An Internal Affair

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Andrea started in surprise when she woke up to yells coming from the backyard. “What’s going on?” she wondered, climbing out of bed and peering out the window just as a loud splash made Megan wake up and stomp past her to throw the window open, knocking the screen out with a flailing fist.

“Hey! Keep it down out there, you idiots – we’re trying to sleep in here!” Chad’s sister whirled around and flung herself back into her sleeping bag irritably. “Don’t know what the hell they’re doing up this early,” she grumbled. “Any normal person should still be in bed.”

Across the room, Annie opened an eye and looked at her blearily. “Wha’s hap’nin’?”

Andrea hid her grin at this evidence that Chad was apparently the only morning person in his entire family. “Someone’s out in the pool,” she informed the other woman. They’d stayed up late talking about various things, and it looked as if Rebecca was still dead to the world. She opened her mouth to voice her suspicion about who was outside when Megan’s piercing shriek split the air - Annie nearly fell out of bed laughing when she looked over to see Chad leaning through the window wringing his wet shirt out over Megan’s head.

“Rise and shine, ladies!”

“Dammit, Chad - go away,” Rebecca groaned from beneath her pillow. “It’s too early to be alive.”

“Yeah, Sasquatch; get your ass outta here,” Megan yelled, smacking him with a nearby tissue box.

Chad sighed and threw the wet shirt across the room hard enough to make it stick to the wall directly above Rebecca’s head before lunging for Andrea, who allowed herself to be hauled against the window for a good morning kiss. “How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Good – your sisters told me all about you last night…”

“Uh oh. We’ve got to get you out of here,” Chad teased before being chased off by his sisters, who decided that ganging up on him was the best way of getting him out of there. They all laughed as they soon heard Laurel yelling at him for dripping on the carpet and his loud complaint that he could never do anything right, could he? Annie chortled at her mother’s rejoinder that he obviously could do something right, or he wouldn’t have brought Andrea to meet them.

The rest of the day was spent being relatively lazy by the pool, helping with dinner preparations, and watching Chad and Andrew continue their testosterone-fueled battle for dominance. She’d asked about their odd behavior, and Laurel had confided that the two had grown up together and had always been extremely competitive – being nearly the same size had allowed them to roughhouse without seriously injuring each other. “It’s a miracle they survived to adulthood… the jury’s still out about the maturity part of it,” his mother had laughed. Chad’s father, James Shelten, had further compounded the mystery of the SWAT sergeant’s size as he was only half a head taller than Laurel.

His parents were still getting used to the idea of their son returning to a high-risk work environment and had been taken aback at Andrea’s support of his career shift, but liked the idea that she could theoretically ‘keep an eye’ on Chad for them. She’d simply smiled and changed the subject as Chad came to join the conversation. Of course, that was the cue for Andrew to come swaggering over to try and claim her attention so that they were shortly at it with hammer and tongs yet again.


_ _ _ _ _ _


Chad dropped into a lounge chair after having finished with the kitchen chores he’d been nabbed for, watching Andrea splash around in the pool with two of his nieces and a nephew. He hadn’t been sure how she’d act around them, but she seemed to be pretty confident and all the kids liked her… right now she was teaching David how to swim, something the boy had been a little too timid to do when he’d offered to teach him. It figured that all David had needed was a beautiful blonde to spur him on, Chad thought with a smile.

Andrea looked up at him to catch him looking at her, and smiled back. “Heya, Sarge.”

“So, how is it that you get out of kitchen duty?” he teased lightly, already knowing that she’d been helping out with nearly everything despite being told that she was a guest and didn’t have to do a single thing. “I tried to pull that whole ‘guest’ thing on my mom, but it didn’t work out that well.”

“Well, gee – I wonder why?” She directed her attention back to David, who was almost overbalancing in his water wings. “Be careful, don’t kick so much…don’t you want to take those off?” David shook his head fearfully and tried to paddle away from her when she reached for him. Chad watched amusedly as his nephew finally ran off to find Rebecca and tell her about what he’d learned, and Andrea swam a few laps before climbing out and coming over. “Where’s Andrew?” she asked, perching on the edge of his chair.

Chad reached out to run his fingers over the water droplets on her arm. “Inside, I think. Why?”

