Homecoming for Beginners

Chapter 8

OLLIE HAD just changed out of his uniform when the text came through.

I saw Theo at the school today.

He slammed his locker closed a little harder than necessary and sat heavily on the bench. What kind of passive-aggressive…? Did his mom know how that sounded? It was like she was taunting him because she’d seen Theo without his express permission.

He was debating his reply when a second message came through. I was there to pick up Mel. The baseball coach wouldn’t let me talk to him.

Ollie smiled. Given Ty’s relationship with his own parent, he could imagine how he reacted.

I told you. Baby steps. Theo doesn’t know you yet.

And he never will if you don’t let us see him. Come to dinner Saturday night. We’ll have the whole family over.

Oh sure, Ollie would simply bring his kid into a houseful of twelve near-strangers. That was a totally reasonable thing to do. Besides— We have plans Saturday. But maybe you and Dad can meet us for lunch on Sunday?

Hopefully she found that a reasonable compromise. Ollie did want Theo to know his family. Just because Ollie’s relationship with them was strained didn’t mean they wouldn’t love Theo. Hell, they already loved Theo. They might never forgive Ollie for waiting this long to tell them he existed, but they hadn’t forgiven him for joining the Army either, so he was used to it by now.

He picked up his keys and was heading for the door when his phone vibrated again. Heads-up, your mom tried to talk to Theo today. I sent him to give the kids the batting order. FYI, longest baseball practice of my life. Only got through 3 innings. Theo ran out of score sheet.

Oh Lord. Ollie made a note to bring a cushion to sit on at the game tomorrow. Those high school bleachers weren’t built with comfort in mind.

Thanks for running interference. Should I pick up anything on my way home ?

Xanax? Ty suggested.

Ollie snorted and slid his phone into his pocket.

Sadly, by the time the game rolled around the next evening, he wished he hadn’t taken that as a joke.

As official assistant to the assistant coach, Theo had the honor of sitting in the dugout with the team. That left Ollie and his dollar-store cushion all alone with no buffer when his parents showed up with his sister and Mel.

Like a pride of lions picking off a sickly water buffalo calf who’d wandered off on his own.

“Uncle Ollie!”

Naturally they sent Mel as their advance guard to catch him with his defenses down. She was six and looked just like Ollie’s sister Cassie had at that age—all gap-toothed and pigtailed and cute as anything. She ran up to him and hugged his knees. “Mom says you used to play baseball. Are you gonna play today?”

Ollie held back a laugh as he picked her up and plopped her beside him on the bleachers. At least he’d have a little insulation on one side. “Not today. I’m too old. These are the high school kids.”

“Oh.” She wiggled her butt like somehow that could make her more comfortable on the cold aluminum. “How come Theo is with them? Is he old enough to play?”

“My friend Ty asked him if he wanted to help coach.”

Unfortunately he mentioned this just as the adults came into earshot. His mother sat on his right, Cassie on Mel’s left. Ollie’s father sat in the row behind them, probably so he didn’t get dragged into the upcoming battle of wits.

“Ty?” his mother echoed. She was frowning. “Not Tyler Morris.”

How did Ollie’s mother know his name? Ty had left town before they moved here. “Yeah, that’s him.”

Cassie sucked in an audible breath.

His mother clucked. “I don’t think you should be hanging around with him, Ollie. That boy is a hoodlum .”

Oh my God, what? In the dugout, Ty was wearing a blue polo shirt, cargo shorts, and a school windbreaker. He was holding a clipboard. He looked like a nerdy dad. “A hoodlum, Mom? Do people still say that? Anyway, he hasn’t even lived here in years. Do you have connections in Chicago I don’t know about?”

Mom sniffed. “Mrs. Chiu was talking about it at church. Showing up drunk at his father’s funeral.”

Ah. Of course. Church lady talk. “Doesn’t the Bible say something about gossip?” Ollie poked Mel’s side until she giggled. His mom couldn’t get mad at him if he was making her granddaughter laugh. “What did she do, give him a breathalyzer?” Because he hadn’t smelled like booze anymore, that much Ollie could attest to.

He desperately hoped his mother didn’t ask him when he’d made friends with Ty. He’d hate to have to give credence to church lady talk.

