Stormwatch - The Love Boat

© 2023 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary.

Josh and Veronica finally go on their Honeymoon! This story is something I've wanted to write for a long time and it took a while for the logistics to line up and an even longer time for it to work its way into my writing schedule. For those of you who have read We're a Wonderful Wife all the way through, thank you, and you may have an idea of what is coming from the title of this tale, which is the same title of Chapter 13 of We're a Wonderful Wife. This story was written for the Summer Lovin' Story Contest 2023. Please read and give me some feedback, good bad or otherwise.

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STORMWATCH

The Love Boat

It's not guaranteed that you will get snow in a Buffalo winter, some winters are relatively snowless, but if you do get snow, the snow isn't the worst part of the winter. The worst part of winter in the Buffalo area is the rain that will follow the snow. Picture yourself shoveling wet heavy snow off the driveway and it starts to rain. Your coat becomes a sponge and starts soaking up all that rain and you're a quarter of the way done with the driveway, your coat feels like it weighs 50 pounds, or 23 Kilos if you're so inclined, and your pants are soaked to the knees. Buffalo winters are wet, cold, slushy, and then at night all that wet slush will freeze over. It's no wonder that during the winter places like Florida are inundated by people with strange accents hailing from locations with weird, mysterious names like Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, or Lackawanna. They recline in the sun where they drink tall drinks with the very ice that they escaped from and listen to WECK radio on the internet and rock to the 50's and 60's music. As they roast in the sun they dream of staying in Florida year-round and tremble knowing they have to go back to the wet and cold, their departure growing closer with every tick of the clock.

"Hey baby," said the sexy woman's voice in Josh Gravley's earphone. That voice! That voice is the creator of a thousand erections and that's just in Josh, he chose to ignore the millions she's launched in men around the world when she was modeling. "What 'cha doin?" came that breathy voice, he could almost feel her tongue tickling his ear.

"Well, since you couldn't be with me for a night of debauchery spent in Anthony's office, I invited a few of the girls from software development over to test out Ant's new couch in his office," he lied as he verified a purchase order against a huge spreadsheet. "I wore them out so I'm giving them a rest break before I go back in for round four. What are you doing?"

"Well, Audry and I got caught in the rain so we're sitting naked in front of the fireplace sipping wine and comparing our sex toy collection as we warm up and dry off," lied Veronica as she changed Mike Junior, her baby brother, while Mike Junior's mom, Audry, folded laundry. "I think daddy is going to come claim his sexy bride and I'm going to be stuck here watching while they make wild passionate love," her lie continued. Her dad was helping Audry with the laundry.

Getting the "I'm having more fun than you" lies out of the way Veronica and Josh chattered about their friends at work. Josh is currently on Stormwatch, so he's sitting alone in an empty office building. His task is to keep an eye on the data center in case the promised storm hits, which in Western New York is a real worry. When the storm is expected to hit on the weekend a member of the data center team stays behind to keep an eye on the system and keep the emergency exits clear of snow.

For some reason all the really bad storms have been happening on the weekend and Josh's data center team was stressed to the maximum. The newly hired techs were coming on strong, but they were not ready to work in this big system alone and Josh didn't trust just anyone with a badge that will open every office in the building, so the same few people get tasked with Stormwatch duty over and over. This storm was weird, the weather changed back and forth between snow and rain and the local weather services were just as befuddled as the people of Western New York.

"Can't you come home?" asked Josh's sexy wife. Being one of the officers in the company she knew better, but she wanted her new husband, she wanted to lock her dad and his new bride and their baby in their in-law suite and lounge with Josh in bathrobes sipping coffee and make love the way they used to; Loud and passionate and anywhere in the house they wanted.

"I have a desk full of actual work to do, and I'm terrified that the rain will freeze, and everything will be covered in ice." That's what Commander Tom with the weather outside was saying; freezing rain for the rest of the weekend then next week the high temperatures are expected to be 20°, Commander Tom even threw in the -7°C for the Canadian viewers.

Veronica sighed, "you know that now you said it, it's going to happen."

"I'm not superstitious," insisted Josh, "it's bad luck to be superstitious."