“No reason; I just want to spend a little time with you,” she said softly, leaning in for a kiss. He pushed his fingers into the wet tangle of her hair and drew her closer while she sighed against his lips. Andrea drew back with the dreamy expression he’d become used to seeing on her face whenever she was aroused and he swore to himself, wishing they had complete privacy. “Like my bikini?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“No? ” she pushed out her lower lip in a fake pout.

“I think you should take it off this instant.” Andrea slapped his hands away when he tugged lightly on the strings, and Chad hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her in the house, kicking and squirming as he tickled the backs of her knees. He stole another kiss when his mother’s back was turned and sent her off to shower and change with a gentle spank. “Don’t forget, we’ve got football in an hour,” he called after her as she ran up the stairs. Turning around and heading into the kitchen to see if his help was needed, he took a seat next to Annie and started helping her with cutting up the vegetables.

His mother pulled up a chair and settled into it. “She’s wonderful with children,” she hinted.

“I know, Mom.”

“When are you going to settle down and have some of your own?”

Chad set down the knife and looked across at her. “Well, I don’t know – I’ve been trying and trying, but I can’t seem to get pregnant. I told Andy that maybe we're trying too hard,” he said sarcastically.

“Do you love her? You seem to be quite fond of each other,” Meg announced, appearing in the door. “Or are you just being a total horndog like usual? Ann told us alllll about your ‘little problem’ at the dance studio,” she reminded him.

He didn’t think he’d ever live that one down. “Like Carl’s never had that problem with you? Come on, the rest of you are married and have kids already,” he complained. Sometimes his sisters acted far too ‘holier than thou’ for his taste, just because he was divorced.

“Okay, okay…. You got us. You know we’re only sleeping in the same room with her to keep you out,” Annie teased. “But was that a ‘yes, I love her and would like to spend eternity with a crooked back just so I can bend down to reach her’, or not?”

Chad shook his head, grinning. “Yeah, but without that whole ‘crooked back’ thing.” He looked around before continuing. “Actually, I was thinking of buying her something.”

“A ring?” the rest of them chorused loudly, and he waved his hands wildly to shut them up.

“No, not a ring!” He leaned in closer, keeping an eye on the staircase. “I was thinking…”

“That’s always dangerous,” Becca laughed.

“Do you want to know what it is, or do you want me to come over there and stick you in the refrigerator like I did that time when you were twelve?” Chad snapped. Their mother intervened with a “that’s enough, all four of you!” just as Andrea came back down, so he contented himself with glaring at his little sister while Andrea looked around the kitchen, plainly wondering why everyone had fallen silent at her appearance.


_ _ _ _ _ _


“Left! Go left! No…. your other left,” Andrea yelled, throwing the ball and scooting out of the way just as a very determined in-law came charging at her. Ahead, Rebecca caught the football and ducked to avoid her husband’s grab and Andrea cheered her on, running to catch up. A grip on the back of her shirt made her slow down and she slapped at her blatantly cheating boyfriend’s hold. “Hey! Interference!”

“Whatcha gonna do about it, little girl?” Chad teased, still pulling her backward so that she couldn’t reach the ball. His father shook his head from the sidelines, and she twisted free of Chad’s hold with a dig in the ribs. He caught the football next and headed towards his team’s goal post (a set of lawn chairs) and Andrea quickly leaped onto his back to try to slow him down. “Like a feather,” Chad boasted.

Rebecca and Megan converged upon him and Annie wrapped her arms around a muscular shin. “Now you’ve got three more feathers,” Andrea said gleefully. Chad dragged them across the lawn, grunting and determined while his teammates simply pointed and laughed instead of helping.

Between the four of them, they managed to knock him to his hands and knees, but he simply tucked the football securely in the crook of an elbow and pulled himself along by grabbing handfuls of grass. “Must not…let...the puny…ones….win,” he panted, and Andrea bounced on his back to try to force him flat on the ground while the rest of the family cheered her efforts loudly. Chad finally collapsed onto his face and she was starting to climb off him when he reared up to knock her off balance, reaching to plant the ball on the ground between the lawn chairs. “I reign supreme,” he announced loudly, and she pounced on him again. “Hey! Unnecessary roughness!”