“You know Mr. Chiu was good friends with Leonard Morris. I’m sure he’s shared stories with his wife. And there were all those rumors that first year that someone tried to burn the school down—”

“Mom. I remember the rumors.” Because unlike his mother, Ollie had attended the school just after the incident. “And there was no attempted arson. It was chickens in the principal’s office.”

“Coooooool,” Mel said. “Mommy, can I bring chickens to school?”

Oh, that was not going to help Ollie’s case. Cassie caught Ollie’s eye over her daughter’s head and glared.

Yeah. As a parent, Ollie should know better now. He mouthed, Sorry .

“I don’t think so, sweetheart,” Cassie said. “Chickens are messy, and some people might be allergic.”

His mother humph ed as though this proved her point. “I just don’t think Theo should be spending time with this man. He can’t be a good influence. I can’t believe the school allows him on the property.”

Truly, Ollie was so looking forward to mentioning he’d moved in with this man his mother apparently hated. “I’m pretty sure the same principal invited him back, Mom.” And then, sensing an opportunity to soften her up, “Besides, his mother had just died. You can’t expect perfect behavior from a grieving kid.”

As he suspected, that got to her. The hard lines around her mouth softened. “Oh, Ollie. Of course you have a soft spot for him.”

What? he wondered, and then he realized she thought he was sympathetic because his own kid had lost his mom.

“Has Theo been having problems? ”

Ollie glanced at his niece, but the game had started, and she and Cassie were getting into it, cheering as Peter Chiu struck out the first batter. “No. I mean, not more than the usual expected stuff.” He still had nightmares, and on the drive up from DC, they’d passed a dead deer on the side of the road, and he’d spent five minutes asking questions about what would happen to its body. But they had gotten past most of the argumentativeness and the impulsiveness. “He’s starting to make friends. I think the therapy really helps.” He still talked to Dr. Vaughn twice a month on Skype.

“I’m glad he’s doing well, honey. You’re a good dad. I wish—I wish we’d known sooner―”

Damn it. Ollie wished that too, if only because it would have made his life easier now. Two weeks after Allison died, when Theo was still barely talking to him, Ollie had woken up from a fitful nap in a hospital chair to find Theo sobbing from a nightmare that Ollie had died too and there was no one to take care of him.

Ollie had promised that wouldn’t happen, that he was safe and healthy, but if something happened, there were people Theo hadn’t even met yet who loved him and would look after him. And now Theo was hedging on getting to know them.

Dr. Vaughn thought it might be because he’d decided Ollie couldn’t die if he didn’t have a backup plan, which made Ollie want to curl up for a nap at the bottom of a bottle of tequila.

“I know, Mom,” he said finally. “Things with Allison—it was complicated. I thought if I told you, you’d pressure us to get married, and we weren’t ever like that.”

“You liked her enough to have a baby with her,” his mother pointed out.

Jeez. Ollie’s ears burned. “It’s not like we did it the old-fashioned way, Mom.”

On Mel’s other side, Cassie stifled a snicker. So she was multitasking—eavesdropping and watching the game at the same time. Ollie was so glad he could provide some amusement.

“Well, maybe you could use some old-fashioned romance.”

They should serve beer at high school sports games. She hadn’t even made it five minutes. “Mom—”

“I’m just saying. It’s not like you’d be replacing Allison, since you weren’t ever like that .” He should’ve known she’d throw those words back in his face. He made a note to stop volunteering information in the future. “It might help Theo feel more stable.”

Using his kid against him was another low blow he should’ve seen coming.

The truth was, Ollie’s parents loved him. They wanted what they thought was best for him. But that had always manifested in trying to plan his life by other people’s milestones instead of what Ollie would have chosen for himself. He was good at football and baseball, so he should have gotten a college scholarship, then either gone pro or put his free education to good use to help send his sisters to school. Ollie liked sports, but he didn’t want to play forever, and he didn’t have a clue what he might want to do after college. The pressure of trying to decide when he wasn’t ready had driven him into the local Army recruitment office.

Somehow that had actually worked out for him, apart from the fact that he was now thirty-two and still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. But he didn’t think it was a good idea to try the same tactic to avoid having his parents arrange his personal life. What would that even look like? Running away to Vegas with a mail-order bride? Joining a religious order and taking a vow of chastity?

Neither option held any appeal. Ollie could do without sex fine, but he wasn’t going to pretend to be religious about it.

