Homecoming for Beginners

Chapter 9

THERE WAS only so much weekend to go around, and Ollie wanted to spend as much of it as he could with his kid… but he also had responsibilities.

Which was why, after he stuck his head into the pole barn to check things out, he walked back into the house and said, “Hey, Theo, want to help me cut the grass?”

Theo looked up from the pinball machine and made a face. “Why would I want to help cut the grass?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ollie said, pretending to hedge. “I just thought because it’s a riding mower, you might like to learn to drive. But if you’d rather not—”

The pinball machine was left in the dust. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. But you can never do it without me there, and you’ll have to sit on my lap and do what I tell you. Okay?”

“Can we go cut the grass right now?”

Riding around on Ty’s lawn mower with Theo in his lap reminded him of doing this with his dad when he was a kid, back when they lived in their rambling farmhouse in New York State. That seemed so long ago now, but when Ollie asked if Theo wanted to steer, Theo’s eyes lit up and brought those feelings right back.

Ollie’s parents hadn’t done everything wrong. There were good times too.

The rest of the day passed in a pleasant haze. The sun was shining, but it was still cool in that early spring way. In the games room, the greenhouse effect made for the perfect atmosphere for reclining on the couch with one of the paperbacks from Ty’s mom’s bookshelf while Ty and Theo did their homework together at the poker table.

Okay, so Theo was doing homework and Ty was lesson planning. It was nice. Ollie kept looking up from his book to find Theo coloring in his map as Ty researched how not to traumatize grade-schoolers while teaching them first aid, or whatever .

Then, after dinner, Ollie made good on his movie-on-the-floor promise. But he was still thirty-two years old, so he pulled a couch cushion onto the floor to sit on and leaned back against the sofa. They made a bag of microwave popcorn and introduced Ty to Moneyball , and even if Theo fell asleep on Ollie’s shoulder in the last ten minutes and his ass went numb, it was still the nicest Saturday night he’d had in a long time.

When the movie ended, Ty turned off the TV while Ollie picked up Theo to put him to bed. Sure, he could wake him up and make him go brush his teeth, but he hadn’t gotten to do this when Theo was little—pick him up, tuck him into bed already asleep. Soon he’d be too big to carry or too old to let Ollie get away with it. One night without brushing his teeth wouldn’t give him cavities.

He turned out the lights and went back to the living room to help Ty clean up the popcorn kernels that had spilled on the floor.

“Thanks for tonight,” he said just as Ty raised his head and said, “Thank you.”

Their eyes locked for a moment, and Ollie found himself matching Ty’s sheepish grin. “I really needed this,” Ty said. “Just, I don’t know, a night in with a friend doing something… fun seems like the wrong word for a movie and popcorn on the floor. Silly?”

“No, I get it,” Ollie assured him. “My kid loved it, for one thing, and that’s pretty much always going to be enough for me, but you’re right. It was nice. Normal , maybe? Although,” he added, rubbing his tailbone, “if we’re going to make a habit of it, I want thicker cushions.”

Ty laughed. “Or I could get a media console so we can sit on the actual couch.” He scooped up a stray napkin and tossed it in the bowl with the unpopped kernels. “Theo’s a really great kid. You’re lucky.”

“Luckier than you know.” Ollie paused as he searched for the right words. “Theo’s been through a lot for an eight-year-old. He’s already beaten cancer and lost his mom. And he’s…. He fought me on going to school the first three days, because he doesn’t like being apart from me. And he hated latchkey. He’s afraid I’ll die and he won’t have anyone, but he’s also… not afraid to meet new people. It’s just, I think he thinks I can’t die if he doesn’t have any other grown-ups to take care of him. He’s been resisting getting to know my parents, and it’s driving them nuts.” He paused. “But he likes you. That sounds kind of dumb, and beli eve me, I’m not trying to put anything on you, but it’s a relief, you know? It may take time, but he can form attachments with other adults.”

Or whatever lightning-in-a-bottle combination he’d found with Ty.

