Chapter 9

The next morning I woke up nestled comfortably in Ruth’s arms. From the rhythm of her breathing I could tell that she was still asleep, and while I would have normally enjoyed snuggling for a little while longer, I had a bit of a hangover from the night before. I knew that I needed coffee and some painkillers before the headache got worse. I glanced at the clock, and since it was still pretty early I didn’t want to wake Ruth. I carefully extracted myself from her arms, doing my best to not wake her in the process. Fortunately I’d been able to practice every morning that I went to work. She stirred a little right as I was free and clear, but didn’t wake up. Putting on the clothes from the night before I stumbled to the bathroom across the hall.

Looking in the mirror, my eyes were a little bloodshot. I splashed my face in the sink and the cool water felt amazing. After rummaging through the medicine cabinet for a minute, I found the pain killers and drank them down with a swig from the faucet. I took another deep breath and set out to go get some coffee.

As I made my way to the kitchen, I could hear the coffee pot just finishing its brewing cycle, meaning I wasn’t the first person up. Peering through the doorway, my heart sank as I saw my dad pouring himself a cup of coffee, alone.

I really wasn’t looking forward to talking with him alone. I almost turned around and went back to bed to cuddle with Ruth until more people started waking up, but thinking about her made me realize that she deserved for me to try and smooth things over with my dad. With a sigh I walked in just as my Dad was sitting down at the table.

“Morning, Dad,” I mumbled, my lack of enthusiasm coming from a mixture of dread and my hangover.

“Morning, David. You look a little rough. Go get yourself some coffee and pop a squat,” he said evenly. I recognized his tone as the ‘we need to talk’ voice, and sighed again as I poured my own cup before sitting down across from him. I took a sip of my coffee and the hot, bitter liquid made me feel a little better almost instantly. It seemed like my dad wanted to give me a chance to wake up a bit more because we sat in silence until I finished my first cup.

“More coffee?” He asked, getting up.

“Yes, please.” He got up and poured us both another cup.

“How’s your head?”

“A bit better, actually.”

“Good,” he said as he handed me my refilled mug. “I see that Jill ended up taking the couch.”

“Yeah, she didn’t have a problem with it,” I said as evenly as I could. “Though with how she drank last night, she could have probably slept anywhere!” I joked. Dad cracked a smile, but it faded quickly.

“And I guess that means that you slept in the guest room...”

“Yes,” I answered curtly. “I’m just gonna say it. I spent the night with Ruth, like every other other night,” I added, figuring it would be better to just get the ball rolling. He sat quietly for a moment with his eyes closed.

“You know,” he began, “I’ve been trying to wrap my head around ... everything, but I just don’t get it.”

“What’s not to get?” I asked. “Two lonely people met, got to know each other, and fell in love. That’s kinda how it all went down.”

“I just don’t want to see you settling.” I snorted in derision.

“I’m not settling...”

“Are you sure? I mean, she’s not even human!” I rolled my eyes in irritation.

“You’re right, Dad. She isn’t human,” I grunted. “But she isn’t just some animal or beast either. She’s a person, and a woman. She has a job, crochets, reads. She goes out to lunch with friends, and was even interested enough in the story from one of my video games to start playing it herself. She hates guns, but was reasonable enough to understand why I started carrying one when I told her about the job site attack...” I paused for a moment before continuing to let it start to sink in. “She has thoughts and feelings of her own, and yesterday you kinda hurt those feelings.”

“Look, David, I’m just worried about you.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, so stop, please!” I snapped, my frustration bubbling over. “We’ve been living together since April and got to know each other very well before we thought a relationship could even be possible!” I didn’t want the conversation to become a full-blown fight, so I took a breath to calm down. “You’re just gonna have to get used to the idea that your son is dating a minotaur. After all, she just might end up being your daughter-in-law someday,” I added and Dad made a choking sound then coughed a few times. He spent a few seconds clearing his throat.

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” He asked and I nodded. “And I don’t have a say in the matter, do I?”