Unfortunately, the third option was telling his parents the truth, and Ollie had never been very good at that either, at least not when it came to his love life. Especially since he didn’t really understand the truth himself.

It had been easier when he was a teenager, a raging mess of hormones attached to a dick that got hard when the wind blew the right way (and frequently when it didn’t). But halfway into his first deployment, that constant level of desire faded. Ollie’d thought he was just busy . Not dying took up a lot of his time, and it wasn’t like he had a lot of privacy. He had more important things to worry about than why he didn’t want to hump his CO’s leg.

But the itch didn’t come back when he was on leave either, not really… not until a few months after he met Darcy, an aid worker in what passed for the local town. That at least reassured him his dick still worked, but eventually the area got too dangerous for civilians, Darcy and her team relocated, and that was the end of that.

It had become sort of the pattern .

“Tell you what,” Ollie said finally. “If Theo comes to me—on his own, with no interference from anyone else—and asks me when I’m going to get married, I’ll start dating.” It would be a long, slow process to meet someone he liked enough to try it with, but he’d try .

He could practically see his mother turning the words over in her head as she looked for a loophole, her mouth pulled down at the corners.

She agreed just as the crack of a bat sounded from the diamond. Ollie looked over to see the visiting team hit a triple. He glanced at the count—one out. Could be a long night.

“Great. I’m going to get a hot dog. Anybody else want anything?”

AFTER THE 18–3 loss—and the week of teaching that preceded it—Ty needed the weekend to recuperate.

So it really sucked that he had so much to do.

First, he had an appointment with his dad’s accountant. Ty knew enough about managing someone’s estate to know that it was about as much fun as a hot-sauce enema, but after sitting with Georgia for an hour, he was ready to hit up the grocery store for a quart of Frank’s and take his chances. Unless he wanted to make dealing with this nightmare his full-time job for the next year, Georgia recommended he hire a firm that specialized in the task.

Ty boggled that such a thing existed, boggled more at the price, and then realized it was the smartest money he’d ever spend and signed on the dotted line.

To add insult to injury, he also had lessons to plan. The whole this is how you call 911 improv schtick was only good for one class worth of material. Now Ty needed to teach kids things like how to clean cuts and administer EpiPens and check if someone was breathing.

Where did he even start ? What was appropriate first aid to teach an eight-year-old? And how the fuck was he going to test them on it? Oh God, he needed a binder. He needed, like, six binders for keeping track of the kids’ grades. His team at the fire station called him Trunchbull behind his back—and occasionally to his face—because he was so strict with the paperwork, but Ty simply knew himself. The ADHD would take a mile if he gave it an inch. He could have six binders filled with kids’ grades or he could have a briefcase of indecipherable wrinkled paper scraps. And by briefcase he meant sixteen-year-old backpack unearthed from his childhood bedroom .

So before he did lesson planning, he needed to shop for school supplies , a fact so depressing it made him want to swing by the corner store for booze. Sadly, by this point in his life, Ty could recognize a self-destructive tendency from a mile away, and he lived with a kid now, so he refrained.

Instead he took extra joy in picking out color-coded binders. Rainbow would have been ideal—red for second grade, orange for third, and so on—but the tiny stationery store in town didn’t have orange, so he skipped to yellow and compensated for his disappointment by adding coordinating sticky notes.

After perusing all four aisles of the store twice with his arms increasingly tired, he still hadn’t found a set of dividers to keep his classes separate.

Which was fine. He could order them from Amazon Prime, right? Even out here, surely it wouldn’t take more than two days to deliver them. He could have them ready by Tuesday at the latest.

But sooner would be better, and he wasn’t going to resort to ordering online just because he was too chicken to face Mrs. Sanford.

Steeling himself, he made his way to the front of the shop and deposited his haul on the checkout counter.

Mrs. Sanford looked at him from over the wire rims of her glasses, then went back to her crossword.

At least she didn’t spit at him. She’d very nearly done that once. “Uh, hi.” Ty put on his best public-servant smile. “I’m looking for subject dividers. You wouldn’t happen to have any…?”

Mrs. Sanford clicked her pen and marked something on her puzzle. Slang term , Ty thought, five-letter word for standoffish person . Finally she said, “Back endcap. Aisle two.”

Right. “Thank you.”

He grabbed what he wanted and returned to the counter.

Mrs. Sanford didn’t look up.

Ty cleared his throat. “Thank you, again. Just these, please.”

