The Nuclear Family - Chapter 11 - Part II

[:::: Authors Note ::::]

Wow, what a ride September 2025 has been.  Take away world events, and I’ve had a birthday, celebrated the life of someone I grew up with who unexpectedly passed away and tried to settle the last of my vendor debts from my previous business.

This month is going to be just as busy, but I hope to pivot into writing in a big way, as it's been frustrating that my writing time has been minimal over the past few weeks.

For October, I have a couple of key items that I want to get completed, including: Draft Complete on “The White Suit, Book 2 of The Dark Christmas Saga”.  I plan to take a week off work to ensure this happens. Currently, the initial draft is approximately 60% complete, and I still hope to complete the initial release in November/December, as I did with “The Red Suit”.

I also want to complete the rewrite of this story, ‘The Nuclear Family’. Currently, I believe I am about halfway, and I want to stay ahead enough to continue releasing weekly.

You will also see the final two chapters in Lucky, where some drama still unfolds.

Lastly, I have two Full Monty Drafts that I want to get out.  The first one that I am looking at is a story called ‘Small’ and deals with a man who everyone around him abuses because he’s a pushover. And the second is my complete draft version for Part I of ‘Shimmer’. 

So hold onto your seats, because I have a whole lot of content for everyone as we look towards the close-out of the year, However now, lets get into Part II of The Nuclear Family as Robbie at last gets to move away from the family that betrayed him and perhaps start something new with Amy (shhh, don’t spoil it for everyone if you have read the original…)

Cheers

John

[:::: Find all chapters at: The Nuclear Family story page ::::]

[:::: Read any of John’s Stories on John’s Story Guide ::::]

[:::: The Nuclear Family, Part II – Chapter 11 ::::]

Some people move often. Military personnel and their families often relocate multiple times within a short period.  Other people live a lifestyle that is transient in nature.   I appreciated a little stability, something that had been seriously lacking in my life for a while.

However, standing there, contemplating the small cluster of boxes in front of me.  I felt myself somewhat unstuck. Of course, there wasn’t much in my room to be packed, and of what there was, the majority was clothes.

I heard a car pull up outside, along with a door opening, and there was a small part of me that worried about what I had gotten myself into.  It had been a little less than a week since I agreed to run away with Amy, my ex-wife's little sister, as well as my assault of my older brother, sending him sprawling against the wall of a building.

I moved to the bed and slipped my phone charger into the small bag. It contained a change of clothes, my laptop, and a few other items that I wanted to keep on top of everything in the car.

Regardless of how this whole plan of running away with Amy played out. I was determined to stop mopping and get my life back on track.  For too long now, I had let the circumstances of family betrayal dictate my mood.  I hadn’t been playing victim, but neither was I moving forward.

Amy’s offer gave me that chance.  The fact that she was a beautiful woman had nothing to do with it, I told myself. No…  Of course not.

I snorted, picking up a couple of bags and walking down the stairs and out the front door with the suddenly squealing form of Amy throwing herself into my arms.

“Robbie!” she said in the high-pitched voice that told me she was excited. “This is going to be such a great day. The first of everything, and we get to share it together.

I placed the bags on the ground, and Amy raced into my arms, giving me a quick peck on the lips. Our relationship was blossoming quickly following my afternoon spent in a police interview room, where she proceeded to give me a kiss that rivalled the most passionate that my wife had at the best point in our marriage.

I think the fact that Amy and I had known each other for years had us already moving past the ‘getting to know you phase, so it was less about introducing each other and more about propping up our communications and deepening a friendship.

“Did you have anything to bring with us?” I asked her.

She shook her head and turned slightly to show me a backpack and a shopping bag.

“I’ve got my laptop, a couple of bags of chips and some water,” Amy told me with a massive smile on her face. “It’s going to be like that time we all went to…”

She suddenly trailed off.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to talk like that.”

I snorted and leaned on the boot of the car.

“Amy, it's going to happen now and then.  To be honest, there are a lot of good memories in there.  Like the road trip Georgia, you and I took out to Tamworth for the country and music festival.”

