Chapter Twenty-Nine

~James~

I drove along, Nicole be bopping to some sort of pop song in another language. I had given her the aux cord and now I was regretting it slightly.

But considering how terribly our morning had started, I was pretty happy with how the mood had changed.

I still couldn’t believe what Nicole had told me. All it had taken was one jealous woman to completely ruin her experience in her home town. Just that fact that there was someone so vindictive and vile got me pretty angry, but then when I heard how Jason had completely left Nicole to the sharks, and then her mother too, I was livid.

From what I could tell, Nicole was a hardworking, funny woman who didn’t ask for anything from anyone. And the moment that she finally did need help, no one had been there for her.

Maybe it was because she was so different from everyone else. I’d met a whole lot of people in my life, but none of them were quite like her. She was a complicated mix of sarcastic and open, loving and guarded. She was beautiful and funny and most importantly, kind. Of course, she was far from perfect, but who wasn’t? She was a far better person than I could ever be, and I knew that she was going to be a great mother to our being.

But all of that also made me feel that much more protective of her. For being my future ex-wife, I was certainly invested in her future. I had a feeling we were going about this entirely the wrong way, and that we definitely needed to stop sleeping together and getting to know each other, but life seemed very determined to keep pushing us further and further into each other’s business.

Getting things dealt with on Trevor’s end would no doubt help as well. We were lucky that he was willing to meet with us on a Sunday again. I was paying out of the wazoo for the impromptu weekend hours, but I was sure the fat paychecks was one of the reasons Trevor was so willing to meet with us.

We arrived before him again, but the receptionists lead us right to the same room as before and got us a set of drinks.

“This guy’s not very punctual, is she?” Nicole asked, looking to me with a bit of a bored expression. If I had to guess, working her boring nine-to-five job was probably less than fun for her, so she looked to the weekends for fun. I imagine fighting with a man she’d gone to one date with and then talking with a divorce lawyer was less than an ideal break for her.

Hopefully, we would be able to get this over with and get onto something she would actually enjoy.

“Hello there, sorry for making you wait again,” Trevor said, speed walking in with his briefcase just as before. “You think, after ten years of living here, I’d know to calculate for after-church traffic, yet here I am.”

“Here you are,” I said neutrally, not wanting to sound too hopeful in case there was a hitch in our plans.

But there wouldn’t be a hitch, right? People got married and divorced all the time, so why would there possibly be anything wrong now that we finally had the woman half of our little equation?

And why was that disappointing to me? Did I want there to be a hitch? Why on Earth would I want a hitch? It had taken months and months of scouring the country and literally hiring a team of PIs to find this woman, why would I ever want to throw away all that good effort by having the divorce fall through?

Thankfully, Trevor started talking and saved my mind from itself.

“So, I was able to get everything all in a row and I have a whole plan written out for you two. First of all, an annulment is out of the question just due to how long its been since you were married, so we’re looking at divorce. And naturally every state is different in what they require because who cares about consistency, right?” He paused as if we were supposed to laugh, but neither of us really got the clue.

“Continuing on then, it’s not a big deal at all, luckily enough. According to the statutes of St. Louis, we need a mandatory and documented three-month separation. Then, once that is done, all you have to do is come in, sign an uncontested divorce document and then you two will officially be divorced. Easy peasy, right?”

“So what,” Nicole asked curiously. “Do we just say that we’re gonna not live together and that’s that?”

“Well no, you need to sign a separation form and list your addresses then give me a couple of pieces of mail from each address.”

“Then let’s get on that,” she said eagerly, leaning forward as if she was ready to go. “I didn’t bring mail though; can I send it to you tomorrow?”

“Can you mail me mail? Yes, I think the United States Post office allows that.”

“Cute,” Nicole shot back. “Do you get paid extra for the sarcasm or is that just a free service.”

“Considering it a complementary benefit of my services.”

The two bantered back and forth for a minute and I couldn’t quite tell if it was good natured or not. Mostly because I was only listening with half my brain. The other half was working itself up into a frenzy, trying to over-analyze why I wasn’t thrilled at the news.

I wanted this divorce. I couldn’t be married to a woman I hardly knew. Even if I liked her now, and she was having our baby, that didn’t mean I wanted to tie my future, my assets and my dreams to her.

But at the same time… was I making the wrong choice? Was it crazy to think that fate had brought us together?

Probably. Fate was something hopeless romantics and unambitious people used to excuse why they ended up in terrible situations of their own doing. And yet what else explained how relentlessly we kept being forced together, and how much fun we had when we did meet up?

Because that’s what it was like every time I visited her. Sure, there was the sexual tension, and today hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, but on the whole, being with Nicole was enjoyable in a way that so many things weren’t. And I didn’t even need drugs or alcohol to make the situation bearable. Just her and me was enough.

Although it’d be better with one hundred percent less Jason and fifty percent less Trevor.

“Alright, so who’s ready to get to signing?”

Speak of the devil. But I certainly couldn’t express my doubts now, so I went along and signed the paperwork. Besides, I knew that even if I was feeling strangely unassured right now, it was the right thing to do. We needed this divorce so we could move on.

We finished up and headed back to my car, Nicole practically skipping. Or at least that’s what I interpreted her jerking, hopping motion to be. The woman was certainly getting more and more pregnant by the day.

“We finished a bit earlier than I thought. You want to go get something to eat?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, smiling brilliantly. “my treat.”

“In your dreams.” I said with a laugh, reaching towards the GPS.

“You stop that!” She batted my hand away and started fiddling with it herself. “Alright, if you’re paying, where do you want to go?”

“How about some Chinese?”

“Sit down or take out?”

“You know what, let’s continue our lazy day theme and order out.”

“I like the way you think!” She said as she touched my arm. “Let’s just veg out until your flight. When is that again?”

“Seven pm tonight.”

“Aw, so we only have a couple of hours left.” I liked the way that she did actually sound put out about my absence, which was absolutely ridiculous. “Well, let’s make the most of it by gorging ourselves on MSG and watching a movie.”

“I’d like that,” I said, following the directions that the GPS was spitting out. I could enjoy our last bit together then get back to the real world, where hopefully I could come back to my senses and get on track with the divorce.

I hoped.