She didn’t say a word as she rang him up, didn’t ask if he wanted a bag, only turned the till display toward him and announced the total.

Nothing like that small-town hospitality .

Before he knew it, half the day had slipped away and he still had things to do—grocery shopping, laundry, housework. Ty didn’t mind cleaning his apartment on the weekend, but his apartment was tiny . Cleaning his dad’s house was a Sisyphean task. By the time he finished dusting, he had to start all over again.

So it was really nice when he came home to pick up reusable bags and found Ollie in the kitchen, already unpacking groceries.

“Hey.” Ollie tucked two cartons of milk in the fridge—two percent for Ty, one percent for Ollie—and closed the door. “How was the accountant?”

“Horrifying.” Ty spied a package of pudding cups and immediately snapped one off and ripped open the foil. If he couldn’t medicate with alcohol, chocolate was an acceptable placebo. He grabbed a spoon from a drawer. “My father’s final”—he glanced around and, not seeing Theo, continued—“fuck-you is that after he’s gone, I get to spend three years of my life sorting out his financial shit.” He shoveled in a spoonful of pudding. Yep, that was the stuff. “Thanks for going grocery shopping.” It looked like he’d even used the list Ty had stuck to the fridge.

Ollie shrugged. “We eat too. Besides, you’ve got enough on your plate.”

Yeah. Ty was starting to get a headache.

No, wait. He’d forgotten to eat breakfast. Or lunch. He probably needed to fix that.

Ty finished the pudding cup and took care of the garbage. Then he stuck his head back in the fridge. “Sandwiches for lunch?”

They were putting the finishing touches on the food when Ty’s phone rang. Caller ID read Chicago EMS .

Oh good. Another fun way to spend his Saturday.

“You and Theo eat.” Ty held up the phone. “I have to… yeah.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let Theo eat all the pickles.”

Ty ducked into his father’s office, grimaced at the ostentatious, self-important-looking desk chair, and kicked his feet up on the tufted leather couch instead. “Tyler Morris.”

“Commander Morris. This is Field Chief Rivers.”

Of course it was Ty’s boss’s boss. “Chief Rivers, hi. To what do I owe the pleasure?” As if he didn’t already know.

“I just wanted to check in with my newest ambulance commander. How are you holding up? ”

Ty puffed out a breath. “I’m doing okay. I have a lot of stuff to sort through with my dad’s estate, but I hired a company to help out with it. I should be back to work by the middle of June.”

Rivers sighed. “Tyler, I asked how you’re doing, not when you’re coming back.”

Right. “Sorry.”

“You’re supposed to let me get through the pleasantries first,” she said reprovingly. “I ask if you got the flowers the department sent, you thank me for the thoughtful gesture, we make small talk about grief for two minutes, and then I move in and ask when you’re coming back to Chicago.”

Ty smiled. He liked his boss so much. She was a straight shooter. “You should just send me the script next time.”

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. You’re really doing okay, though?”

“I’m really okay. You know my dad and I weren’t exactly close.”

“That doesn’t always make it easier.”

She was not wrong about that. “No kidding.” He wriggled deeper into the sofa. “Anyway, I’m keeping busy. Keeping sharp, even. Got a fancy gig teaching the next generation of paramedics.”

“God, please tell me you’re joking. Samira’s great, but she’s not you. The paperwork is not the same.”

“Relax. An elementary teacher at my old school had a cryptic pregnancy, and they asked if I could teach some third graders first aid for a couple weeks until school’s out.”

“That doesn’t count toward your professional education hours. Just saying.”

Ty hummed. “I should see if they’re offering anything nearby, since I’m here anyway. Get it out of the way.” He had to take a set number of hours of CME credits every year to recertify.

“Nothing locally?”

Ha. As if. “You ever look at a map and try to find this place? We don’t even have a fire station. Nearest one’s ten miles from here.”

“At least I don’t have to worry about them stealing you away from me.” Ty’s disdain for any sort of commute was a running joke in Chicago. He took the L into work, Ubered home if he’d had a long shift, and usually made someone else drive the ambulance .

“They don’t even like me here.” Ty could barely go to the grocery store without getting stink eye. “Believe me, I’ll be glad to be back home.”

“And we’ll be glad to have you. I’ll let you get back to your Saturday. You enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

“You too, Chief. Thanks.”