Chapter Four
Colton
August
“Are you excited for tomorrow?” Hannah asks as we’re each working on a vehicle in side-by-side bays. She owns the auto repair shop and has been my best friend for most of my life. We grew up together, both of us living on the same street in an older neighborhood in Hampton, not far from Peyton.
My mom and her parents still live there, in houses they struggled to afford years ago, but if they hadn’t held on to them, would never be able to move into now.
My mom had worked her ass off to make ends meet, to give me and my brother, Dakota, the best life she could, and that little house on Third Street will always be home.
Hannah and I did everything together—played basketball, and snuck out, and we even lost our virginity with each other.
She likes to joke that I was so bad, I turned her into a lesbian, because my best friend thinks she’s funny.
I’m very, very good with my cock, so we both know she’s lying.
It only took us a couple of weeks of dating at sixteen to realize it was weird and that we didn’t belong together—even before Han realized she’s only into women.
And, well, even if she hadn’t been, she doesn’t have a submissive bone in her body, and that’s nonnegotiable for me.
I don’t know what I would do without her, though. She’s my rock and always will be.
“Excited, nervous. All of the above,” I reply.
“You, Turner Colton Hathaway, have absolutely nothing to be nervous about.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking to,” I tease. She knows I hate it when she uses my full name. Turner is my father, not me.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I won’t give you shit, but I’m serious. You’re going to be great.”
“I’m a mechanic trying to cosplay as an architect major.
No one in my family has ever graduated from college, and I think I’ll be the first?
” It’s not like me to be insecure like this.
If I want something, I usually get it, but I’ve never wanted something so big before.
Well, let me rephrase that: I’ve wanted this for a long time, but it’s only been the last couple of years that I started working toward making it happen.
It’s a big step. Hathaways don’t do college, and we don’t do work that’s not blue collar, and who the fuck starts university at twenty-eight?
“Hey.” She wipes her hands on a towel and walks my way.
She keeps her dark hair in short, black twists.
Han looks like a runway model with high cheekbones and perfect brown skin.
She feels just as comfortable in heels as she does bent over the engine of a car.
“None of that. There’s absolutely nothing you can’t do. ”
“You have a point there,” I tease. “I’m very, very good.”
“You’re very, very stupid.” She swats me with the greasy cloth. “But I love you, and you’re going to kick ass in college, and you’re going to be the best architect in Peyton because my best friend is nothing if not the best.”
“Thanks, Han.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders, pull her close, and kiss her temple.
“Is Mama freaking out?”
“Fuck yes. You know it.” She’s always called my mom mama. It’s just how we are. “She’s called me about eleven hundred times to ask questions she knows the answers to. I think she thinks I’m a kid again and would get me off to school each day if I let her.”
She chuckles.
My phone buzzes on the counter beside us, and Han cocks a brow when she sees the notification from the kink site I use.
“Anything else from your sub from a few months back?”
She’s asking about James. I messaged him once in July to check in and see if he was interested in getting together again, but he never responded.
That’s the only sign I needed that he’s not interested, and that’s fair enough.
I’m not the kind of guy to go chasing someone who doesn’t want to be caught.
Plus, what’s the point when all I want from him is sex?
“Nah, which is fine. I just like fucking him, so it’s not a big deal. ”
“You said he’s interesting to you too.” She heads back over to the Ford she’s working on.
“Interesting in a what’s-your-story kind of way. Not anything else.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to start thinking you would date someone or anything.”
I’m not anti-relationship. I’ve just never found someone I cared to have one with.
Not that I’ve never dated. I’ve seen someone for a few months here and there, but never had anything that felt serious.
I’ve never met someone who made me want more, and James wouldn’t be that person either.
I don’t have to know anything about him to know that outside of the way our kinks align, we would be way too different for anything more.
It’s fun untangling all that rigidness within a scene, but I don’t know that it’s something I could handle all the time.
“Why do you keep busting my balls today?”
“Because you make it easy,” she teases. “And you’re the one who likes ball busting. Not me.”
I grin. “I really, really do.”
