A Roll of the Dice Read online

  It was amazing how easy she now found it to keep the house tidy. Like she’d suddenly gained another life’s worth of time to get chores done.

  After this weekend, all she’d have in her life would be work, the book club, and puttering around the house. Although she’d gotten more reading done over the past couple of weeks than she had in the last couple of years.

  Maybe I need a hobby besides reading.

  They had some friends. Mike had more friends than she did, even though he had less time for them. He’d grown up in this area and she hadn’t, and he’d never lost contact with some of his high school and college friends.

  After finishing the dishes, Jenny walked back to their bedroom. Mike would be home from his game soon, and Mikey was out at the movies with some of his friends and wouldn’t be home until midnight.

  She tried not to think about how empty the house would feel without their son living there. About that night being a preview of the near future.

  About the gaping void that would now comprise a large swath of her life.

  Empty nest syndrome?

  She’d always thought, while immersed in the stress and hurry of all the activities she participated in for Mikey, that she would love it when she finally had time to herself.

  Time to breathe.

  Time to relax.

  Now faced with the reality of all that empty time to fill, she was at a loss on how to better spend it, other than with books.

  Maybe I just need time to decompress.

  Not having to start every morning by making sure their home calendar was synced with her phone so she didn’t miss any events was an odd new reality for her to deal with.

  What do I want to do with my life now?

  She supposed that was something she’d need to decide.

  Chapter Two

  When Michael returned from his weekly gaming session a little after ten thirty, Jenny was curled up on the couch in front of the TV with her Kindle.

  He leaned over the back of the couch and gave her a quick kiss. “Mikey home yet?”

  “No. Midnight-ish is what I was told.”

  “Okay. I’m going to grab a shower.”

  “Okay.”

  She watched as he headed over to the dining room first, to set his laptop case and gaming supplies on the table in their usual spot. Then he headed back to the shower.

  Maybe it’s time for me to learn Dungeons and Dragons.

  She knew Michael’s friends, and they’d even offered her an open invitation to join him on game nights. Before this, however, she’d had Boy Scouts. Then her book club had moved to Thursdays once three of them had sons who’d graduated or aged out of their respective troops. Or she’d had other various meetings or sporting events to shuttle Mikey to, or…whatever.

  It didn’t help that she had zero interest in the tabletop role-playing game, while her husband had been playing with a couple of his friends in that same group ever since high school.

  Hell, she barely remembered any of the people she went to high school with, much less still had contact with them. Most of her friends were either through work or via her volunteering or the book club.

  Which she’d gotten involved with via another mom in her PTO group a year earlier.

  I’m pathetic.

  How many years had she gone with some people only knowing her as “Mikey’s mom?”

  Probably about the same length of time where I only knew some people via their kids.

  Were there any empty-nest support groups? Maybe that was what she needed to look into.

  She turned the TV off and moved into the bedroom while Michael was still in the shower. The book she was currently reading was written by an author they’d already read in their book club. Now Jenny was independently devouring the writer’s other books.

  BDSM books. Some ménage, some not, but all hot and sexy and pulling at things inside her she never dreamed of before when her life outside of work revolved around their son. The wildest thing they’d ever done was use a vibrator during sex. She definitely knew she wouldn’t be interested in pain, either.

  Yet the dominance and submission dynamics she’d read about tugged at something deep inside her. If someone had talked to her about this years ago, especially when freshly married and graduated from college, she would have told them to go screw themselves. Her, submit to anyone? No way.

  Now…

  She trusted Michael. She loved him. Yet she still didn’t know how he’d react if she tried to talk to him about…that.

  Hell, she didn’t even know how to talk to him about that.

  By the time he’d finished his shower and come to bed, she’d stopped reading for the night. As she curled up next to him, he gave her a kiss.

  “Have fun at book club?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Reading more sexy stuff.”

  “Knock yourself out. I sure don’t mind.” His tone bore a playful, yet tired edge.

  She didn’t exactly have the energy for it tonight, either.

  “Have fun at gaming?” she asked. “Kill anything?”

  “A few Drow. I threw a monkey wrench in Alex’s plans for us, I think.”

  She partially tuned him out as he explained what he’d done. She loved him, but she had no clue what he was talking about.

  “Sounds like you had fun,” she said when he finished.

  “Yeah. Next week we’re still on for having gaming here, right?”

  “Yeah. Our book club is meeting at Marcy’s house.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you need me to wait here until someone else gets here?” she asked. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been late to a gaming session at their house. And she trusted his friends alone in their house. They were almost as close as family.

  “No, I’ll get out of work on time. Somehow.”

  “Call me if you run late. I’ll come home.”

  “Yeah, but I hate to do that to you. I know that’s an extra stress you don’t need.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  He kissed her again before breaking into a huge yawn. “Sorry. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  He reached over and snapped off his bedside lamp.

