I had waited for days for Saturday to arrive and now that it was finally happening I was petrified. I don’t know why the fuck I let Jack talk me into any of this. I wasn’t a kid’s person. What the hell was I going to do with a couple of boys for a whole morning?

I wiped my cold sweaty hands on the front of my trousers and literally imagined the cortisol being metabolized out of my body. I saw the shape of the molecule itself, and visualized myself as a tiny SEAL floating in my bloodstream, artfully shooing it away and physically slowing down my heart rate. This was a technique they had taught us on a stress management course before our Syria deployment, but I noticed with some amusement that it didn’t seem to do squat for me just then.

I was taking the two boys out to a mini obstacle course on the outskirts of town where, I don’t know, they could pretend they were GI Joes or some shit. Ally had messaged me a link to the place and booked tickets for us three, and now it was happening in a few moments, and I was petrified.

Look, I’ve spent a lot of time in active duty and I’ll be the first to say that romantic prospects are thin on the ground when you’re out in buttfuck nowhere, running on empty and some orders from a guy nobody’s ever meet. As far as I’m concerned, marriage is a racket anyway and just the same as I wasn’t going to play anybody’s Good Soldier, I sure as hell wasn’t going to play the Good Husband and slave away at a desk job so I could buy my kids state of the art lawn chairs or whatever.

And yet… Ally was different somehow. She didn’t do any of the things a single mom her age was supposed to do, as far as I could tell. When I tell women I’m a SEAL they get this look in their eyes. It’s like they’re sizing me up, trying to see what they can get from me. You can already tell they’re measuring you in their mind and making up a little costume for you to wear for a role they want you to play. I’ve seen it more times than I care to mention.

A stay at home dependapotamus attaches onto a good man and convinces him that his whole life should be nothing but duty, nothing but service, and what do you know but she’s the one who benefits from all of that. I’ve seen army pals who had wives actively celebrate their injuries because of the disability allowance it meant for them. And I’ve seen good men come back from deployments from hell only to find their women ready with divorce papers because he wasn’t ‘committed’ enough.

But not Ally. She seemed utterly unimpressed by my credentials, which weren’t anything to sniff at, I’ll tell you that. She seemed to care about one thing only: the happiness of her boys. She flirted right back with me, God knows she did, but then …nothing. I’m no calendar model, but I’m in pretty good shape and truth be told I’ve never shown interest in a woman only to have her be lukewarm about it. Does that make me an asshole? Maybe. I wasn’t sure anymore. Weren’t single moms supposed to be grateful for whatever attention they got? I know, I know, you’re not supposed to say shit like that, but I didn’t know how much I assumed that was true until I met her and she… was the exact opposite.

So now I was in the strange position of wanting to impress her by …getting on with her kids. Uncharted territory for me, naturally. I could pick up a woman in ten minutes flat if she was a little tipsy to start, but this? Damn. I was out of my league, and in a way I had never, ever expected. I kind of liked it.

I pulled up at her house and noticed the swing tire on the tree out front. It was still early enough for a little dew on the grass. I parked, went up the drive and told myself to calm down. I worked retail all week and I studied in the evenings, and now I was giving up one of my weekend days to spend time with the children of a woman I had met less than a week ago. Fuck.

The instant I rang the doorbell I heard a stampede of feet from inside and the door was flung open. Two boys, one a foot shorter than the other, stood in front of me with wide open mouths and even wider eyes. They were cute kids, both with sandy brown hair and milky blue eyes, and a band of gingery freckles spanning from one cheek to the other.

“Are you the army man?” one said and looked me up and down.

“Shut up, Ben, he’s a SEAL, I told you it’s different.”

I laughed and held out my hand.

“Hey guys. It’s David. You met me at the talk the other day, remember?”

“I remember, but Ben doesn’t,” the taller one said and took my hand matter-of-factly, like playing older brother was his god-given job.

‘Hey, uh, is your mom in?”