"Just make sure you're home by five tomorrow night, Andi and Paul invited us over for dinner, Andi said that Paul has a proposition for us."

Josh looked at the window and saw that the rain had changed to snow, for once Commander Tom was right. "I'll try my best."

A few minutes later Josh's phone rang again, it was Terri McCarthy, one of the best technicians in the company, a goofy twenty something girl from Canada, Terri wants to be emo but she's too bubbly to pull it off properly. "Hey bossman, is your dad's cabin available?"

Years ago, Josh had purchased an old rundown scout camp as an investment. Several cabins have been restored and one of the nicest ones was used by Veronica's dad Mike and his young wife Audrey. "Not sure, why do you ask?"

"Well..."

Josh could hear the embarrassment in her voice. "Let me guess, Mateo is back?"

"Well..."

Mateo Buran was a programmer in the same company that Josh and Veronica work in, he and Terri were an on again, off again couple that made everyone dizzy trying to keep up with their status. Terri was a bona fide city girl until she started visiting Josh's camp and now she's begging to borrow any cabin available since her parents won't let her use their RV anymore as a romantic hideaway. "Let me get with Mike and see if he and Audry have any plans. I'll let you know Monday. Tuesday at the latest."

Josh signed off of the network and stepped outside and sure enough, the rain and snow were freezing to everything. Happy Stormwatch, he groaned as he took an old blanket out of his truck and threw it over the windshield so when his Stormwatch was over scraping the ice off the windshield wasn't too difficult. Then he headed for the maintenance room to get the sack of ice melt, it was going to be a long night.

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Josh was able to get out of the office on Sunday evening when the regularly scheduled night crew came in and since it wasn't raining or snowing in Springville, he and Veronica chose to walk the two blocks to Paul and Andi's house. Their house is a beautiful 3-bedroom Victorian house with in-law suite on 14th Street and just two blocks away on Howard Ave sits the huge Victorian home of Paul and Adrianna Jarecki. In the winter they can see each other's houses diagonally across the park that sits across the street from their houses. In the summer bands play at the band stand and an old fashion dancing pavilion sits in the park where, if the right band is playing, Josh and Veronica will dance the night away while Paul and Andi aren't far away at the swings and slides with their children. The village has ice cream socials in the park, and the volunteer fire hall has competitions with other fire companies which are incredible fun to watch.

But there's not much going on here in winter, there's no hills in the park for sledding, but there is a skating rink and Veronica convinces Josh to skate occasionally. A year ago, when Josh and Veronica summoned up their courage and admitted their feelings for each other they had a lot of fun during the winter, they even got engaged at the company's winter holiday party and they skied and tobogganed the winter away. This year Josh got a big promotion, Veronica's dad moved in, married his young nurse, and they had a baby. With the big promotion getting time off from work was a rare treat, and with the in-laws living in the same house the best they could do was hide in Josh's cabin and cuddle by the fire on the occasional Saturday night.

The snow that makes Springville a winter wonderland was now filthy, the snow captures dirt and dust from the air as it falls, then as it melts all that dirt ends up on top of the snow, a black tinge that resembles mold. At the same time the melted snow in the street creates a slushy mud that is splashed up on the snowbanks on the side of the street by passing cars making it worse. The winter this year has been hell, it started with a thundersnow on Christmas Eve which wore Josh out, and now it's been a constant cycle of rain then snow, rain then snow.

And then the baby! Veronica's dad is getting stronger as he deals with his heart condition, but there's so much that needs to be done for a newborn. Josh won't say it out loud but his home life as a child was horrible, so he's secretly happy to be part of a loving family and even though his in-laws are taking one facet of joy out of his relationship with Veronica, it's added others. He never thought he would enjoy bottle feeding a newborn as much as he does. However, he wants what Veronica wants, he wants their freedom.

They turned up Paul and Andi Jarecki's driveway, still sad that they were so busy that they missed the holiday season. The beautiful Christmas decorations on Paul and Andi's house cause people from all over Springville and beyond to flock to the neighborhood and gaze at their house were gone and have given way to tiny white lights lining the wrought iron fence around their corner lot and lining the edge of the canopy over the front porch. The white lights are pretty but are nothing compared to the Christmas splendor that wrapped the house in light for the holidays.

