It was hard to believe that three years ago, I found out I was pregnant with Tennley, had just left Trevor, and was such a mess that I swore off love. I couldn’t believe she was about to turn two soon. I knew that wouldn’t stick. Especially after I heard the way Adrian took up for Tennley and me when Trevor ambushed us at Denise and Aaron’s wedding.
I couldn’t help it. I think I’d fallen head over heels for him at that moment. We’ve been together ever since. Denise and Aaron had just celebrated a year together, with the little boy, Nathanial King, named after his grandpas.
A lot had changed.
We bought a huge plot of land. Five acres, and we started building shipping container homes on it to create a family compound-homestead type residence. Denise and Aaron’s was a U-shape, three-bedroom, with the middle of the U set as an all-seasons room, complete with sliding glass walls in the front to open it up during the summer. It was beautiful.
Ours.
Yes, ours, mine, and Adrian’s were three shipping containers stacked on top of each other. The top one was cut apart for the cathedral roof. There were patios in the front and back of the second floor with steps down to the ground floor. On the first floor was a front porch. It was beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to fill it with memories.
Adrian asked me to marry him last night at our family dinner. Usually, at one of our townhouses, there were only threemore months until both homes were finished. Tonight, I had asked for another family dinner, and I was going to surprise him with my gift. I’d been waiting for the perfect moment, and tonight, with all the people we considered family there, felt right. With everyone gathered around our new dining room table that sits ten, food all down the middle, we talked, laughed, and started thinking about wedding ideas for ours.
“We’re going to have to do it soon,” I whispered into his ear.
“How soon? Because it’s already September.” Denise, oh so helpfully pointed out.
“I know. I was thinking next month. Something small, just close friends.” I tried to sound casual, but I could hear my voice squeak ever so slightly.
“That’s…very soon.” She looked at me, confused, but also suspicious, with her eyebrow raised.
“Very soon. Why so soon, babe?” Adrian asked, getting more dumplings for Tennley off the stove. I pulled the gift from under my chair, setting it next to his beer. He looked at me, then the bag, raising an eyebrow as he looked back at me. Pulling out the tissue paper, a little onesie falls out, in olive green. Adrian opens the onesie, which said, “Tough like Daddy” with dog tags hanging off the ‘y’. I watched his face as it sank in. His eyes welled with tears, and he looked at me, trying to see if I was telling the truth, knowing that being the best dad in the world had always been his dream. I nodded my head, and he grabbed my face, kissing me. Then he spun to pull Tenn out of her booster seat, running around the table with her in his arms, shouting, ‘You’re going to be a big sister! I’m going to be a daddy again!’ and her giggling along with her silly daddy filled the space between us. It was peaceful, so tranquil and gentle.
My heart was full. I had never been so happy.
How is this my life?
N I N E: Still Miserable
Trevor’s POV
Five Years Later…
Out walked another date. It was the seventh first date that walked out this month. I couldn’t seem to get any connection with anyone. Not since Elise. She was the last woman I’d had any kind of connection with. That had been seven years ago. I deserved this, though.
Since I’d asked her for an open relationship, things in my life had gone from bad to worse. And just when I thought worse was all the further it was going to go, it went straight to hell in a handbasket. I had been talking to Tawnya for months, and she had finally convinced me that an open relationship was the way to go. In the weeks after Elise left me, I drowned in booze, weed, a little coke, and all the pussy I could dream of. Tawnya showed me what a swingers club looked like. We would go every night after work. I watched her get fucked by other men while I fucked their wives.
It was month after month of sex, in all holes of different women, practically every night for the first month. We were doing drugs and experimenting, seeing how they made us feel when we fucked either each other, or others at these parties. When Elise said she was pregnant, I was excited, but I didn’t want that to stop my partying. I knew that I couldn’t be a father. Not right then. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to stop.
The night before that phone call, I’d fucked Tawnya’s best friend, Anna, while Tawnya fucked the girl’s boyfriend. She had convinced her friend to swap, saying exploration was normal, natural. The same shit she had said to me, and we had all taken some Molly before we split off. I was an animal. I’dbeen wanting to fuck this girl for months. She was so hot, so perfect, so tight. She took great care of herself physically, she had a big, juicy ass and heavy, supple tits. I left marks all over her body, making her scream in ways that her boyfriend never had. She asked if we could keep this up, even if Tawnya and Ted didn’t want to. I smirked at her, because there was no way I was letting that tight pussy and perfectly swaying titsnotride my cock all the fucking time.
I hurried and signed the paperwork, not caring at the time what happened. I was lost to the pleasure I was getting from the drugs, alcohol, and the ecstasy from orgasm after orgasm. Anna and I kept our relationship going until Tawnya came home one day. She said that she and Ted knew about us, how we never stopped fucking behind their backs, that they were in love and she was pregnant with his baby. They were leaving us.
For some reason, that was the wake-up call I needed. Work had been rough, my boss was saying I needed to get shit together before he was going to have to fire me. I had already signed the final paperwork, signing away my rights to my child. My parents had wiped their hands of me, saying that I was a disappointment for throwing away thirteen years of love and a relationship with a good woman, and choosing a life of debauchery.
I went to their house, and they turned me away. They were hosting the big family reunion, but no one in the family came to help or to see what the commotion was. No one, except for one cousin who reached out. He offered for me to live with him, halfway across the state, if I wanted a fresh start, but I needed therapy, rehab, and the want to get clean and to get my shit together.
I handed in my resignation and packed up my apartment that day. He hired me as a waiter and chef for his catering company. They did event catering, and we worked at a lot of business functions, some weddings, and a funeral or two. It was completely different than what I had been doing, but it was much more fun and rewarding than I’d ever experienced. I was genuinely enjoying it, working the steps in therapy, and my outpatient rehab was going well. My cousin said he took on this wedding that was super last minute, but the couple was willing to pay extra because it was last minute.
We got to this huge, like, fifty-person cabin the day of the event. Things were going well, the setup was a breeze, and the staff were having such an easy time with everything that it almost felt like things were going too well. I was waiting all day for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. I was behind the bar, making sure that everything was ready for the champagne toast, that the signature drink station was set up and ready to go, when I looked up, and there she was.
Time had slowed down, sounds drifted to the background, as the fading sunlight shone off her hair. I watched as the DJ announced her, and my daughter, who was being carried in by the best man.
Tennley.
I love the name she picked. I wonder what her middle name was. I wanted to go over and talk to her, but the way the man was holding my daughter and how natural the three of them looked together twisted something inside of me. It was dark and ugly, twisting deep into my heart.
The voice whispered in the back of my mind, ‘That could have been you. That could have been you with them. Now she has him’.