“No, you don’t.”

“It’s just so weird...” he muttered. I opened my mouth to retort, but shut it again when I realized that he wasn’t wrong.

“You’re right, it is,” I said quietly. “But there’s nothing wrong with being weird.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted when Jill shuffled into the room with her eyes half closed.

“You know, you two are really bad at keeping the volume down,” she scolded, looking a bit worse for wear from the night before.

“Sorry,” I murmured. She gestured toward the coffee pot.

“Any of that left?” She asked and Dad nodded. She got a mug from the cupboard. “That wasn’t very much...” she muttered as there was only enough in the carafe for a half a cup.

“I’ll make more,” offered Dad as Jill sat next to me. When he came back to the table, we all just sat and sipped on our coffee wordlessly. For the next several minutes, the only sound was the gurgling of the coffee pot until we heard one of the doorways in the hall open. From the footsteps I could tell it was mom. She walked into the kitchen with a smile on her face.

“Morning everyone!” She chirped. Her smile fell just a little bit after she scanned the room. “Where’s Ruth?” She asked and Dad sighed defeatedly, earning him a dirty look.

“She’s normally up by now, but I think she’s still asleep,” I answered. “I’ll go get her.” I left for the guest room, and when I got there Ruth really was still sleeping. She was on her side with one arm over the covers, exposing her bare shoulder and neck, in addition to her head. Her fur shone beautifully in the morning light.

I ran my fingers from the side of Ruth’s muzzle, up around behind her ear, then down her neck. She smiled and cooed before cracking her eyes open.

“Morning, honey,” I whispered, just before pressing my lips to hers. She cooed again and kissed me back.

“Morning, dear.” She stretched out and I laughed when her hooves stuck out way past the bed. She looked down and laughed too. I stroked her face again and she nuzzled into my hand. I supposed we were a very odd couple, but I loved her way too much to care!

“It’s about time to get up.”

“Ok,” Ruth said with a yawn, and after one last little stretch she sat up. “Is anyone else up?” She asked.

“Everyone else,” I replied with a chuckle and she groaned.

“I talked to my dad this morning,” I said while Ruth got dressed.

“How did that go...” she asked hesitantly.

“I got him to realize that we’re serious.”

“I suppose that’s a something.”

“He said that it was weird, and I didn’t disagree.” Ruth’s shoulders tightened and her tail started flicking anxiously, telling me that she didn’t take it the way I meant it. I knew that I had to fix that quickly!

“Oh...” she murmured. I immediately reached up and cradled her face in my hands.

“I. Love. You.” I reassured. “And I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything.” To accentuate my point I kissed her full and deep with lots of tongue, just the way she liked it! It took about a second for the tension in Ruth’s shoulders to melt away and she started kissing me back, which in turn made me melt! While I would have loved to have kept going, my family was waiting so I pulled back after only few seconds. Ruth looked a lot more relaxed.

“Shall we go?” I asked. Ruth nodded we left with her looking much happier.

When we reached the dining room, mom broke into a wide grin, Jill smirked, and Dad looked down defeatedly again.

“Good morning, sweetie!” Greeted mom cheerfully. “Can I get you anything for breakfast?”

“No, thank you,” Ruth declined politely. “Has anyone looked outside yet?”

“It looks like we got around 8 inches of snow,” answered my dad, marking the first time he spoke to Ruth. It wasn’t much, but I hoped it was a start. He turned to me and Jill. “Would you two mind helping me with the driveway before taking off?”

“No problem,” answered Jill.

“I’d like to help too,” offered Ruth. I held my breath as they looked at each other for several silent seconds.

“Yeah, that’s fine...” he muttered before looking away again.

“Ok, I guess we should get at it!” I interrupted before things could start getting more awkward.

My family, minus my mother, headed for the door and got all bundled up for the cold. Once outside we trudged to my parent’s detached garage, and I grabbed the big plow-shaped shovel for myself and a Medium sized one for Ruth. My dad and sister also took medium sized shovels and got to work.