They brought the dishes into the kitchen, and Ty loaded them into the dishwasher. “I wonder if it’s, like, an identification thing?” He glanced over and lifted a shoulder. “That first day we met, I was not exactly projecting I am a responsible adult . And I did just lose my dad.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Ollie said. “I’m just grateful. And with the baseball? He’s actually been excited to go to school because there’s practice after.” Any little bit of guilt Ollie could take off his chest for missing so many milestones in his kid’s life, for not dropping everything to homeschool him to make up for it, helped. “So thank you.”

Ty ducked his head and blushed when he smiled, like he wasn’t used to being appreciated. Ollie couldn’t understand how that was true since he literally saved people’s lives for a living. Maybe he was naturally modest. “Uh, you’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.”

After a day like that, Ollie figured he’d have no trouble falling asleep, even if he didn’t have Theo wheezing in the same room with him to send him off to dreamland. And he was right; lots of fresh air and the weak spring sunshine, some normal household chores, and about three times as much social interaction as he was used to, and he was out like a light the minute his head hit the pillow.

Ollie had loved flying from the moment he’d first stepped foot on an aircraft. When the ground fell away beneath him and the sky stretched out above and in front and around him, he felt weightless, buoyant. All his problems—his parents, his lack of direction in life, loneliness, indecision—those were earthly concerns that couldn’t touch him up here.

Which was pretty weird considering he’d been shot at while flying, but not everything had to make sense.

So when the dusk-bruised sky of Afghanistan filled his field of vision and he felt the helicopter controls under his hands, Ollie thought, This will be a good dream. He hadn’t been able to fly since he separated from the service. It was maybe the only thing he regretted about leaving. Dreaming about it wasn’t the same, but if this was all he could get, he’d happily soak in every moment.

Ollie didn’t mind the desert, apart from the sand and the heat. It could be beautiful. At night you could see every single speck of light in the sky .

He was guiding the chopper over a ridge when things took a turn.

First the sun seemed to stutter on the horizon, the last brilliant line of it shaking against the curve of the earth until it reversed course and dragged itself back into the sky.

The wind picked up, buffeting the helicopter with gusts of sand. Ollie’s instrumentation flickered. Comms went down.

By the time the sandstorm was on him, the dream had become a nightmare.

Suddenly Ollie was no longer flying solo. “We’re taking fire!” In the copilot’s seat, Theo yelled into his oversize headset. He turned around and shouted at the row of seats behind them. “Brace for impact!”

Ollie looked back. In the second row on the floor was another Theo, bleeding from a bullet to the chest, the same wound Hernandez had when Ollie medevacked him. A third Theo wearing a combat medic’s insignia pressed a pressure bandage to the wound.

Enemy fire impacted the tail rotor, and the helicopter controls heaved under Ollie’s hands. No , he thought fiercely. It can’t end like this. The best he could hope for was a controlled crash that might not kill them all. I’m sorry, I tried my best—

Something landed on his chest. Ollie opened his eyes.

It was dark, but not desert-sandstorm dark. Sprawling-Connecticut-mansion dark. He forced himself to inhale deeply through his nose, even if his breath shuddered, and focus on the comfort of the mattress beneath him.

In the bedroom doorway, Ty cleared his throat. “Ollie. You good? You were having a nightmare.”

Ollie’s lungs cooperated more smoothly this time. “Yeah. Thanks.” Exhaled. That was a horrible dream, but he hadn’t had to live the worst part of it. “What… did you throw something at me?” He squinted toward the hallway. They’d bought motion-activated night lights so Ollie and Theo didn’t get lost trying to find the bathroom, so Ty was silhouetted.

“My shirt,” Ty said sheepishly. “I didn’t want to get murdered.”

Of course. Ollie felt around on top of him until he found it. The fabric was still warm from Ty’s body. “So you sent your shirt to be murdered instead?”

This was probably the fastest Ollie had ever wanted to laugh after a nightmare. He chucked the shirt back at Ty, who caught it one-handed.

“It worked, didn’t it? ”

Ollie sat up. “Yeah. Thanks.” He rubbed his eyes. “What time’s it?”

