary and health, eligible for rehire, yada yada. I'm taking it."
Jane hadn't been too concerned with me being later than expected. Airline travel was at the whims of the vagaries of the weather, so me being a few minutes later than normal was normal. I opened the door, dropped my things, and said with a sheepish grin "Jane, you're looking at a retired man!" Jane screamed, and picked me up and carried me to the bedroom. She had her way with me for hours.
While laying on our bed after, we spoke of the future. Jane loved her coaching job, but was getting tired of going back and forth across the border so much. I offered to move to Windsor, to which she said "Tom, as much as I love what I do, it feels like being at St. Anne's is just me trying to relive my glory days." This one floored me. She seemed to revel in what she was doing there. There was even talk that, when the current coach retired, Jane would be in line to take over. "I don't like being the local star, I need something of my own doing, and somewhere else" Jane said, looking at me with her bright blue eyes.
I knew she had something in mind, because I did to. "You want to retire to the beach, don't you? You know what I think about Florida" I said, grinning.
Jane laughed and pulled me close "No, babe, we need to take a trip over to Grand Haven."
We fell asleep, me resting on the beautiful pillows that were her breasts. Jane just ran her hands through my hair.
Thanksgiving was a blur, as we went to my parents', now having to pay our own way to Kansas since I was no longer employed by Pan Am. Both of them were happy for us going into early retirement. Jane and I spent every free moment looking for houses. After Thanksgiving, the search for a house began.
I'm not sure, looking back at then, that we knew what we were getting ourselves into.
"Now this is where the deck used to be. It appears to have been partially removed by the previous owner" the realtor was saying. Jane just looked at it, wide eyed. I was making mental note of all the things I would need to get fixed, and my brain was quickly getting filled. Jane just was shocked. Housing prices in Grand Haven were bad. The place we were looking at now was older, and on the lake outside of the town, but was in rough shape. Boards peeling off the exterior, a roof in need of replacing, bad wiring, bad lots of things. The price was well down from everything else, though. Thanks to Jane, we could afford most of the places, but most places weren't really even worth it.
Later, at the hotel, I had my laptop out and was doing some numbers. Jane had hers out as well, working on something else. Spreadsheet done, I looked up at her "Jane, even with all the work, that last place, we can afford it." Jane screwed up her face like it was the worst idea I'd ever had. I kept going "think of it this way, it's just like how you put your outfits together. If we buy this place cheap, we can do whatever we want with it, and not have to worry." Jane now looked visibly confused. "I can do most of the work on here. It's going to take some brushing up on things, and I'll need someone to help me draft the permits, but I can do it."
"Could we even live in the place while you worked on it?" Jane asked, suspiciously.
"Yeah, it's going to be real spartan, though." I was losing her on this. The idea was starting to sound better and better in my own head. I went back to the laptop, and crunched some numbers. "Right now, even if I hired someone to do every single bit of this for me, the house would still cost $100,000 less than the cheapest house we looked at." I finally replied. The next cheapest house had been almost a literal shack. The fix-me-up, though in extremely rough shape, was over 3,000 square feet. "We can buy it, live in Detroit until the end of winter, and I can drive back and forth to fix things." I could see Jane thinking of it.
"Tom, I'm not going to be without you now that I have you all to my own" she giggled "but, we need a professional opinion of this."
