Caught up in the moment, I pull away and cup her small face in my hand. “Yeah, Rena Bo-Bena. One more try for old time’s sake.”
It was a valiant decision because I did want to make it work with her, despite what it seems. I did not just want to fuck and forget because I’d been without pussy for nearly a year. That night, I made a promise to Rena that this would be the back-up plan we always promised. It was time to enact the naïve promise from our youth. If we are both single at age thirty, we’d marry each other and live happily ever after. A dumb, shoot from the hip agreement that neither of us assumed would come to fruition. Back then, Rena wanted to become a veterinarian, and I wanted to be an owner of the Dallas Cowboys after a career stint in the Army. I got it half right, switching to the SEALs, but Rena got it all wrong. One-hundred percent wrong.
Instead of attending college, Rena fell in bed with a felon twice her age who hooked her on hard drugs and got her in trouble every chance he got. Before she showed up on base, greeting me after deployment, she’d been in rehab. She swore she’d changed and was never going back to her old life and habits. The steps had worked and while she was a work in progress, she wanted to stay on the straight and narrow. Sure, the traces of abuse and drug use were still there, but I ignored them because the lure of what she was promising was something I desired. Because she is the woman I’ve always wanted regardless of her bad decisions and volatile presence. There is something about your first love that always draws you back in. There are varying degrees of fascination. For some, checking in on them on social media is enough. For others, like me, tasting her at different phases of life is the adrenaline rush I crave.
Rena got pregnant the night I got home from deployment. We drank too much, I didn’t use condoms, and it was a literal shag fest for a full twenty-four hours, I filled her with so much cum that I’m surprised she didn’t have one hundred babies. Glad she didn’t, but amazed all the same. She gave birth to Turner in January and left in a black sedan February second. I had a newborn and no instruction manual. Rena didn’t call or write. The woman might as well have taken up residence on a new planet. A few years later I heard through her parents that she was living in a trailer park in Sedona, and through her drug habit, had gotten tangled up with people who were even worse than the first dude.
I often wonder what triggered her leaving. She’d been sober the entire pregnancy. We’d been happy, living in a little cottage in Coronado. It was a blissful time in my life. The missing piece didn’t feel like it was missing. The pact we made as children didn’t seem so asinine and childish. I got to taste Rena in another phase of life. It was a hit of my own personal drug. When she abandoned Turner, I’d finally pissed her completely out of my system. There wasn’t forgiveness for her waiting if she cleaned up her act. I got full custody quickly and my life was absolutely fucked.
For what I lost with Rena, I gained with my son. He’s the highlight of my life. He’s also the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted to do right in my life. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m a fucking Navy SEAL. I eat impossibilities for breakfast. Being a single father is worse than impossible, because I have to do it perfectly—to the best of my ability, because he’s the most important Teammate in my life. Turner deserves to have everything. The one thing I can’t give him is probably the most important. A mother.
My mom and dad divorced after my first deployment, an awful, unexpected occurrence that actually ended up being good for Turner and me. My mom moved with me to Colorado when they offered me my own Team at the new satellite SEAL base in Silver Ranch, Colorado. She cares for Turner when I’m at work, and when I deploy. I know I’m on borrowed time with this arrangement because as much as she loves Turner and being with us, she’s getting older and can’t do this forever. Her dream is to move to Florida and sit on the beach all day.
She was watching when Turner broke his leg at the playground. She’s not quick enough, or sharp enough for a kid with boundless energy and a pension for clumsiness.
“How was his physical therapy appointment?” Mom asks as she extends a cup of steaming coffee.
I accept it with a grateful smile. “It was awesome, he has to go a few times a week.” I get to see her again. All the time. “He was a trooper, as expected. It wasn’t painful for him, or if it was, he didn’t let on to it. The, ah...” I say, clearing my throat. “The therapist really clicks with Turner.” Curiosity drew me to her after endless research of physical therapists online. Maeve Ahern. While she was definitely the most beautiful out of the people I researched, it was her resume