“Like, three, I think?” Ty answered, muffled as he pulled his shirt back on.

Ollie frowned. “Did I wake you up?” Theo closed his door when he went to bed, but Ollie opened it again when he was turning in, then left his own open so that he might hear Theo better if he needed something. But if he was disturbing Ty—

Ty snorted. “No. There’s an owl outside my window, and it’s loud as fuck. And then once I was awake, I was thirsty. Just a coincidence.”

“Guess you could take a bedroom on the other side of the house for the night,” Ollie joked. “Thanks for waking me up, though.”

“No problem.” He paused. Then, “Hey, want to see if we can see the owl?”

It was better than trying to go back to sleep in a room that smelled like Ollie’s fear sweat. “Sure.” He got up and cracked the window—might as well air the place out—and then jumped half a foot in the air when the owl hooted. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding.” He craned his neck, but he couldn’t see anything.

“Try from the games room, maybe.”

The games room glowed with moonlight, or they wouldn’t have been able to see anything. As it was, it took them a few minutes of peering out into the night before Ty finally touched Ollie’s shoulder and pointed. “There!”

Ollie followed the line of his arm just as the owl hooted again, ruffling its feathers. A chill went down his spine. “Okay, that’s pretty cool.”

He could barely make out Ty’s grin in the moonlight. “Right? Not so bad to wake up to.”

Definitely better than the end of that nightmare , Ollie thought. “Not for one night, at least.”

And then another bird landed in the tree next to the first one.

The owls did a very cute face-bumping thing.

Ollie said, “When is owl mating season?”

“Uh. I think it depends on the kind of owl.”

Well, yes, probably. “Can you tell what kind of owls they are?”

“No?”

They watched for a moment longer; then Ollie ventured, “We had a nesting pair of barn owls living on our property when we lived in New York. ”

Neither of them took their eyes away from the tree. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “I was thirteen, so I thought it was pretty cool. But my sisters, uh, well, we kept finding their leftovers. Little headless rodents, shrews and mice and voles or whatever. I guess the brains are their favorite part? And then baby bunny season rolled around….”

The owls silently fluffed each other.

After a moment Ty said, “Do you think turning on the outside lights will be enough to scare them away?”

“They might at least decide to nest farther away from the house, which is good enough for me.” Teenage Ollie had thought the decapitated animals were kind of neat, in a gruesomely fascinating way. Adult Ollie didn’t want to look at them or clean them up or, crucially, answer any of Theo’s questions about the decapitated baby bunny afterlife.

It certainly ruffled some feathers when Ty flicked on the lights that illuminated the garden. Ollie caught a flash of buff-and-brown feathers, and then the birds were gone, leaving the night eerily silent.

“I should get a motion sensor installed, maybe. Or a remote control.” Ty yawned and turned away from the window. Then he did a double take when he saw Ollie, now illuminated in the overglow of the flood lights. “Jeez, aren’t you freezing?”

Ollie looked down. The adrenaline had worn off, and his fear sweat was cooling on his body, so yeah, actually. He’d gone to bed in a thin pair of pajama pants, and his nipples were trying to secede. “Now that you mention it.”

He thought he detected the hint of a flush on Ty’s cheeks, but that probably came from having been caught noticing your roommate’s nipples were about to fall off. Ty didn’t get awkward about it. “I should probably get back to bed. Oh—but, uh, wait up for a minute? There’s a throw blanket on the couch if you want to, like, not die of hypothermia.”

Bemused, Ollie wrapped himself up like a burrito and sat on the sofa, tucking his feet in so they wouldn’t get cold. True to his word, Ty was gone only a few minutes. When he returned, he was carrying a couple of ancient plastic radio-looking things.

He held them up triumphantly. “Found these when I was binge cleaning the other day. Baby monitor.”

Ty passed them over like he was bestowing a gift. Ollie untangled his arms to take them. “Uh… thanks? ”

Seeing Ollie didn’t quite understand, Ty said, “Okay, so, you said hearing Theo breathe helps when you wake up at night. But now he’s got his own room, and that’s great, but what about you, right? So—baby monitor. It’s, like, thirty years old, obviously, but it still works. Just put the transmitter in Theo’s room and the receiver in yours. You can keep it turned off until you need it. And since they’re like ancient technology, they actually plug into the wall. No batteries.”