She smiled and nodded.

“It’s a shame, because while the bad memories are only a small amount, they will overshadow everything else until we get used to them.”

“We?” Amy replied a moment later.

I walked up to the passenger's door and, with a bit of a flourish, threw it open.

“You're my navigator on the journey into my new life,” I told her.

She squealed once more and placed the shopping bag at the feet of the seat.

“I’ll keep my laptop with me; it can come out with me in the morning, as I have a few work emails that I will do after dinner tonight.”

I nodded, and she slipped into my arms and gave me a peck on the lips.

“I’m excited, Robbie,” she admitted, then let go of me, and I closed the door and locked the car. Then she slipped her hand into mine as we walked up the drive and into Darren and Toni’s house.  “Not too many girls get a chance to whisk their childhood crush away to form a life with them, or help them get over heartbreak.”

I didn’t say much as we walked into the house and got ourselves both a drink. 

“Did I say something wrong?” she asked me, concerned.

“No,” I told her, handing her the drink.  “I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.”

“Why is that? Is it me?”

I thought for a moment.

“In some ways, yes,” I told her, and held up my hands before smiling. “We’re starting something here that is new, and there are things that I know you’re not telling me.”

“Robbie, I…”

I smiled at her.

“No, I don’t think it's anything hurtful, and I get the impression it's more professional than personal.”

Amy gave me a cautious nod.

“Amy, there is also money. I am living on savings. Darren has gotten me a few semi-professional fights, but it's not something I think I want to make a living off.”

Amy nodded. We had discussed my MMA fights, and she had come to see me training.  She knew they were as much about me exercising my demons caused by my family, as much as I enjoyed the physical and sometimes strenuous activity.

It was when she came and saw me in my last amateur bout on the Gold Coast that she understood how vicious the cage was.

“I’ve watched a little on TV,” she told me afterwards. “But I never expected…”

She looked at me.

“It was brutal,” she explained, and Darren nodded. “Robbie, I thought you were going to take the guy's head off in those first thirty seconds.”

“Do you have a problem with Robbie's fights?” Darren asked her, handing me a fresh towel after I gave him my sweat-drenched one.

She was thoughtful for a moment and then shook her head.

“No, not on the whole,” she told my trainer. “However, it doesn’t mean that I am not concerned when he steps in the ring. But in no way will I stop him from doing something he enjoys.”

Darren smiled. He had a similar conversation with Georgia at one point and got almost the opposite reaction.

When it came to work, Amy had already told me not to worry about money or a job for a few more months. We would figure something out together once I was away and living more than twenty minutes from my former family.

“I guess this is a big unknown for me,” I explained back in the moment around Darren and Toni’s table. “Since I was a kid, I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew where my career was taking me. I had a plan for dating, a wife, kids...”

Amy nodded.

“I know I have been just treading water for the past year, and doing what we are going to do tomorrow is the right step for me.  But it doesn’t mean I am not a little nervous, a little thoughtful of what might be next.”

Amy nodded once more and looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I think I know where you're coming from,” she told me. “You believed that you had it all, then had it ripped away from you, and now here is this woman who desires you coming in and for all intents and purposes is saying ‘trust me’, yet, in a lot of ways, you know nothing of her outside of family visits, correct?”

It was my turn to nod.

“Robbie, I’ve told you there is no way I will ever do what Georgia did to you.  There are also several complications in my work life that you will see over the next few weeks.  But I will be there for you each step of the way.  If you’re unsure of the next step, then take my hand and we will walk it together.”

I smiled and reached across the table, and she placed her hand in mine, and her face once more shone like the sun on a bright summer's day.  I knew she would help me. Hell’s, she already had.

Over the past few days, Amy had managed to arrange, transport, and store all the items from the National Storage shed that I didn’t have here.  She had put Nathan in contact with a guy named George, another lawyer whom Nathan was utterly blown away by, to help with my legal situations involving Georgia and the family.

And while she had to work a couple of evenings from the hotel room she was staying at, Amy had spent more time here with Darren, Toni and me than she had working.  She had been very standoffish about her work, especially when I asked why it was done at odd hours. 