“Deal with it, Sparky.”

On the next play, he simply scooped her up in his arms as soon as she got possession of the ball and ran with her to the lawn chairs, proclaiming his victory amid loud cries of foul play. “She still had the ball, it doesn’t count,” Andrew yelled.

“The hell? You’re on my team!” Chad yelled back.

Megan pushed at his arm playfully. “Not anymore, Sasquatch. Go shave off some of that chest hair – you could braid that stuff.”

“Go bake a pie, Suzie Homemaker,” Chad taunted. “You couldn’t get a touchdown if it was handed to you on a plate!”

“Oh no you didn’t…!”

“Just go pop out a few more kids, since that’s what you’re best at – leave the football to the professionals,” he grinned, fending off a kick.

Andrea shook her head as the rest of them launched into what was probably the World Championship of Trash Talk and darted in to grab the football from Andrew’s hand, running to her team’s goal posts (they had two mini-kegs of beer) for a touchdown. Chad loped over, apparently aligning himself with her team and they went into another play – unfortunately now that he was on the opposing team, he and Andrew were more concerned with smashing into each other than actually winning. She considered calling a halt to the whole thing the third time Chad was slammed to the ground so hard it knocked the wind from him, but he didn’t seem to mind so she figured she’d let it go. After all, they’d grown up together and were used to knocking each other senseless.

She saw more observers at the edge of the ‘playing field’ as they ran around making up their own rules, but thought nothing of it until after her celebratory dance in the end zone and she’d leaped into Chad’s arms. Glancing over, still laughing and hanging around Chad’s neck, she finally noticed the big black truck that could only be owned by one person. What was he doing here, though? Andrea looked around and saw Rita and Hopper standing by Laurel and James, and tapped on Chad’s chest to get his attention. “What are they doing here? I thought it was a family dinner,” she asked as he set her down.

Chad hoisted her up onto his back for the next play. “I dunno – last year, Mom invited Rita over a couple times but she never showed up. Probably figures that since she’s still got the last name, she’s still one of the family. Don’t worry about it.”

She pressed her lips against the side of his face in a smacking kiss that made him laugh. “I’m not worried, Sarge. Not anymore.”

After the game broke up, Chad carried her over to where they’d set up tables outside for dinner and greeted the newcomers politely, making it plain that he’d tolerate no disparaging remarks about their relationship by eyeing Hopper warningly. Amazingly, the two men were able to be civil to each other during dinner and Andrea struck up a conversation with her partner to keep him occupied. Hopper seemed surprised at how much at ease she was with Chad’s family and by how friendly they were towards him, considering that he was now dating Rita. Thankfully the pair left soon after dinner was over with the excuse that Rita’s mother wanted them to come over the following day, and Andrea let out a sigh of relief as the taillights of Hopper’s truck disappeared in the distance. “What’s with you? You invite them?” Chad asked Laurel with a frown.

“I told her that she was always welcome,” his mother chastised. “I didn’t think she’d bring Brett with her, though. I hope it wasn’t too awkward.”

“No, it was great, Mom. I can’t even get a weekend off with my family without him showing up acting like he’s got nothing to be ashamed about,” Chad sighed, standing up to walk out on the lawn.

Andrea made her excuses and trailed after him. “I thought you said there was nothing to worry about?”

Somewhere beside her in the dark, Chad sighed again. “That’s what I thought.” He reached for her and pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “Every time I think I’m okay with it, he shows up and… I don’t love her anymore, Andy. There’s just some things you don’t do.”

“I know.” She cuddled close, resting her head on his powerful chest and closing her eyes to listen to the slow beating of his heart. “Want to sit down and look at the stars or something?” she tried, wanting to help him out of his frustration.

She felt his words as a rumble against her ear. “Okay.”

Chad sat down and leaned back on an elbow, guiding her down to lean against him while he stroked her hair and pointed out constellations. She knew he was in a better frame of mind when he started to make up silly names for groups of stars and Andrea snuggled against her sergeant, starting to nod off as he claimed that he could show her how to find the Pink Cow constellation. “Whatever you say, Sarge,” she murmured sleepily.

tbc…
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