Ollie wet his lips, suddenly without words. I met you a week ago. But it didn’t have anything to do with Ollie, not really. He could see that. This was how Ty treated people. He looked out for them. He was a caregiver. How else had he ended up a paramedic?

“Thank you,” he said when his voice returned to him. He didn’t want to wake Theo tonight with the baby monitor, but knowing he’d have it in the future helped. He already knew he’d be sleeping better in the future. “Wish I’d thought of this.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t found the thing.” Ty gave him a bashful smile. “Anyway, I’m gonna see if I can’t convince my body to go back to sleep. Night, Ollie.”

“Night, Ty.”

“DO I HAVE to come?” Theo asked the next day, dragging his feet as Ollie helped him choose a brunch outfit that didn’t look like he’d spent three hours playing baseball in it.

Ollie probably should have done laundry yesterday.

“’Fraid so, bud.” There—that sweater was decent. Ollie offered it and received a disgusted look in return.

Possibly he should also take his kid clothes shopping.

“Anyway, why do you want to stay home?” Theo had been glued to Ollie’s hip for the past six months. “You don’t want to spend time with your dad?” Okay, so he kind of figured this was more avoiding the grandparents, but it had to happen sometime. Ollie was not above playing the guilt card.

Theo made a very dramatic eight-year-old noise. “No, that’s just—you said Grandma and Grandpa are coming, and I—you don’t like them.”

Wait, what?

Ollie paused with his hands on a long-sleeve Nats shirt. “Theo, why would you say that? ”

Theo rolled his eyes. Ollie had a sudden vision of what he’d be like as a teenager and made a mental note to look into cryogenically freezing his kid before that could happen. “’Cause that’s what Mel said. Duh.”

Mel. Mel? “When did you talk to your cousin?”

“At recess.”

The shirt only had one little stain, near the cuff of one of the sleeves. If Theo wore a zip-up hoodie with it, no one would ever know. Ollie held up the shirt and received a nod of approval. “Okay, well, Mel doesn’t know everything about me. I love your grandparents.” He could’ve gone with It’s complicated , but Theo was eight. One piece of the truth at a time. “I thought you weren’t ready to meet them yet. You didn’t seem like you wanted to.”

Theo put on a thorny face. “I can change my mind.”

“You sure can.” Ollie still wasn’t sure how Theo not going to brunch would’ve saved Ollie from his parents, but it didn’t matter. “So, if I love your grandparents, and you want to have brunch with your grandparents, then can we get ready to go have brunch with your grandparents?”

“Okay,” Theo said, tugging on his shirt, “but can I get pancakes?”

“As long as you promise to eat some protein with your sugar.”

By some miracle, they made it to the restaurant only a few minutes late. The hostess at the front looked vaguely familiar; she smiled when she saw them. “Ollie Kent.” She was his parents’ age, but she reminded him of one of his high school friends—someone’s mother, definitely, but he was having a hard time placing her. “Welcome back to town, sweetheart. Thank you for your service.”

Ollie hoped his return smile looked more natural than it felt. “Uh, hi.” He never knew what to say to that. You’re welcome ? Ollie hadn’t done it for her, or for his country. He’d signed up for the Army in part to escape his parents and in part because he thought he could make the world a better place, and he’d made it home in one piece physically because—well, if he had to hazard a guess, probably because the universe had a sense of humor.

“And this must be your son.” Her eyes widened a little. “Don’t you look just like your father. Ollie, you’re meeting your parents, right? They’re right this way.”

Ollie’s parents were seated in a booth by the front window, which made Ollie twitch—a table would’ve been better—but the restaurant was pretty full with the after-church crowd, so they’d have to make do. He smiled at the hostess and finally remembered—“Thank you, Mrs. Robinson”—and helped Theo get settled.

“Hi, Mom, Dad. Sorry we’re late.”

