THURSDAY LATE AFTERNOON, AROUND 4:00PM
"Hey babe, are you about all packed?" I asked my wife, Emily.
"Almost. Thanks again for understanding about me going away this weekend. I don't think anyone has been in that cabin for over a year. It will be so fun to get it cleaned up so that we can make some use of it again. And maybe we can start renting it out when we are not there, like we used to do before Covid. It would be nice to have the extra income and we could use it any time we want."
My wife continued throwing stuff, almost haphazardly, into a weekend bag. She grabbed stuff from drawers, off hangers, and even some stuff off the floor. Some of the stuff looked new to me. But I guess she did go shopping last week.
"Why do you look so nervous?" I said.
"You know my dad, he is such a hard worker and it seems like I haven't seen him in forever. I think it has been a year since we have been together at the cabin. We have both been so busy with work and stuff. It will be fun to get caught up while we are cleaning up the place."
"Yea, Thor...I mean your dad, is pretty intense. I am glad it's you going and not me!" I laughed a bit at calling him 'Thor' even though I know that Em hates it.
Em's dad actually went as Thor one year for Halloween. He didn't need a wig and didn't need to put on any fake muscle suit. At 6 foot 4, he is a god of a man.
"I'm not trying to be mean Chad, but the weekend will be more fun for dad and me if we tackle this project ourselves. And it is going to be hard." Em replied.
It's not that I am afraid of a little hard work. Em's dad, however, was not planning on just a little hard work. And, quite frankly, Em never invited me to join. She didn't invite Steve or Sherry either. They are couple friends of ours that we bought the cabin with several years back. Em's dad is also a partner so we divided up ownership five ways even though Em's dad lives much farther from the cabin than we do, and in the opposite direction.
Emily's dad is quite the guy. Former college football player who still looks like he could take on five or six guys in a fight down at the pool hall and leave without a scratch. Now, he works security for a couple of NFL guys. Every once in a while he posts a pic of the players standing next to him. He looks like he could still play and is often bigger and more muscular than the players. He is very likable. The kind of guy that guys want to hang out with and girls want to hook up with. Em's mom died when Em was in high school, before I ever met Emily.
I don't know if Em's dad "dates," but if he does, I suspect he does very well for himself. I have seen some of his rare Facebook posts, he dresses well and it appears that he likes younger women.
"Well, I hope that you and Thor have a good weekend." I said and laughed.
"Don't call him that!" Emily responded.
"Can I call him Reacher instead?" I asked.
"You Reacher, you brought her!" She said.
We both laughed at the long time joke that we have shared for several years.
"
Hey, how about we get naked and have a little fun before you take off for the weekend? It's only about two hours to the cabin, and there is plenty of daylight left for driving." I asked, hoping that she would say yes but knowing that she was in a hurry and would probably shut me down.
"You are so horny all the time! You're one of the horniest guys I know! We just had sex on Sunday. And you know that I have got to save up all of my energy for dad. He has a lot of hard work planned at the cabin and he is not the kind of guy to take a lot of breaks."
"
Wait, ONE of the horniest?"
Em stuck her tongue out at me and smirked. Em has a really long tongue. Longer than Alina Lopez. Seriously, Gene Simmons would be impressed with its length. The things she can do with it are almost indescribable. Every time she sticks out her tongue, I get a tingle in my balls. I have seen her do it in front of my guy friends and it looks like they have the same reaction, usually having to quickly hide the bulge in their pants. I think it turns on some of her wilder female friends also, not that she would ever do anything like that.
"Chad, you know I had boyfriends before you came along and, of course, you had girlfriends. What is the big deal? Some of the guys, well....like most guys, only think about one thing," she said, rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out again.
I mean, I get it. Emily is hot. When I first met her, I asked her out, knowing that she was way out of my league, but I asked her anyway figuring that it wouldn't hurt. Quite frankly, I was shocked when she said that she would love to go out.
Em played soccer in high school and college and had an athletic build with perfect C cup boobs. She has several tattoos, which I really like. What caught my attention at first, however, was her partly curly dirty-blond hair. I am not sure why, but it made her look a little reckless, wild and fun. She wore it up a lot, to keep it off her face. I remember telling her once that she looked like a young Elizabeth Shue. She responded, telling me I looked like a huge dork. Smartass. I don't look like a dork, but I'm also not the kind of guy that could normally pull an Elizabeth Shue looking girl. When people first meet me, they assume that I am an accountant. Ouch. I am a documentary filmmaker, actually. I have several tattoos and wear black glasses. On a good day, I might be 150 pounds. Guys who look like me don't get voted "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine. But I have a good eye for making films and have great instincts. I have a knack for reading people, I guess. Even though I don't believe in it, from time to time I have thought that I had some psychic ability.
"Oh, are you talking about Hank?" I said and immediately regretted bringing him up.