“I’m coming!” came her unmistakable voice from somewhere in the house. “Alex, just wait with your brother in the living room, I’ll be down in a second.”

“She’s dressing up nice,” the little one said with a naughty smile.

“Shut up, Ben.”

The two led me into the living room and I sat down with them, one on either side.

“Mom says we’re going to do an obstacle course, because you’re a SEAL and so you know about that kind of thing.”

“Sure do,” I said.

“Hey, Mr. David, can I ask—”

“It’s just David.”

“David, what’s that weird tattoo over there?”

I followed his eyes but I already knew which tattoo he was talking about. The one that catches everyone’s eye. My great conversation piece.

“Shut up, Ben,” said the older one.

“Nah, it’s OK. Everyone’s curious about that one.” I raised my sleeve so they could both lean in and take a closer look. Was this still officially being a good male role model? I was fucked if I knew.

“This is, uh… actually, I’ve never told anybody about where I got this, you know that? I always lie and make up a story when they ask.” Shit. I had no idea where that came from. But the kids seemed unfazed.

“You lie? It’s OK, everyone makes mistakes,” the little one said. That was kind of cute.

“How come you lie about it though?” Alex said, examining the poorly etched image. It was an eye inside a heart with wings, but it was done in such a way as to look blurred, as though it wasn’t quite on the skin …but underneath it.

“Well… I guess because I just don’t know how to talk about what it does mean,” I said. I guess they were just kids. What did I care to tell them my deepest darkest secrets? Maybe Jack was right and spending time with these little shits would be therapeutic somehow.

“Oh, that makes sense. There’s lots of things I don’t know how to say either,” the little one said. And just like that I think I began to like him. He reminded me a little of myself at that age. It was hard to imagine I had ever even been that age.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if we all get on today, then maybe we can all be friends and then if we’re friends, it’s OK to tell us your secrets,” Alex said in that take-charge big-brother way I was already beginning to recognize.

“Yeah? Well, ok then. I hope we become friends in that case,” I said, and smiled. Maybe dealing with kids wasn’t going to be so hard after all. Before I could say anything more, she appeared in the doorway. Like an idiot, I just looked up at her, flanked on either side by her inquisitive kids.

“You boys being polite to Mr. Segal?”

“It’s David!” said Alex.

“Ok, well, you both have your bags ready? I don’t see them by the door.”

The boys exchanged glances.

“Oh for heaven’s sake. Didn’t I say that everything must be ready and packed by the time Mr. Segal came?” she said and walked into the room to sit a few feet from me. The kids scuttled off upstairs and she looked at me warmly.

“Sorry,” she said, “they’re like goldfish, their attention span’s like, two seconds.”

She looked beautiful. She had this easiness in her body, this air of comfort that was just so enchanting. I couldn’t have explained it at that moment, but there was just something about the way she folded her legs underneath her as she sat, and the way she tossed her hair out of her eyes and looked straight into mine. I can’t explain it, but I think I felt… intimidated.

“Uh, no problem. They’re pretty cool actually. Talkative.”

She laughed.

“Oh yeah? I think they’re pretty excited. Thank you, by the way, for this.”

“Oh it’s my pleasure,” I said, and realized that actually, it was kind of fun.

“So, they told me at the center that Alex was eight and Ben was…”

“Five. He’s just turned five,” she said quickly.

“Woah. So you were a really young mom.”

Her face changed.

“I just, I mean you must have had them when you were pretty young,” I said, then realized that that didn’t make the situation any better. But she soon laughed again.

“Uh, just how old do you think I am?”

I gulped and put my hand to the back of my neck. I had been in this woman’s company for only a few minutes and I already felt like she had me pegged.

“Damn,” I said. “Stuck my foot in it there. This is a losing game, right?” I said cheerfully and then bam, there it was: that sweet, sweet eye contact again.

“A losing game?” she said innocently. “Why’s that?”

