Chapter One.
WAYNE
When Wayne Reynolds arrived at Center City’s Central Pantry, he was prepared for pretty much anything.
Volunteering at the local foodbank closest to the Carvers Football Stadium was actually a highlight of his week.
Being the new Head Coach of the highly ranked professional football team was stressful on any given day but recently dealing with a number of asshole players had left his battery running low.
So when he pulled his Gladiator truck into the loading area of the food bank, he let out a slow exhale that ended in a smile. Before he managed to take the key from the ignition, two of the volunteers were walking up to his truck.
They were a married couple, and he’d never seen one without the other.
George opened the door for him. “Always good to see you, Wayne!”
Wayne nodded at the older man. “I needed a pick me up today, so I’m really glad to be here.”
George gestured at the bed of the Gladiator. “You want me to start unloading?”
Wayne smiled at him. “Thanks.”
George held up his hands. “We’re the ones who should thank you.
And the Carvers. Since you joined the team as Head Coach and made the decision to support us, the visibility of our food bank is through the roof.
Besides the crazy amounts of food that the team donates, about a third of our new donors in from the street said that the reason they chose to donate here was because of the news stories they’ve seen with you and some of the men on the team. ”
With a bright smile, George walked around to the back.
Wayne hopped down to the ground beside the truck and found himself wrapped up in a hug from Maybell, George’s wife.
“And...” she grinned as she stepped back, “some of the donors and our new clients have also said that they hadn’t even heard of us until you came to Center City.”
Wayne felt his heart swell in his chest. “I’m glad to hear that.”
He moved around to the back of the truck with Maybell beside him, pushing the pallet cart over the newly paved delivery area.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be here the day they filled the parking lot holes and resurfaced the area.”
“You were at an away game, Wayne! I can’t imagine that you had the time or the energy to fly back just to stand there and watch the Zamboni flatten the parking lot.”
Wayne’s steps slowed and he turned to look at Maybell’s back as she walked on.
She stopped a few steps ahead and turned her head over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Wayne barely smothered a laugh. “Zamboni?”
Maybell shrugged.
“That thing with the big flattening roller thingy. I don’t know the name, the closest thing I could come up with in my head was a Zamboni.”
Wayne put his hand over his heart and caught up to her with a couple of ground-eating steps. “For a second I thought you were going to say that you were a bigger hockey fan than a Carver fan.”
The color of Maybell’s cheeks deepened. “Well... The Cyclones are good, but... I used to take skating lessons when I was kid at a local rink.”
Wayne felt a little vindicated.
Or maybe just reassured.
“Okay, good.”
As soon as some of the volunteers inside saw them wheel in the first pallet of supplies, more people came out to help unload and some stayed inside the massive warehouse-like space to place things on the shelves.
When they got down to the bottom layer of food and boxes, Wayne had to put a gentle restraining hand on George’s arm. “I got this, boss.”
“Boss?”
George started laughing. “You’re calling me boss?”
Wayne climbed up into the bed of the truck and reached for one of the trays of water from the back of the bed. “It’s the truth. You and Maybell are the bosses here in more ways than one.”
“Well,” George reached up and took hold of the tray, “if anyone’s the boss around here, it’s Maybell.”
One of the college kids who was volunteering tried to hide a smile.
George smiled at the idea, the love for his wife evident on his face. “Did you know that we met here?”
Wayne paused halfway to the back of the bed, a tray of water bottles in his hands. “Really?”
George reached up for the tray, but one of the college kids got to it first.
Wayne noticed that everyone tried to keep George and Maybell from lifting anything that might put a strain on their bodies. He saw George take a handkerchief out of his back jeans pocket and wiped his forehead with it while Wayne moved to pick up another tray.
“We were both going through tough times back then.”
One of the volunteers came to grab the next tray and Wayne felt into an easy rhythm as they cleared the rest of the donations from the back of the Gladiator truck while they listened to George.
“My brother had just died and I wasn’t coping well. I was barely eating as I’d just lost my apartment and my latest job. People were trying to tell me that I had to pull myself together and get my life back on track, but I wasn’t listening.
“If someone gave me money, my first instinct was buying a cheap bottle of something from the liquor store. I didn’t want to be clearheaded. It hurt too much to think.”
Wayne handed the last water bottle tray to the volunteers and sat down on the open tailgate.
George leaned against the back of the truck as he continued to talk.
“Maybell was everything I wasn’t. She had goals.
She had dreams. She was looking forward with hope.
I don’t remember how I got here. I can only guess that I stumbled down the drive,” he gestured over at the single car width drive that let people in and out of the delivery area, “and passed out by the door. I came to with Maybell standing over me.”
“Your guardian angel?” Wayne had the image in his heart of Maybell reaching out to help George up and onto his feet.
The smile on George’s face only grew as he shook his head. “She told me to get up on my damn feet and help her open the trash bin.”
Startled, Wayne took out his own handkerchief and wiped at his neck. “Huh.”
George nodded. “She was more of a Valkyrie than an angel.” He lowered his hand to his side. “She was magnificent.”
They both turned when they saw someone step out of the doorway.
Maybell walked in their direction. “I hear someone is telling stories about me.”
Wayne threw George under the bus, gesturing at him. “He was telling me how you two met.”
“What exactly?” She had a dubious sound in her voice as if she was expecting him to embellish the tale.
George held out his arm and Maybell stepped into his half-embrace, leaning her cheek against his chest. “I told him the first thing you ever told me.”
Her curious look turned to a wistful one. “I had a feeling that if I was gentle with him, he might curl up and ignore me.”