Hank, evidently, was Emily's boyfriend through high school and college. She started dating him after her mom died. She doesn't talk about him that much and I have never met him. He's kind of a ghost, actually. I don't even know his last name or what he does for a living. For all I know, she could still be in touch with him.
"Chad..." Emily groaned.
"It's just kind of weird to me. Especially, since Hank is also your dad's name. I don't think I could ever date anyone named Jennifer (my mom's name). Yikes. And this is not that big of a city and yet we have never run into him."
Em looked away for a second, like she was thinking of something far off. She smiled slyly, turning her head more so that I didn't see. Or at least she thought. I noticed a bit of drool drip out of the edge of her mouth. She quickly used the back of her hand to wipe it off.
"
Look, I don't think I ever said that he lives here. I wouldn't even say that Hank and I 'dated.' We hung out when it was convenient or when one of us had something going on, like going to a movie, seeing a band or trying out a new bar or restaurant. I would say it was more of an "on and off" kind of thing, no pun intended."
On and off kind of thing. She means they got together to hook up from time to time. Perhaps "fuck buddies" would have been a better description than "dating."
Sounds to me like she keeps up with him since she implied that she knows he doesn't live here. Other than her dad, however, she has no friends named "Hank" on Facebook or any of her other social media pages. She doesn't have anyone named "Hank" in her phone contacts either. I know because I have checked from time to time. I don't feel good about it. But sometimes curiosity gets the better of me. I just want to see what he looks like. It would be just my luck if he ended up looking a bit like Em's dad.
When we first met, she mentioned him in passing. And from time to time while we were getting to know each other, she let it drop that he was a big dude like her dad and that he was really great in bed. Once, when she was a little drunk, she said that he had a really huge cock. She also told me that they would hook up as much as possible and could not keep their hands off each other. I really didn't need to hear all of that. She once told me that he has a really tough work-out routine, sometimes working out two plus hours a day, and that got in the way of doing stuff as a couple. Hank had so much in common with my father-in-law, perhaps they should have been the ones to date each other.
The only other detail I know about him is that he has the same tattoo that Em has just below the belt line and above his cock. A red and black infinity symbol. I guess they both got them together once when they were drunk.
"Why didn't anything permanent happen with him? I mean, although you have not said much about him, from the stuff you have said, it sounds like you enjoyed his company and had a lot of stuff in common like working out, music, and that he likes to cook." I asked.
"
He was just never the type of guy where a relationship was going to last and then I met you! So it all worked out for the best." she replied.
I could tell that she was done with this topic, so I switched conversations.
"What time do you think you will be home on Sunday?" The Chiefs play on Sunday Night Football and it would be fun to grill some steaks and crack open a beer, or four."
"I hope to leave about four o'clock so that I will be home a little after six, in plenty of time to watch Mahomes and Kelce kick the crap out of the fucking Raiders. Maybe Taylor Swift will be at the game! Do you want me to bring you some of that IPA from the brewery right off the highway by the cabin that you like?"
"That would be awesome." I said. "Hey, will you call me when you get to the cabin so that I know you got there safely? Some of those roads around the lake really need work."
Em's hands were visibly trembling as she continued to throw clothes in her weekend back. I guess she was really excited about seeing her dad.
Emily closed up her weekend bag, gave me a nice kiss and was off.
"I'll call you when I get there. Love you, Chad."
"Love you more, Em."
And with that, she was gone. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do by myself all weekend. College football for sure on Saturday and then a day of cooking and NFL football on Sunday. In addition to being husband and wife, I always thought of Em and I as best friends. So while a lot of guys would relish the time alone, I could not wait until Sunday when she got home.
THURSDAY NIGHT
After a couple of hours went by, I tried calling Em. Voicemail. She should have been to the cabin by now. I wasn't really worried. I suspected she was going to stop at the little store by the lake to pick up food and drinks although that should not take that long. She was also going to stop at that brewery and pick up some IPAs for me. I sent her a few texts but not too many. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.
Thursday Night Football sucked this week. The Cardinals against the Saints. So I opened a beer and figured I would sit on the back patio and listen to music before deciding what to do about dinner. I ended up hitting the hole in the wall bar down the street. They had cheap tacos, a good selection of beer and a friendly wait staff. Turns out they had the game on anyway, but I didn't' pay much attention to it.
I got home about eight o'clock and cracked open another IPA. Since it was late Summer, there was still plenty of light so I went back to the patio and turned on the music. Since I had nothing better to do, I searched again for any information I could find on the mysterious Hank. I looked at old college pics on Em's page to look for any mention of Hank or if anyone resembled what I thought Hank might look like. Nothing. I did some random Google searches, trying all kinds of combinations. Nothing. Even looked at some of Em's college friends' pages to see if they had any Facebook friends named Hank. Again nothing. I'm no private detective, but I can do a fair amount of sleuthing on social media. But I just came up with goose eggs every time. Again, I am pretty intuitive, but this search eluded me.