“Well… OK, fine. I guess you’re… you’re 28,” I said and inwardly winced.

“You’re trying to flatter me, aren’t you?” she said, tilting her head like she was seeing into my very soul.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Well, I’m older than that, not that it matters. I’m 40. And you look…” here she tilted her head to the other side and gave me a long, slow look up and down. I felt my body zing to life under her gaze. “You look… young enough to get hung up on age,” she said with a self-satisfied nod.

“Yup. I’m 25. A total immature asshole, that’s me right there,” I said. She was laughing.

“You’re funny. People in this town can be so serious, but you don’t take things seriously, do you?”

Her words were just casual small talk, but the way she spoke… I felt like we were sharing some naughty secrets with one another. I’d never been interested in a woman older than me before. But she was beginning to make me question why.

“Hey um… this is going to sound out of the blue, but I guess I’ve already put this out there once before, right?” She lifted one curious, playful eyebrow at me. “But uh, do you wanna really go and get that ice cream some time?”

She looked like she held a million little secrets behind that twinkling smile of hers.

“Ice cream? Um… I’m not really an ice cream kind of woman,” she said slowly and carefully, but she was still having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“Oh… what kind of woman are you then?” I asked with a suggestive smile. She wasn’t the only one who could be flirtatious. She sighed and looked around the room.

“Me? God, I’m a mom, I’m just happy when I leave the house each morning and my socks match and both my kids haven’t killed each other,” she said with a laugh, but there was a sadness in her eyes.

“What? No way, don’t say that. You’re like, one of those cool moms. You’re the mom all the high school boys get a crush on, I promise, just wait and see.”

She laughed out loud. I loved that I had involuntarily made her blush.

“Well, since you were a high school kid only two minutes ago yourself, maybe you know what you’re talking about, right?”

“I do,” I said, suddenly more serious. “I do know what I’m talking about.” I held her gaze for a split second longer than was strictly decent, and she instantly stopped giggling and gave a are-you-serious face and for a quick, hot moment it felt like my heart was going to gallop free from my chest.

“Uh, yes, well!” she said nervously, slapped her thighs and got up to pace the room. “Where are those little bastards?” she said with a laugh and then yelled for the boys. They both came tearing into the room and we carefully avoided one another’s gaze while everyone bustled towards the door.

“Ok, mom, you can stop worrying about us, Ben isn’t afraid anymore and we’ll be fine,” Alex said, his thumbs linked into the straps of his little red backpack.

“I wasn’t scared!”

She leaned over to kiss both of them and then there was nothing to do but look at each other.

“You okay?” she said and we shared a glance that definitely didn’t feel like the kind of thing you should get away with when there were, like, two little kids right there.

Was I ok? Fuck, I didn’t know. I was undergoing a second puberty or something. I couldn’t stop thinking about her slender waist under that thin sweater. My whole face felt warm whenever she looked at me, and I was jelly all the time when she wasn’t looking at me, waiting for her to say something again, to look my way. I was usually the bad boy in this picture, the one who sat back and waited for chicks to throw themselves at my feet, knowing that the less interested I was, the harder they wanted it. But now I was the one being teased, and I was taken aback at how swiftly and easily she disarmed me, how she gracefully deflected my gaze and left me hanging. Fuck, I’ve had whole relationships that felt less complex than the last ten minutes we had spent talking about nothing on her sofa.

“Yeah, perfect,” I said. “We’re going to have a great time, aren’t we guys?” I looked down to see the little one clutching absent-mindedly at the edge of my pants pocket. It damn near broke my heart.

“Let’s go!” Alex said, hugged his mother for the last time, and ran outside.

“Ok, so, I’ve written everything on that list, and like I said before, they’re good kids. Ben can get a little excited, but I think they’ll be fine. They do really well with outdoor activities. Just, uh, tire them out as much as you can,” she said with a laugh. “And …you have my number” she said.

“I do.”

We both took the next moment to think about that.