  As she snuggled against him and closed her eyes, she tried to think of a good way to broach the subject on a different night.

  Maybe after Mikey’s out of the house.

  * * * *

  Only fifteen minutes into her workday the next morning, and already Jenny was ready to throw her hands in the air and scream in frustration. One of their nurses had called in sick with a suspected case of norovirus she’d picked up from one of her kids.

  Meaning there was a good chance some of them in the office might have been exposed, too.

  On top of that, five patients had already called demanding immediate and nonemergency appointments that day, she was fending off one pharmaceutical salesman who had shown up a week earlier than his appointment, the waiting room was full, the scanner they used to copy photo IDs and insurance cards for their computerized records had decided to act up, and now she had to fight with an insurance company that usually didn’t give them any trouble approving preventative-care claims.

  And it was only 8:15 in the morning.

  I think I’m going to need to be medicated by the end of the day if this keeps up.

  Thank god it was Friday. It meant they would close to patients at one, giving Jenny and the rest of the staff time to catch up before they left at three.

  Tina, one of their other nurses and Jenny’s friend, looked as frazzled as Jenny felt.

  “Can you believe this shit?” Tina muttered when she hurried up to the front desk to grab another chart. “Holy crap, it’s like the gates of Hell have unleashed on us today.”

  “If we all come down with Gerry’s norovirus, that might be literal.”

  Tina let out a shudder and went to call the next patient back.

  Come lunchtime, Jenny had enough. She grabbed her keys, her purse,
and her lunch and headed out to her car. There she sat, engine running and AC at full blast, while she ate her sandwich and read her Kindle.

  It was a blessed respite, losing herself for a little while in the goings on of a fictional dungeon club.

  I wish those were real.

  Then again, it wasn’t like Mike would ever in a million years agree to go to one of those kinds of places even if they did exist. The only kinds of dungeons he was interested in involved rolling dice and keeping track of complicated stats on character sheets.

  If I want to look at eye-blurring forms and calculate numbers and percentages, I can stay at work and do that with insurance claim paperwork.

  Thirty minutes later, even though she still had half an hour left in her lunch break, she shut her Kindle off and returned to the office. She didn’t want to spend the entire afternoon playing catch-up on paperwork when she could use the time she had now to get ahead of the game and leave the office early.

  She’d worked with one of the four doctors in their office, Dr. Garrison, the original founder of the practice, for nearly twenty years. Other doctors had come and gone during that time, two of their current crop of four having been there nearly ten years each. One of the nurses had been there almost as long as Jenny.

  It wasn’t exactly the job she’d envisioned when she left college with a business degree. But then she’d married Michael and moved to Sarasota with him after graduating from USF in Tampa. Then she’d put her plans for an MBA on hold when she’d had Mikey.

  And then…

  Now, here she was.

  Still.

  After they were married, Michael had started out working for a bank, in their computer department, before moving to a local hospital. He’d worked there until he went to Asher Insurance five years earlier, which had given him a jump in pay and benefits that had allowed them to pay their house off seven years early.

  She wasn’t complaining. While complicated in some aspects, her job was relatively easy and repetitive. Yes, sometimes they had difficult patients, and sometimes the doctors needed a metaphorical knock in the head if they got too big for their britches. And definitely, the insurance companies could be a royal pain in the ass.

  But she worked with good people and made decent pay in a job that had allowed her the scheduling freedom to be available to raise her son.

  At the time, that had been worth its weight in gold to her as a mom.

  “So tomorrow is the big Moving Mikey day, huh?” Tina asked her.

  “Yeah.”

  “Lucky girl. Tell me what it’s like to have a kid-free household next week, please? I’ve got at least ten years before I’m there myself, and I’m going to live vicariously through you and Mike.”

  “Prepare to die of boredom, then,” Jenny joked.

  “I doubt it. You two will be partying it up,” she teased.

  Jenny only snorted in reply. On the tip of her tongue, the unspoken thought, I wish.

  * * * *

  Mikey was still packing when Jenny arrived home from work a little before four that afternoon. If today was a typical Friday for Michael, they likely wouldn’t see him until seven, at the earliest.

  “Anything I can help you with, sweetie?” she offered.

  “Naw. I got it. But thanks, Mom.”

  She kept the smile firmly planted on her face as she turned from his open bedroom door and headed for the kitchen. She’d felt the prickle of tears in her eyes and didn’t want to cry in front of him. Tonight, she’d planned to make all of Mikey’s favorites for dinner—homemade mac ’n’ cheese, hamburgers on the grill, steamed broccoli, and sweet potato fries.

  It would be their last family dinner for a while, at least. Sure, they could drive up and see him any evening or weekend they wanted to. He was maybe sixty miles away.