It was the one admission where she told me she had to do a lot of international conference calls, but still stopped short of telling me what she did.

However, it was also due to her odd work hours that we got to spend a lot of time together. If she wasn’t working during the day, we would head to the shops, a park, or my local gym.  I almost broke down laughing when one of the regular girls came up to me as I finished a set of squats to ask me to help them set the weights for her own lifts.

Amy, who had been on the treadmill, was glaring at Simone, a very happily married mother, by the way.  It didn’t matter; she was jealous of Simone in a way that told me how much she really was into me.

A few times now, I had moved in to repeat the kiss we had given in front of Georgia at the police station; however, other than a couple of milder versions, Amy has pulled back each time before it went any further.

“I want to, Robbie,” she told me. “Trust me, I want to, but I know I can’t yet give in.  Once it's just you and me, watch out.”

We talked a bit about intimacy and agreed to take it slow for the moment.  I think we both knew our connection was growing deeper every hour we were together.  But again, we wanted it to be in the absence of my family’s shadow.

Later that evening, Darren, Toni, Amy and I had a great evening.  It felt more like a family around a table, telling stories, laughing at bad jokes and not a single ounce of judgment for some of the worst jokes I have ever heard.

“Why did the plane crash?” Amy asked us.

We all looked at each other and shrugged.

“'Cause it's a pilot was a tomato,” she said, laughing. We looked at each other again.

“What's brown and sticky?” Darren asked.

Toni groaned.

“I don’t know,” Amy replied.

“A stick,” he said and chucked.

“Why did the koala fall out of the tree?” I asked the group.

“No idea?” Darren replied.

“Different joke,” I said back, causing everyone to laugh.

“Why did the koala fall out of the tree?” Toni asked.

“Because it died,” I said, and everyone looked appalled.

“Why did the second koala fall out of the tree?” I asked, and they groaned as I smiled.

“'Cause it died too?” Amy asked, and I shook my head.

“Because it was hit by the first one,” I replied

They again looked at me, but not quite as appalled.

“Why did the third koala fall out of the tree?” I asked

“Gravity?” Toni asked, and we chucked.

“Because it saw the first two and thought it was a game…”

It went on for about fifteen minutes, and I think we came up with about twenty variations of the joke that went around the playground at school when I was growing up.

Through it all, Amy sat beside me, her hand in mine when it was possible, and she had a look of adoration on her face that was hard to miss.

“You have that look, too,” Toni said at one point when Amy excused herself for the bathroom.

“What look?” I replied, raising an eyebrow.

“The look of a man infatuated with a girl,” she told me as Amy came back and Darren opened the tin on a new indie game he bought, ‘Throw, Throw Burrito’.  It was great fun.  But with two martial artists in the room, it got very competitive, and we had to stop when Darren broke a coffee table diving out of the way in our Burrito duel….

As we wound down, I expected Amy to call an Uber and head back to her hotel as she did most nights.  When I asked her, she shook her head.

“I’m staying here tonight,” she told me.  “That way we can get an early start.”

I expected Toni and her to set up the couch, and I was going to volunteer to give Amy my bed. However, after saying goodnight, Amy led me by the hand into my bedroom and closed the door.

Her arms went around my neck, and I got another one of those passionate kisses.  After a few minutes, I started to let my hands roam, and I thought it was going to go further when she stopped me, breathing heavy.

With that, she walked around to the other side of the bed and did that thing where all of a sudden her bra was in her hands without exposing an inch of flesh, then her jeans were on the floor, and she was sliding into bed and looking at me expectantly.

I raised an eyebrow, and Amy giggled.  So I made a bit of a show of turning around and taking off my shirt and shorts, then unsuccessfully trying to use my pants to strip out of my jockeys into a pair of boxers.

We guys just are not as coordinated as our ladies.

I know she got an eyeful and a bit of a flash, but she played it coy, lifting the sheet and gesturing in.

I lay on my back, and she snuggled into me and kissed me again. For a moment, her hand started to circle my nipple, and then she pulled back like she was about to be burned.  I looked at her and raised an eyebrow, and Amy swallowed.