“Here you go,” I said, offering the shovel to Ruth.

“I think I’ll take that one,” she said, pointing to the big one in my other hand.

“It’s alright, I got it.” She shot a troubled glance at my dad. “You have nothing to prove,” I said quietly, leaning in close. “And even if you did, I don’t think this would do the trick anyway.”

“Maybe so, but it would make me feel better,” she whispered. Pulling away, I saw the pleading look in her eyes and chuckled out a sigh.

“Ok.” I smiled and passed the large shovel to her. With a look of gratitude, she took it and started trudging to the end of the driveway to start working from the other end.

With that having been squared away, I got a snow brush and started clearing off the cars before shoveling around them.

After a while I thought I was making good progress, but when I looked over to see how Ruth was doing, I almost did a double take when she had cleared off almost as much snow as the rest of us combined! In fact, the area she was working on was just about to meet with the zones that my dad and Jill had been working on, which meant that we were almost done. She was absolutely relentless as she cleared away enormous, heaping shovels full, much larger than even I could manage with my large (for a human) stature. As she heaved the last of the massive loads away, I felt my pants tightening and grinned, realizing just how much of a turn-on her physical prowess was! Having finished, great clouds of steam billowed from mouth and nose as she leaned on the shovel to catch her breath.

“Hey, lunkhead. Think fast!” Shouted Jill. I turned toward her just in time to catch a snowball square in the chest!

“Why you, little!” I trailed off and packed my own snowball. I whipped it at my sister, and while she tried to dodge it I managed to clip her in the arm, knocking the new snowball she was working on out of her hand. I scooped up another fistful of snow and started packing it while running toward Jill. I had just cocked my arm back to let it fly, but Jill had foregone packing her latest snowball and I was just close enough to receive a face full of powdered frost. It threw off my aim and my payload flew wide and to the right.

“Hey Jill!” Shouted Ruth, and a large snowball caught her in the side, knocking her off-balance for a second.

“Hey, two on one isn’t fair!!” She shrieked in a fit of giggles.

“Ruth, think fast!” I yelled and lobbed a snowball toward her which hit her in the arm. I hadn’t thrown it very hard, but it was enough to get her attention.

“I thought you were on my side!” She squealed.

“It’s a free-for-all!” I screamed and Ruth started packing more snow as Jill pelted me with another one!

The next while was spent dodging each other’s snowballs while trying to whip them at each other like kids! It was tiring, but I hadn’t had that much fun in the snow in years! However, after beaming Jill in the side, I looked over to find out where Ruth was, only to see a large snowball hurtling toward my head only moments before it hit me square in the face. The impact was enough to make me see stars and I fell backwards into a snow bank! The next thing I knew, the remaining slush was being brushed off my face and I was staring into Ruth’s beautiful, and worried eyes.

“Oh David, sweetheart, I’m so sorry! Are you ok!?” She apologized and fretted. I shook my head to clear it and grinned.

“That was a good hit...” I said with a chuckle and reached up to stroke her face. “I’m fine, but I think I’m done.” She pulled me into a sitting position and wrapped her big, loving arms around me.

“Get a room!” Exclaimed Jill and Ruth pulled back while I felt my cheeks start to heat up.

“We already have a room.” If my cheeks were warm before, they suddenly felt like they were on fire! I looked at Jill, was stifling a laugh.

“That’s not what she meant...” I whispered.

“I know what she was implying,” Ruth replied quietly, though she had a mischievous glint in her eye. “And I promised we’d make good use of it tonight,” she said loud enough for Jill to easily hear and my jaw dropped.

“Eeeeew! I did not need to hear that!” Exclaimed Jill, and both me and Ruth laughed, but moments later we heard my dad clear his cough loudly. He’d stayed out of the way during the snowball fight and we’d forgotten that he was still around. Ruth’s face took on a worried look and I suddenly felt a pit in my stomach. I slowly looked over toward him but he was already on his way inside, shaking his head.