Dad's New GirlfriendDad's girlfriend serves coffee, charm and a ride

The story

Colette is the sort of person who can turn a kitchen into a stage. She is his father's girlfriend, cheerful, relaxed and completely impossible to ignore, and episode 1 opens with a small, loaded exchange over a carton of milk. Nothing improper happens, and that is the scoop. Not yet, anyway. Everything is in the pauses, the glances and the questions neither of them asks out loud. Insiders say the household has never been so polite, and never so tense.

The twist

Episode 2 moves to a coffee shop, where Colette is on shift and fending off a customer who thinks a tip buys a phone number. Later, she spots her boyfriend's son by her car. His father is away for hours, she says, and the weather is much too hot. She tells him to hop in.

Developing story

With his father away and a car idling, the paid episodes ask how long a line can stay uncrossed. Four more episodes remain, at twelve tokens each.