“I’m not going to steal your virtue tonight, Robbie,” she said in a sultry voice, purring much like a cat.  Then she looked deep in my eyes, and everything melted away as I felt myself begin to lose my sense of self.

“I want to,” she told me, and now I could hear the want, the desire in her voice. “Lord knows I want to. But not tonight. Not here.  It will be at our place, in our bed.”

I liked that, not her place, ours, not her bed, but ours…

I pulled her to me, and her ample chest was squashed against mine.  Our lips then touched, and our tongues intertwined. My hands roamed again, but I kept them outside her top, as much as I wanted to slide over the smooth skin it covered.  When we broke for a breath, minutes later, she looked at me once more.

“I’m yours, Robbie, and if I have my way, the nights we are apart over the next decade should be able to be counted on both hands.”

I laughed.

“You're pretty sure of yourself,” I told her. Running a hand over her back, then pulling her tightly into me and running the hand up till I brought her lips to mine again. “But I will say, I am looking forward to it.

Amy then molded her body to mine, and I stifled a groan.  Her leg went across mine, and I could feel the heat leaking from the other side of her panties.  My manhood had been threatening to make itself known for a while; however, now, with the show and her touch, he wanted nothing more than to be free.

Amy had to know what she was doing to me, as her leg had brushed him a couple of times, her arm slowly snaked its way across my body, and her lips started brushing against the side of my neck.

I lasted perhaps sixty seconds before I pulled her on top of me, and we smashed our lips together as her legs wrapped around my raging hard-on. She moaned as she used the friction of our clothes and started rubbing up and down, up and down… up and down.

Her tongue met mine in a chorus of passion, and I could also feel two hard points beginning to stab into my chest.

It was at that point that any doubt about having a relationship with this woman vanished.  Amy was sensual, and I could sense that while there was not an iota of penetration, she was giving herself to me in the fullest sense.

For the next ten minutes, we continued to writhe together, our hands softly touching each other, sometimes our kisses were short, soft and quick, other times our mouths smashed against each other.  A couple of times, my hands brushed the sides of her breasts, and the resulting reaction let me know I was doing the right thing.

There was a moment when she shuddered, and I instantly knew… A moment later, she collapsed against me.  Her head was on my chest as she panted.

“Thank you, Robbie,” Amy told me when she caught her breath. “Thank you for not going in for the kill.  I know you wanted to. If I am being honest, even after that I still want you too.”

She bit her lower lip as she lifted her head and then reached up to touch my cheek. 

“That you held back tells me how much you care. It tells me that you want me more than just this moment.”

I craned my neck forward and placed a peck on her forehead.

“I do, Amy,” I told her. “I really do.  And I must be honest, I am using every trick in the book not to revert to caveman behaviour. But yes, you are exceptional.”

She smiled, and I felt her clench her, but a little, which caused her to rub against me.

“I know, baby,” Amy said as she used that particular term of endearment for the first time. “And I promise that I will make it worth your while.  Would you mind if I go to the bathroom? I need to change, and I can give you a few moments…”

She glanced down in the dimly lit room at the apparent rise in my pants, and I laughed.

“No, just get changed and come back.”

She was back within three minutes, and she again threw a leg over me.

“I called you, babe, earlier,” she told me as she opened the sheet and climbed back in and once more moulded herself to me. “Is that okay?”

I snorted.

“Amy, we’re moving fast, much faster than I thought, yet for some reason I am not worried.  Calling me Babe is fine, as long as you don’t mind Hun.”

She playfully slapped me, then kissed me.

“We’re going to be good together, babe,” she said, laying it on thick.  Then she got serious. “Are you content to hold me tonight?”

I wrapped my arm around her, and we fell asleep as I smiled at visions of the future. Amy and I, with none of my family.

[:::: End of Chapter 11 ::::]

[:::: Go to Chapter 12 ::::]

[:::: Find all chapters at: The Nuclear Family story page ::::]

[:::: Read any of John’s Stories on John’s Story Guide ::::]