Chapter 4

Cole’s turn:

They say that before you marry a woman you should take a look at what her mom looks like to get a glimpse of your future. As sayings go, it’s about as accurate as forecasting winter by looking at the color of the fuzz on caterpillars, in other words, not so much. Right now, though, I’m watching Colby and Doralee walk back to the trailer. I could do worse. Doralee’s ten years older than me. Although I could see her as physically attractive, her hips spread noticeably wider than her daughter’s. Colby confided that some boy had called her ‘spider-butt’ because she is, in her words, skinny.

I always saw Colby as an interesting excursion into the feminine form in direct conflict with the ‘baby got back!’ trend. Her form was not unpleasant to me, just different, and when coupled with a quick, quirky wit and a propensity to twist a phrase, it hadn’t taken long after I was first introduced to her that I began to relish her just hanging around. Sort of like a kitten, you know – cute, but not a lot of real use.

As the rift opened between me and Samantha, thoughts of Colby started popping up. Of course, at the time they started, she was fifteen. Somewhere around that time she announced a need to employ a tutor. That was me because I WANTED to hang around her. Over the intervening years it was only the greatest self-restraint that I was able to float our relationship along with laughs and deniably flirty exchanges.

I knew the divorce was coming. Sam and I had discussed it, tabling it like a motion at a club meeting, to be revisited at a later date. I guess that date moved up when she started going out in the evenings, sometimes with Doralee, Colby’s mom.

It probably should’ve bothered me more, but if Doralee and Sam went out, there was usually me and Colby at the dining room table with books and papers between us, at least until the two of them cleared the driveway. Then it was a feigned fight over what to watch on TV.

Sadly, Sam dropped Doralee from many of her excursions towards the end, leading me to think that just maybe somebody was into Sam. It sure wasn’t me.

This excursion – I’d told Sam that I was going to drag my old travel trailer up here and spend some time. I had vacation and comp time aplenty, and honestly, I get a recharge from solitude. It was Sam’s idea to include herself and Doralee and Colby. At first I protested, but gave in when the thoughts of laughing and jousting with Colby came to mind.

Yesterday changed everything.

I didn’t seduce Colby. What kind of creep would seduce his best friend, okay? Colby didn’t seduce me. It was more kind of like you’re blowing up a balloon and it gets bigger and bigger, and next thing you know we were lying on a beach towel, completely naked, in the wide-assed open, making love. I have to call it that, because it was. It was also ‘going at each other like crazed bunnies’.

Hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. I actually lost count of how many times we mated, how many times I’ve come, how many times she’s come, and those numbers aren’t important at all. Just that we did. And we told each other that we belonged together. Like ‘married’.

Now her mom’s in on it.

Back to the task at hand. I deflated the air mattress, noting that it’s a bigger hassle to get all the air out than it is to get the air in. I finally got it empty enough to stow it and its inflator in the carry bag, then I stuffed the two sleeping bags into their sacks. Finally the tent came down and I stowed it, paying more attention to the task than I’d thought I was doing because a voice startled me.

“Come eat breakfast,” Colby said. “I’d kiss you but your ex still doesn’t know about me and you.”

“Letting her stay ignorant will probably make a more peaceful meal,” I chuckled.

Breakfast filled my stomach and my head. The day’s plan was laid out – Doralee and Sam were going in, as was Colby. My goal was to remove the bags and boxes that entwined my life and Sam’s life at what used to me our apartment. Now it’s hers.

I didn’t kick. I have this trailer. It’ll do for a bachelor for an indefinite time. For right now it can stay here, but the commute back to work is longer than I want. There are RV parks around town. One of them might work for a while, but I have to get a more permanent place.

The three of them packed up their belongings for the trip back. I happened to notice that Colby made a special effort to keep her things separate from her mom’s, then when we were loading, her box got kicked under the corner of the little dinette table, out of sight.

Odd.

Less odd. We’re loading into vehicles. Doralee and Colby drove in Sam’s SUV. My pickup truck towed the trailer. The trailer was staying, so I was driving my truck back.

“I’m riding with Cole,” Colby announced.

Sam tossed a look at Doralee.

“He should have somebody to talk with,” Colby reinforced.

“I appreciate the company,” I said. That sealed it. I locked the trailer, followed the SUV through the woods. They went on when I had to stop to lock the gate to the property. Actually, Colby hopped out and locked the gate. We drove off.

“You think you’re slick, huh?” I chided.

“Not really. Why do you say that?”

“You didn’t pack your stuff to go home.”

“Because all of a sudden THAT’S not home. Wherever you are is home.”

“I love you, you know. What’s your mom gonna say?”

“She likes you. And if she didn’t freak out when she found us half-naked in bed together, me goin’ to stay with you ain’t gonna do it either.”