Han pretends to gag, and I laugh.
We get back to work, talking here and there but concentrating on the tasks at hand.
I’m going down to working part-time at the shop since school starts tomorrow.
I have no idea how I’ll make this work. I’ve been saving everything I possibly can, though, and between that, scholarships, and working at the shop when I can, I’ll find a way to make it happen.
After work, I make the thirty-minute drive—that’s actually close to an hour with traffic—out to Hampton. Dakota still lives here too—not in our mom’s house, but in town. I wanted to get away, even though I didn’t go far, just needing something, and Han did too. That’s how we ended up in Peyton.
Mom must see my lights pull into the driveway because she’s standing in the open doorway of the small three-bedroom, ranch-style home.
“Hey, you.” She smiles.
“Hey, Ma.”
“I made pot roast. It should be done.”
“How’d you know I’d come tonight?” She made one of my favorites.
“Because I know my boy.”
Yeah, she does. I kiss her forehead, and then the two of us go inside.
My mom is a grocery-store manager. She’s worked there for twenty years, went from cashier, to department manager, to her newest position.
No matter how long her workdays were, she always made sure we had home-cooked meals, even if as we got older, it was something we had to warm up.
Eventually, she taught Dakota and me to cook, wanting us to be “well rounded,” as she worded it, and to make sure that neither of us became the kind of men who wouldn’t chip in equally around the house when we settled down.
Kota’s been dating the same woman for about six months now and seems serious about her, so I’m guessing it’ll be my younger brother who settles down first.
I go with her into the kitchen and grab potholders. “I’ll get it out of the oven.”
Mom nods, working on silverware and plates as I get the pan from the oven. “What’s your schedule the first semester?”
“There was an issue with one of my general ed credits transferring over. I need a history or political science credit, so I ended up with American National Government along with Fundamentals of Technical Drawing and Commercial Architectural Design.”
“Well, that sounds boring,” Mom teases.
“No shit.” Well, the political science class, at least.
I set the pan on the counter, pull off the top, and the savory scent of meat, potatoes, and garlic makes my stomach growl. She’s made green beans on the side, and we fill our plates, then sit down together.
We chat while eating, about halfway through the meal Mom says, “I’m so proud of you, Colton. You know that, right?”
I do. My father bailed when I was six and Kota four.
I’d thought my dad was my best friend before he left.
I remember mimicking him, trying to be like him.
Now I look back and see he wasn’t a good man.
He treated my mom badly, expected her to work full-time and run the house, doing all the work with us boys too.
He’d seemed larger than life, but now I know he was nothing but a sham.
“I do,” I tell her.
“You’ve always taken the weight of this family on your shoulders.
You’ve been such a little man since you were six—trying to take care of me and Dakota, being there for Han through her ups and downs.
I’m so happy you’re finally doing something for yourself, and I’m sorry I wasn’t in a better position to help you with that before now. ”
Reaching over, I take her hand. “You did the best with what you were given. Every happy memory Dakota and I have is because of you. We’re lucky to have you as a mom, and I’m doing just fine. Hell, I think it’s better to go to college later. Who can handle that shit at eighteen?”
“You could have. But thank you for always trying to make your mama feel better.” She gives my hand a squeeze before letting go. “Do you want me to pack you a lunch for tomorrow?”
I smile.
“What?” she asks.
“I just love you, is all.”
“I’m just doing what a good mom would.” She smiles.
“Sure. That’d be nice.”
When we’re done, she puts food into a Tupperware for me while I start cleaning the kitchen. Mom tries to tell me I don’t have to, but I’m not leaving her with this mess.
It’s after eight when I get home, shower, then fall into my bed.
I scan social media on my phone for a few minutes before I head into the kink app.
I have a message from this woman—Crystal—whom I play with from time to time.
I saw her last month, and she knows I’m starting my program tomorrow and messaged to tell me good luck.
I reply, then browse my inbox, before I get to my message thread with James. When I click, I’m alerted that the user has closed their account. The messages we shared are gone. It’s like he didn’t exist at all.