His dad smiled carefully at Theo as his mother waved off his apology. “No, nonsense, Ollie. I remember what it was like trying to get you and your sisters anywhere on time.”

“Hello, Theo,” Ollie’s father said. “I’m your dad’s dad. I’m really happy to meet you.”

He meant it too—Ollie could tell by the way he said it, but also from the fact that he didn’t say something like I’ve been waiting for months .

Theo squinted at him like he was sizing him up and then held his hand out across the table to shake.

Ollie mentally awarded his dad ten points for not bursting into laughter. “Hi.”

“Hello, Theo. Do you remember me?”

Theo looked at Ollie’s mom and said, “You were at the park. And at the school.”

Ollie’s dad gave his mom third-degree side-eye, so she apparently hadn’t been forthcoming with her husband about that encounter. “That’s right. I’m your grandma.”

Theo nodded seriously and asked, “Do you like pancakes?”

Ollie could’ve exploded with pride. Look at his kid, carrying on a conversation with grown-ups without any cues from Ollie. Everybody was getting points this morning, even Ollie. A good night’s rest could do wonders.

It didn’t take long for his dad to cajole Theo into a conversation about baseball—Ollie mentally congratulated himself on the wardrobe selection—and the two of them hashed out Friday night’s disaster at length while Ollie’s mom looked on with a well-disguised pout because she preferred football.

Ollie thought the introductions went well. His parents didn’t overstep any boundaries, even if his mother did give him a look when Theo put in his pancake order. “With sausage, please.”

She wasn’t the one who’d have to deal with Theo’s energy crash and subsequent nap this afternoon, so she could keep her comments to herself. Either Ollie managed to convey as much with his eyebrows, or she decided it simply wasn’t worth the argument. Either way, Ollie counted it as progress.

He was so busy basking in the success of the moment that he missed the signs Theo was steering the conversation into dangerous territory until the whole thing hurtled off a cliff. “Dad, can Grandma and Grandpa come over to our house after lunch? I want to show Grandpa my signed baseball.”

Two sets of shrewd eyes zinged in Ollie’s direction. “Ollie, you didn’t tell us you found an apartment! Where is it? Are you going to have a housewarming party? We’d love to get you something.”

“I’m impressed you were able to find a backup plan so fast,” his dad added. “If you need any furniture, we can lend you some. We still have your old bedroom set from when you were a kid.”

And now they were being all reasonable . That made Ollie feel like an asshole for not telling them sooner, but he knew the general reasonableness level at the table was about to plummet.

“It’s not exactly a backup plan,” Ollie hedged. “It’s more like, uh, Plan A.”

His parents exchanged glances like they had no idea what that meant.

Ollie had been shot at, damn it. He could handle telling his parents he’d moved in with a hoodlum.

But he didn’t get the chance, because Theo piped up, “We live with Ty now!”

If he lived to be five hundred, Ollie would never be as brave as his kid.

To his parents’ credit, neither one of them said anything to dampen Theo’s enthusiasm, although that might have been because he didn’t give them a chance to get a word in edgewise.

“My room is really big, and it has a four-poster bed.” On his syrup-sticky fingers, Theo ticked off the merits of living with Ty. “There’s a big yard, and Dad let me sit on his lap when he cut the grass. It was so cool , I even got to drive! And there’s a whole room for just games, like pinball and Pac-Man and Monopoly and poker.”

Lord above, Ollie hoped his kid never took up poker. Ollie’s parents would never let him hear the end of it.

Then Theo added, “I guess it’s not just for games. Me and Ty did our homework there yesterday, ’cause of the nat’ral light.”

Under the weight of his parents’ combined gazes, Ollie felt his spine try to slither down the chair leg. Ollie willed it straight. He cleared his throat and offered, “It’s a sun room on the back of the house. ”

This was obviously not the clarification they had been hoping for. Ollie’s mom said, “Theo, why don’t you come with me up front and we can pay the bill? You can help me do the math.”

Theo looked at Ollie for permission. Ollie could’ve told him no, but he didn’t think that would improve the situation. “It’s okay,” Ollie said. “I’ll be right here.”