  But with his study schedule, that might not be practical. Not to mention he was a kid who never had problems making friends. He’d had a girlfriend for most of junior year, and part of his senior year. But then she’d gotten upset when he had devoted a lot of time to his Eagle project, so they’d broken up.

  Good riddance as far as Jenny was concerned, because she’d hated the spoiled brat. Mikey had been too interested in keeping up his grades for his scholarship to worry about what the girl thought of him.

  Thank god for that.

  Jenny wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t quickly pick up a new girlfriend now that he was primarily focused on his studies, and not on sports or Scouts.

  As long as that’s all he picks up.

  Then again, he was a smart kid. They’d had “the talk” with him, as well as supplemental conversations. They’d had an open-door policy with him in regards to discussing sex, and a couple of times he had asked his dad questions.

  He’s a good kid. He’ll be fine.

  She’d been repeating that mantra to herself over the past several weeks as his graduation and moving day rapidly approached. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t be coming home during breaks, either.

  I am not a clingy mom.

  At least, she hoped she wasn’t. She’d always made a concerted effort to not be clingy.

  When Mike called that he was off work and heading home, she started cooking dinner and had it ready for them by the time he walked through the door.

  As her husband crossed the kitchen to give her a hello kiss, a fantasy flashed through her mind. Of her, naked except for an apron, and him grabbing her by the hair and ordering her down to her knees to greet him by sucking his cock.

  A shiver raced through her as she imagined how it would feel, her pussy already starting to throb—

  “Jen? You all right?”

  She yanked herself back to reality. “Uh-huh. Just glad you’re home.”

  His lopsided smile told her he didn’t exactly believe her, but he’d let her explanation slide anyway. After twenty-five years of marriage, she knew he could tell her moods pretty dang well.

  Her hand flew to her throat. She hoped her face wasn’t red!

  “Dinner smells delicious,” he said. “I’ll be right back. I want to change.”

  As he walked toward their bedroom, she followed him with her gaze, the way his ass looked in his jeans.

  Yum!

  No, neither of them were prime physical specimens. He was forty-five, she was forty-four. They both carried a few extra pounds here and there that had appeared since college. But the man had an ass to die for and always had.

  “Mom!” Mikey yelled from his room. “Is dinner ready?”

  More heat flooded her face. “Yeah, honey. Dad’s home.”

  She’d shove those dirty thoughts out of her mind until Mikey was up at college.

  Then, yes, she definitely wanted to figure out how to have the talk with Michael about maybe doing things a little differently around there.

  Chapter Three

  Early Saturday morning, Jenny stood in the utility room door leading out to the garage and sipped her coffee. In their garage sat the stack of boxes and other stuff Mikey would be taking up to his dorm room at USF in Tampa.

  Michael would go pick up the small U-Haul trailer when he got out of bed. Then it would be a simple matter of loading everything, driving up there, unloading everything…

  And saying good-bye to their son.

  I can’t believe he’s in college. Where did the years go?

  It didn’t seem possible.

  She understood in the grand scheme of things that she had zero room to complain about anything, including most first-world problems.

  Still, she couldn’t quite shake the sadness slowly seeping into her.

  Who am I now?

  She always thought she knew exactly who she was. She never considered herself someone whose identity was completely tied up in their children’s activities.

  She had some friends, a decent job, a great husband.

  But now with the reality facing her, a large chunk of her life had suddenly disappeared in the wind, leaving her with…

/>   Well, not nothing. Raising a son who was headed on a successful trajectory in life was anything but a failure.

  Yet the impending quiet in her life unsettled her.

  She finally pulled the door shut and turned, walking back into the kitchen. Based on how “the boys” had planned the morning, she should get her shower first. They’d assured her they didn’t need her help with the loading. That way, once they finished loading, they could grab their showers and then all head to Tampa.

  Maybe it is time Mike and I do some exploring of our own.

  With Mikey out of the house, they’d be free to let loose for a change. Some of her friends with older kids had teased her over the past couple of months that now her and Mike could have a sex life again. But that hadn’t really been a problem for them that a functioning lock on the bedroom door hadn’t taken care of about the time Mikey started walking.

  Well, okay, it’d been a little bit of a problem, because even with the door locked, it never seemed to fail that Mikey would need something, or in some other way create a disturbance that interrupted whatever it was they’d been about to do. Mike joked it was like the kid had cock-blocking radar or something.

  With Mikey out of the house, that wouldn’t be an issue any longer.

  Now, she wouldn’t have an excuse. She’d kept chickening out instead of talking to Mike, unsure of how to broach the topic.

  Hey, honey? I want to try kinky stuff.

  Probably not the best approach.

  After topping off her coffee, she returned to their bedroom and made her way into the master bath. Michael was still softly snoring on his side of the bed. He’d wanted to sleep a little later than he usually did since Mikey had finished all the pre-move prep yesterday.

  The books she’d been reading returned to mind. Yes, fiction.

  Still…