Chapter 3

Haley’s turn:

I’m lying back in Bill’s arms. Part of me is still incandescent, despite all the moisture, and I am happier today than any day in my life. I’ve had some really happy days to compare this to, you know.

Bill and I are getting married. I knew it a long time ago. I just never saw Bill as somebody who’d play with my heart and NOT continue until one of us died. I knew, too, that he’s had a great relationship with his daughter Deena, my FRIEND Deena, and that her disapproval of our marriage, while it wouldn’t be an obstacle, could definitely draw a lot of joy out of getting married.

After all, I see Deena at least every other weekend. I talk with her sometimes during the week, especially the week before her weekend with her dad. We’ve been known to conspire for some destination or another. I giggle when I consider the absurdity of me talking with Deena while I’m lying there in bed with her dad, both of us naked.

I thought, though, when the three of us were out for a weekend, that he and I were hiding our relationship pretty well. Deena told me this evening that I didn’t.

So it’s starting to push past eight PM when my phone chimes with Deena’s ringtone. I scoot away from Bill to get it.

“Our daughter,” I giggle to him, then, “Hi, Deena. What’s up?” Yes, the phone’s on speaker.

She sighed. “Had a looong talk with Mom.”

“She gonna cause a problem?”

“No, but we got kinda loud at each other. Harv (that’s Deena’s step dad) left and went to his shop until we finished.”

“I’m sorry, Deena,” I said. “I never meant to cause you trouble.”

“Haley, you’re like my sister...” She giggled. “Well, except for that ‘marrying Dad’ thing. Okay, you’re my best friend, too, and I think you’d take MY side if I needed it.”

“I would.” I was sincere. The fact of the matter is that I HAVE taken Deena’s side in discussions with Bill about some things going on in HER life.

“She accused me of knowing what was going on between you ‘n’ Dad.” Giggle. “I sorta did, but nothing that would hold up in court.”

“We tried to hide it. I thought we were doing pretty good.”

“Girl,” Deena said, “You glow. I wish I glowed like that sometimes. I’ve seen girls who had that glow at school, y’know, but they didn’t have ANYTHING like Dad to glow about, and theirs usually changed to tears in a week or a month or whatever, you know how long those teenaged romances last.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You been glowing for over a year. This ain’t a teen-aged romance, is it?”

“No. Not that silly stuff. Deena, you know what the law says. Your dad risked ... Just to kiss me.”

“Yeah. Kiss you. Like that time in Houston when I walked in from the bathroom and Dad was looking for something in your eye...”

“Uh...”

“Almost caught y’all, huh?”

“Darned close. But Deena, I loved ‘im. He loved me. And he loves you. You’re his daughter. That’s forever.”

“But you’re gonna be his wife. He didn’t have a choice with me. You, he chose.”

My turn to giggle. “I dunno who chose first. I’m pretty sure I chose first.” Then I got serious. “And believe me, he chose you, too. I know kids whose parents divorce and they NEVER see the dad, or it’s not like your dad treats you.”

“You’re right. I know that.” She sighed. “Mom grilled me pretty hard about you ‘n’ Dad, like did y’all do anything in front of me, and how long ago I knew. I never saw y’all doing anything. I mean, now that I think about all those times we jumped in bed with him in the morning...”

“All I did was snuggle, just like you...” Not exactly true. A lot of times I copped a quick feel. And I have learned many effective snuggling techniques, but I didn’t use those with Deena lying on the other side of Bill.

“I know,” she said, “But if y’all weren’t doin’ stuff, that must’ve been kind of difficult.”

“It was.” That’s the truth, I thought, for entirely different reasons than Deena voiced. Lying next to Bill in the morning with a little time on our hands, we usually end up coupled up solidly, one way or another.

“Deena, you KNOW your dad encouraged us to be friends.”

“I know. I was an obnoxious little shit when I first met you. But two years is a big deal when you’re twelve and I’m ten. And Dad, he sort of helped me turn into a better person.”

“That’s one reason I love your dad, sis. He makes people better. And when I was twelve ... Him and me? No way ... Old guys are icky, okay? And twelve ... I wasn’t that good a student because it didn’t mean anything. Mom and Steve had just gotten officially married and she was all into him...”

Deena giggled.

“Yeah, I know, they’d been together for a while. Little Stevie ‘n’ all that. But they just got married and she was into him and little Stevie was a toddler and you know how much effort one of those can take. I was just on the outside of things. Your dad sort of let me use him to be my friend, except when YOU came over. And you let me be YOUR friend.”

“Makes us sisters,” Deena repeated her earlier statement.

“It does. I want to keep that. I need a sister.”

“So do I,” Deena replied. “I thought Mom ‘n’ Harv would ... Truth be known, I think Harv would be happier if she didn’t have ME.”