“True. Only a matter of time before Sam finds out.”

“Stop worryin’ about her. She lost. We won. And she didn’t even know the game was on.”

“I kinda didn’t either, baby.”

“Yeah, but you really wanted to play.”

“How is it that the bashful girl seems so self-assured all of a sudden?”

“Because it’s you and me. Maybe I’m psychic or something, but when you worked with me, it stopped being ‘work’ pretty quick.”

“Uh, yeah ... I started seeing how much ‘help’ you really needed.”

She did her famous ‘shy smirk’ at me. “Reinforcement. After I caught on to the principles, you provided reinforcement. At first. Then you started providing a face for daydreams and fantasies and all sorts of ‘what-ifs’.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah, I think that was about the time I think I caught you lookin’ down my blouse.”

“Little tease,” I laughed. “You started wearing those loose blouses. And no bra.”

“I don’t really need a bra.”

“Hon, sometimes you have ballistic nipples. A bra helps keep my eyes in my head.”

“I thought I was sooo deficient. Mizz Sam’s...”

“Sam has it in her mind that a great part of her self-image is tied up in tits. One of the little wedges in our relationship was her desire for augmentation.”

“I overheard that conversation with Mom. Made me feel more inadequate. I thought you were the reason she was considering it.”

“I’m the reason she hasn’t done it yet. And yours? Wait’ll I get you someplace where I can do something about ‘em.”

“I might suggest a similar desire for parts of YOU,” she snickered.

We had a bit of running around town to do. First on the agenda was offloading my possessions. I didn’t like the idea of them being unsecured in the bed of my truck, so we hit a storage rental facility first.

I paid for and got a climate-controlled rental unit. Colby and I made short work of emptying the truck. As we stacked boxes, I pillaged through them separating out a few changes of work clothes and a few other things I’d need if I spent time living in my little travel trailer.

She was giggling as she helped me put things from one box to another. “See?!? You DO have underwear!”

“I wear underwear all the time, except...”

“When you’re teasing your best friend?”

“I was gonna say ‘when I wear those shorts’.”

“Noted,” she laughed. “I like getting to you, Cole. Verbally. And...” her fingers brushed the lump in my shorts.

“Girl!” I squeaked. “Decorum!”

Now she was playing me. We were pretty deep in the storage facility, down a long corridor with roll-up doors on both sides, each the entry to a rental space. There was nobody else visible.

I allowed myself to be pressed back against the wall by ninety-something pounds of skinny teen girl. Searing kisses with wonderful accompanying caresses of what was now an erection.

“I’ve created a monster,” I said.

Those grey eyes flashed. I guess there’s only a small difference between ‘lust’ and ‘mirth’ for Colby. “A carnivorous one...”

“If we can get me out of here unmolested, I promise...”

“Come on. We need to go by Mom’s house.”

“Why?”

“Just like you. Get a few clothes and things.”

On the short trip to her mom’s, Colby and I teased each other verbally. I knew that despite the Olympic efforts I’d expended on sex with her in the last twenty-four hours, this teasing was effectively overcharging my system. Oh, well. I think Colby’s coming back with me and by all indications, she’s got sex on her mind.

We walked into her mom’s house.

“I didn’t expect to see you,” Doralee said.

“Came back to get some stuff,” Colby told her. “And I’m NOT abandoning my mom. Where’s my birth certificate?”

Her mom smiled. “And exactly what would you need that for?”

“Marriage license.”

Colby disappeared in the direction of her room. Doralee looked at me. “You better be sure, buddy boy.”

“I’m years of ‘sure’, Doralee.”

She rummaged through a file drawer on a desk and handed me an envelope. “Colby’s birth certificate, high school diploma, transcript, social security card, all that’s in here.”

“No title, registration and proof of insurance?”

“You marry ‘er, all that’s on YOUR dime.”

Colby returned carrying a gym bag, giggling. “I’ll be cheap to keep. I don’t eat much and I can curl up in a corner of a sofa.”

Doralee snorted “You weren’t curled up in a corner when I found you two this morning.”

Giggle. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Keep in touch,” Doralee said, kissing Colby on the cheek, then giving me a quick hug.

In the truck, Colby put her hand on my arm. “You do realize you just witnessed a big moment in my life, don’t you?”

“Yeah. You just left your mom to come live with me.”

“To be MARRIED to you.”

“Then let’s go to the courthouse tomorrow.”

“Why not right now?”

“Because they’re gonna want MY birth certificate and a copy of the divorce decree. I have the birth certificate in my computer bag but the divorce papers are at the trailer. So tomorrow. And then there’s a 24-hour waiting period.”

“So we get married on Wednesday?”