Entering the rear door, they were greeted by the Jarecki's executive chef and governess Yi Jin Carlson, the Korean American daughter of the couple that captains Paul and Andi's yacht for most of the year, and her boyfriend Kenny Johnson, manager of the local feed store. They were preparing dinner and Andi's twins Sandy and Madeline were at the kitchen table, both little blonds had a bowl of dough in front of them and were trying to fashion blobs of dough. "What are we making girls?" asked Veronica.

"Bikkits," said one of the girls, Josh has never figured out how to tell which one is Madeline and which one is Sandy.

Josh looked at Yi who translated, "Biscuits. They wanted biscuits for some reason, so we are practicing portion control." The twins had a biscuit on a tray between them that Yi made, and they were trying to make their biscuits the same size as the "momma biscuit."

"Y'all want some help?" asked Josh. That only elicited giggles from the twins, they picture Josh as an outdoorsman who uses a chainsaw to cut his steak, not a someone who could bake. Josh went over to the kitchen sink, washed his hands then dried them off and got a little bit of flour on his hands. "Y'all ready for this?" he dipped some biscuit dough out of Sandy's bowl and fashioned a biscuit almost exactly the same as the momma biscuit, then he repeated the feat using dough from Madeline's bowl.

"Woah," gasped Madeline as the twins looked at the exact clones of the momma biscuit.

"The boy has biscuits in his blood," said Veronica as Josh washed his hands again.

"I'm from South Georgia, girls. Biscuits is part of our heritage, it's what us good ol' boys do best."

Andi appeared from the side door to the kitchen and said, "Please come join us before you start teaching the girls to make jambalaya."

"Mah cookin' lessins usually head t'ward red beans 'n rice next," said Josh, giving his southern drawl free reign.

"Oh no," gasped Andi as the twins and Yi broke out into song.

Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot.

The more you toot the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal!

Chuckling they followed Andi through the house, and Veronica said, "We sang it differently, it went "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart..."

"Yes, thank you dear," said Josh pulling Veronica closer. "You can join the girls if you want, you can start a "Sweet Ads" quartet if you'd like." When he mentioned Sweet Ads he was referring to the Sweet Adelines, an all-female a cappella singing organization.

They ended up in Paul's mother's living room, a room that he furnished to look exactly like the living room that Paul's parents had in their apartment in Cheektowaga NY decades ago. According to twenty first century sensibilities the furniture was horribly ugly, but it made Paul, his brother John, and their mother Marjorie happy. Paul even had a floor council television reproduced with a modern HD screen and the twins are learning how to watch TV laying on the floor like their grandparents did.

In the "Cheektowaga Room" as Andi called it, was Andi Jarecki, a four-foot eight inch highly successful pulmonologist, dark blond hair large breasts, narrow waist, round hips, like Veronica she has a small nose and round chin. As for their height, Veronica is a full foot taller than Andi. Also was Paul Jarecki, six foot two, slim, thinning blond hair, hawk nose, narrow face, large adams apple. Joining them is Paul's younger brother John, five foot eight, thick black hair but other than that a carbon copy of his brother. It's said that Paul got his dad's hair, John got his mom's hair, and they both got the milkman's nose.

"What's a milk man?" asked Andi, who had heard the term before but didn't know what it meant.

"Our grandfather," said John.

"I don't get it," which got the biggest laugh, but Andi never figured out why.

Also with them is John's wife Macy, or as she was once known as Marie-Claude Solange Dagenais, tall, black, slim, and beautiful with a glowing smile and long, wavy ebony hair. She was a fashion model like Veronica, in fact having similar body types they were both in a shoot together for Black Velvet whiskey although neither remembers much about meeting each other in the shoot, just that they met. That was early in Veronica's career and Macy was very close to quitting the modeling business at that point in time.

They sat and chatted until Kenny came in and said, "Dinner is ready."

"This is really fancy," Veronica whispered to Josh. "We should do dinner like this."