“Now that’s a thought,” I said. I glanced at my Bill, who was listening quietly. “You’re old enough to where the courts would listen to what you wanted if you decided to move here...” I know this stuff. One only has to listen at school to hear all sorts of things bout ‘blended families’. Some of ‘em are still in the blender, whirling around, being torn apart. Plus, I know how to look things up. Google can make you knowledgeable. ‘Smart’, though, you need to bring with you.

Bill, though ... The corners of his mouth turned up just a little. A sign. Of course, there goes that Haley and Bill closing all the blinds and running around naked. Except weekends that Deena would spend with her mom.

I kept my mouth shut on that option, instead saying, “That’s one thing Mister Steve’s always tried to do – keep me like I was his daughter.” I gained one of those clarifying moments of thought. Mister Steve DID, as best he could. Yeah, if you look up ‘redneck’ in the dictionary, they use HIS picture, but really, he’s a decent, hard-working guy who puts everything he has into his family.

Deena didn’t let the thread drop, though. “I mean, you know we talked about it, me’ n’ you, but I thought we’d be, like, neighbors then, me ‘n my dad, and my sister next door. Now, I dunno ... weird ... What do YOU think?”

Oh, shit... “Uh, big decision. Sounds good up front, but let’s talk with your dad.” I looked at MY Bill. He’s still got that little bit of a smile. I don’t know how much of that is afterglow and how much of that is naked Haley and how much of that is ‘we’re getting married’ and how much of it is ‘Full-time Deena’. I need clarification.

“Do YOU hate it? I mean, okay, right now, you ‘n’ Dad, you’ve been good friends, but you don’t LIVE there...”

I stifled a gulp.

“ ... but when you’re married, you WILL live there. And we’d all be in the same house. Weird.” She sighed. “Before I knew you were marryin’ ‘im, I really thought a lot about if I moved in. Now, I dunno. I still kinda want to, but that’s a lot of changes.”

“Why don’t we get you Friday after school and you spend the night with us. Me ‘n’ you, we can hash this out, then by Saturday we’ll have some answers.” I looked at Bill again. Still smiling. ‘OMG!’ I thought. I’ve rendered him catatonic.

A little squeeze told me he was still sentient.

“You don’t mind? I mean, wedding ... I sort of suspect some things now...”

“Suspect all you want with your ol’ evil mind,” I laughed. “Me ‘n’ you, your bedroom, just like we’ve BEEN doing.”

“Okay, sister...” giggle. “ ... Mom. Whatever.”

“I dunno if I want such an evil stepchild,” I laughed. “I love you. Bye.”

I put the phone on the nightstand and turned to my Bill. “You show amazing self-restraint,” I said. “And inscrutability.” I slid up and kissed him. “Now. Honest thoughts for right now. Before we really have time to think.”

“Why does my life have to be so complicated,” he sighed. “I just wanted to be married to YOU, little darlin’, and we’d have our neat little life together and Deena would bop in and out at regularly scheduled intervals. You seem to have softened a lot of the ‘teenaged daughter’ angst that fathers are supposed to see...”

“My sister is a good girl, baby. She’s had one less sexual partner than me. Makes her a slightly better girl, I guess,” I stated. “She loves her parents. That little ‘I wanna come live with Dad’ speech tonight? I guess I should’ve prepared you for it. Not the first time it’s come up between me and her.”

“So you kind of expected...”

“One more thing I knew before you did – like when I fell in love with you.”

“But what about our life together?”

“Are you kidding? You think this is gonna change MY mind? Hardly.”

“Angel,” he said softly, his fingertips tracing my cheekbones. “You’re always such an angel.”

“And I will always be your angel.”

“So you think this could work?”

He should KNOW better. I read. I LOVE to read. And just like I knew about the history of marriage in America, I also know about the idea of families living together. “Sir,” I said, preparing him for a ‘Haley’ lesson, “the idea of people having so much space in their lives is very new. It was once common for multiple generations to live under one roof. And there’s that ‘family bed’ thing...”

“Okay, okay,” he folded quickly. “One roof, that I can buy. That family bed thing, though...”

“You never seemed against it in the mornings before.”

“I never could do THIS before,” he smirked as he rolled over, covering me, trying to force himself between my thighs. That was an impossibility because my thighs started spreading the minute he began moving.

I giggled. “And we’ll STILL do that, except I’ll already BE in bed with you and we have to remember not to make Deena lie in the sticky spots.”

He made me squeal and giggle. That part I love. The next part, his hardness pushing into my still slick pussy, I love that even more.

Train of thought? What train of thought?

I have my mouth practically welded to his when I start coming. The last thing I remember is him slamming deeper into me, that first surge of HIS, and then...