“Ignore you?” George shook his head. “Hardly.”
Maybell lifted her hand and put it over his heart. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m too pushy.”
George leaned back, his skin furrowing between his brows.
“Pushy? Hardly. All I know is that you got me up and moving.
I lifted the lid of that industrial sized trash bin and helped put the bags in it.
And then instead of telling me to ‘get the hell out,’ you sent me next door to the shelter to get a change of clothes and a shower.
“By the time I made my way back, I felt a little more human. There must have been twenty or thirty people inside working and no one gave me a hard time. No one stared at me, glaring hard enough that I knew I’d disappointed them. People had work to do and they did it. And I fell right in with them.
“And then the next day when I showed up, Maybell took one look at me and smiled.”
“Well, you were handsome.”
“Were?”
She tapped her palm against his chest.
“Are... you are handsome. It was good to see you.”
“And I kept coming back.”
Their words fell away and left them in silence, but the looks between the married couple spoke volumes.
Wayne got down from the tailgate but left it open because he didn’t want to distract the couple. He started toward the warehouse to go and help. He got a few steps away when he heard Maybell’s voice.
“Wayne?”
He turned and smiled at the two. Maybell took her phone out of her back pocket and tapped the screen to turn it on. “I was wondering if you can do me a favor.”
“Sure,” Wayne grinned at her. “What can I do to help?”
She moved closer and turned her phone so he could see the screen. There was a pin on a map.
“One of our volunteers is stuck on the side of the road. Her car broke down.”
Wayne read into her tone and the concerned look on George’s face. “Betty?”
Maybell nodded, a solemn look on her face.
“She’s got some donations for us and was driving it over, but...”
George sighed. “She’s got a Grand Cherokee that’s seen better days.”
“Better decades,” Maybell countered.
George shook his head.
Maybell continued to explain. “She’s pretty good under the hood-”
“Honestly, Maybell and I have been wondering how much longer it was going to keep running. I hope this isn’t the end of it.”
Wayne took a good look at the map, squinting a little at the screen. “I know where that is.”
Maybell sighed, smiling. “She said she can probably get it working enough that she can get it back to her apartment, but she was hoping someone could go and pick up the donations she has in the car.”
Wayne nodded and murmured an agreement. “I can absolutely do that.”
He headed back toward the Gladiator and with George’s help put the tailgate in place. “I’ll see you two when I get back.”
They waved at him and as he pulled out of the drive he saw them step inside the food bank door behind him.
It didn’t take him very long to get to where Betty was stranded.
It was in the same area as the food bank.
The area was an older part of Center City focused on industry.
Many of the warehouses that used to be bustling with activity were now shuddered and boarded up.
It made the area a little sketchier than Wayne liked to see.
Carver Stadium wasn’t more than a few blocks away and he knew that he’d have to look into solutions to help the neighborhood look like more than a bunch of older warehouses and shuttered buildings.
When he turned the final corner, he didn’t have to wonder where to find Betty.
There was a Jeep Grand Cherokee what reminded him of one of the wind-up cars he’d had as a toy.
It was the same flat color between khaki and cream.
The hood was up, but he didn’t see anyone around the car.
Frowning, he pulled up to the curb in front of it, facing the wrong direction.
Getting out of his truck, he stepped down onto the sidewalk and scanned the area for any dangers.
It was later in the afternoon, so there were a number of deep shadows around and between the buildings.
“Hello?”
He listened for an answer, but when one didn’t come, he tried again. “Hello?”
The soft click of a door latch catching turned his head.
“Hey.”
The voice that answered him was deeper than he’d expected.
When he’d heard the name Betty, it felt like a name from any older generation. Like Archie and Betty from the comics. The woman who walked around the back corner of the Jeep definitely wasn’t the sweet older woman he’d pictured in his head.
Betty was... stacked.
Even in the shadows like she was, he could see the curve of her hips and the sway when she walked. It wasn’t put on like an act. No, she was walked toward him unerringly like she was on a mission.
He couldn’t hold back a smile as he waited to get a good look at her face, but as soon as she left the shadows behind her, his jaw dropped enough that he must look like he was a few IQ points short of humankind.
“You’re not... Betty.” His brow furrowed as he tried to remember what George and Maybell had told him. “You’re Aidan’s mom.”
She stopped a few feet shy of where he was and wiped her hands on a cloth.
“Actually, I’m both. I’m Aidan’s mom, but I’m also Betty.
At least,” she smiled and he felt a little short of breath, “at the firehouse.” When she was done wiping her hands, she tucked the cloth into her back pocket, a movement that pulled her T-shirt across her chest and Wayne felt his face turning red.
He could only hope that the late afternoon shadows might keep him from making a total fool of himself.
Betty... He smiled to himself.
She had Veronica’s coloring but the smile on her face was sweet.
“Fire house.” He nodded. “I didn’t know you were a firefighter.”
She lifted her chin a little and the smile she gave him felt good. Really good.
“It’s actually Avery, not Betty.”
Wayne nodded. “I remember the principal called you Missus Page when I met you in the office.”
She smiled at him. “That’s me. I’m glad you assumed I was a firefighter and not someone working in the office.”
He nodded, understanding her words. “You move well. I can tell you’re fit.”
She tipped her head to the side and smiled at him. “Thanks, I think.” She looked at his truck and smiled. “Did Maybell send you for the delivery?”
Nodding, he shrugged. “That’s the plan.” Then he narrowed his eyes at the engine of her Grand Cherokee. “What’s going on with the engine?”