"I don't think we can afford Yi and Kenny," Josh replied.

Dinner was incredible, everyone was served a huge, seared sea scallop on a bed of baby spinach with a pomegranate glaze for the first course, and the main course was lamb chops with blackberry chutney served with balsamic glazed tri-color carrots and a homemade "bikkit."

"Oh! This is heaven," sighed Veronica, "that was way too much, but it was so good I couldn't stop!"

"Oh oui," said Macy, and she put her hands on her stomach, "très bien."

"Pull-eeeze," laughed Andi, "You're both models, you could get filled up on a carrot."

"They could split a sardine and a cracker for lunch and claim that they were bloated," said Josh.

"Ain't that the truth," said John as he fist bumped with Josh.

"We complain because we were trained to complain," said Veronica as Kenny set out dishes of lemon ice for dessert.

"Oui. It took me years of seminary to learn to give thanks rather than pretend it was a burden," said Macy who had a doctorate in theology along with psychology.

"How would you like to eat like this for a week?" Andi asked Veronica and Josh.

"Oh, hell yeah!" Josh was close to yelling with his exclamation. "I mean, I could get used to it," he added more sedately.

"That would be nice," said Veronica. "Do you need a house sitter?"

"More like a yacht sitter," said Paul. "We are going to take a nice cruise to a friend's island near the Bahamas when John and Macy bailed out on us."

"Yes," said John. "We gave up an early summer in the Bahamas for Quebec in the late winter." His face was a mask of false bravado.

"Family reunion," said Macy. "My family demands to see Katarina."

"She's a darling! She's going to break hearts!" gushed Veronica.

"So, to replace them we invited a couple from Minnesota," continued Paul.

"No one needs the Bahamas more than a couple from Buffalo, except a couple from Minne-snowta," agreed Josh.

"Right," agreed Andi, "except our captain and mate bailed out too."

"My folks are on vacation too," called Yi from the kitchen.

"What is with people trading the Caribbean for Canada this winter?" asked Josh.

"Andi and I can man the boat, we got our licenses now," said Paul, "but we have an open cabin. Do you know anyone that can get time off in about..."

"DIBS!" called Josh.

"You haven't checked to see if we can get the time off." Veronica glared at Josh. He's not the type to do something like this.

"Darling, I love you and I love the job, but this winter has really got under my skin."

Veronica understood perfectly, it wasn't just the weather, it was the gloom, they haven't seen the sun since before Christmas, it was dim and dark and it was getting to her too. "I'll check with Mister Friedman to see if we can take the time off." She turned sweetly to Andi and asked, "Will Yi be cooking on this little voyage?"

"Yes she will, the kids will be staying with my mom."

That was all Veronica needed to hear, after this masterpiece of a dinner she'll risk the Wrath of Friedman. "Then I'm not sure if I know what Anthony will say about time off, but I think between Josh and I, we can come up with a grandmother's funeral we need to go to."

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Tuesday morning dawned cold and snowy, they had to take Josh's Jeep Gladiator pick-up to work because with a half dozen sandbags in the bed of the truck over the rear axle it was better in the snow than Veronica's Lincoln Navigator. Arriving at the Andalon building they parked in Veronica's reserved spot out front and walked hand in hand across the parking lot. It was supposed to be raining today, instead they got twenty degrees (-7°C) and snow. They entered the building still holding hands and the receptionist greeted them with a big smile. Mindy handed them their access badges as they took their coats off. "I'll probably have to give this badge back at about twelve thirty this afternoon," said Josh.

"Why?" asked Mindy, the receptionist.

"I'm going to ask Mr. Friedman for a short notice vacation."

Mindy, sighed, "It was nice working with you while it lasted Mr. Gravely."

"Oh, stop it you two," scolded Veronica. "Anthony is not that bad," and with a quick kiss from Josh she headed to her executive office and Josh headed to his office in the server farm. Veronica was the executive assistant to Anthony "Ant" Friedman founder and CEO of Andalon Data Systems and Josh was in charge of the hardware in the data center and field maintenance. They decided to ask Ant for time off during his lunch hour that he took every day at noon.