Maybe he should’ve let Theo keep believing Ollie didn’t like his parents.

Once grandmother and son were out of earshot, Ollie’s father cleared his throat. “Son, is there something you want to tell me about you and Tyler Morris?”

“Didn’t I just tell you guys Friday that I wasn’t interested in dating right now? Did you think I was making that up?” He fought the urge to groan out loud. “I ran into Ty at the school, and we got to talking. The insurance company won’t cover the house if it’s empty, but he’s only in town until the end of the school year before he goes back to Chicago. And the place is huge, Dad. I think he wanted the company.”

His dad hummed neutrally. “You seem to have made fast friends with this man.”

“We have a lot in common.” The words came out before he really thought about them, and even though they surprised him, they rang true. They’d both experienced loss and disappointed parental expectations. They’d both fled this town to try to find their own way. And now they were both back here again. It made Ollie wonder if Ty’s temporary teaching job chafed as much as Ollie’s driving one.

Another noncommittal noise. “You say that Theo likes him?”

“Theo adores him. Probably because Ty’s like a big kid himself. Last night we had a movie night with popcorn and watched Moneyball , which, uh, if you and Mom ever babysit, I’m sorry in advance for how many times you’re going to have to see it.”

Ollie was almost sure his father was going to withhold judgment. He was teetering on the edge. But then he shook his head and said, “You know your mother won’t like it. I’m not going to rock the boat by taking your side.”

Fuck. “I’m an adult and I can make decisions for myself and my son. Mom doesn’t have to live there. Ty—”

Ollie paused as the bell above the door jingled.

“Speak of the devil,” his father said .

Personally Ollie thought the devil was giving Ty a lot of credit. He was only waiting at the host station. He had his phone out but wasn’t looking at the screen—probably getting a pickup order. Somehow he and Theo hadn’t seen each other, probably because Theo had begged a handful of loose change off his grandmother to plonk down one of those old-fashioned donation funnels and Ty was staring intently at Mrs. Robinson as if he could will her to notice his existence.

Mrs. Robinson was pointedly ignoring him in favor of having a conversation with her coworker.

“Dad….”

“Isn’t it going to hurt Theo anyway, to let him get attached when he’s going back to Chicago?”

Ollie flinched. “Well, Dad, he knows damn well that anyone could leave him at any time, seeing as his mother died four months ago, so I think I can trust my kid to feel his own feelings. What’s he supposed to do, never get attached to anyone ever?”

With a frown, his father turned in the booth, like he was half shielding Ollie from being able to look at Ty. Mrs. Robinson was still blatantly ignoring him. “People are going to talk, Ollie. About why a thirty-year-old man wants to live with someone else’s child.”

Oh, absolutely not. “Enough. First of all, Ty has a literal police clearance to work at the school. He also has one for his real job as a paramedic, saving people’s lives.” His hands clenched into fists under the table. “Second, if I hear anyone insinuating anything about queer men being pedophiles, they’re going to get a piece of my mind if not my fist.” Ollie tried to keep his temper in check, but his temper wasn’t having it. “If you and Mom care more about what the church ladies might say than respecting my judgment and authority as a father, that’s your problem. I’m not going to make it mine.” He stood up and put a couple of twenties on the table to cover their share of the bill. “I’ll tell Theo something came up today. You let me know if the two of you can be civil.”

Then he turned toward the front of the restaurant and put on a smile for his kid. No reason for Theo to get dragged into this. “You ready to go, bud? I was thinking we’d go find a sports store, pick up a baseball bat—”

“Yeah!” Theo whooped. Ollie’s mother looked like she’d bitten a rotten lemon. “Can we go right now?”

“Right now.” Ollie kissed the top of his head .

And then, because if he was going to be an asshole, he might as well be a useful asshole, he added, “Oh, hey, Mrs. Robinson—I think Ty here is waiting for a pickup order.”

As he strolled out into the spring sunshine, he could feel the eyes of the whole town on his back, but he was starting to think maybe he only cared about the startled blue pair that lived down the hall from him.