Theo wrinkled his nose. “Okay.”
The distraction gave Ollie time to scroll through local rental listings on his phone. Ideally he’d like to get a little bungalow, something with a yard for Theo to play in, but that meant working out lawn care and maybe gardening, shoveling snow in the winter, that kind of thing. All that would be fine, except he was already going to be cooking and shopping and doing laundry—the trappings of a civilian life he was still getting used to. An apartment made more sense, at least until he had a handle on all the other life crises he had going on. So an upper unit in a duplex, or an apartment or condo, then. Two bedrooms. Close to the school would be good—Ollie wanted to be able to drive Theo in without being late for work.
Whatever work was going to look like.
Apparently he’d gotten bored with TV, because the cartoons were still playing, but he had dug outThe Lightning Thiefand was curled up against the headboard of his bed, engrossed.
Ollie had a lot of feelings about that particular choice of book, which was about a kid whose mom got turned to stone, and then went to a camp for demigods, where he seemed to be in constant peril. Ollie was worried that the loss of Percy’s mother might hit a little close to home, or that Theo might be upset when Percy got his mother back, because Theo couldn’t. But Theo’s therapist in DC had said that Theo’s love of fantasy and ghost stories might not be a bad thing, that working out his feelings through fiction could be helpful, and that Ollie should let Theo take the lead unless problems arose.
Ollie was pretty sure by “problems” she didn’t mean “parental overthinking.” He should probably get his own therapist.
But that could wait until after he had a job and a place to live.
Ollie let himself browse Indeed for half an hour before he nudged Theo into the bathroom. He left the door cracked open so he could make sure Theo didn’t fall asleep in there while Ollie pulled out his laptop to start updating his résumé.
Truthfully, none of the jobs excited him—at least none of the ones he could do and still get to spend every night with his kid. But Ollie didn’t have to like his job; he just needed something to pay his bills. He applied for a job at an armored truck company, one in some kind of warehouse, and a real estate reception position. At that point his vision started to swim.
He poked his head into the bathroom. “All right, buddy, are you clean? I think it’s time for bed.”
Despite having whined about bathtime, Theo had happily splashed water all over the floor and drawn on the tile with his bath crayons. Ollie recognized a sun, some birds, the swing set from earlier in the day, and Theo’s latest fixation, a row of headstones. “Can I read one more chapter?”
“Half a chapter, and we read it together.” That way Ollie could keep an eye on it. Back when Theo was recovering from chemo, he’d been too weak and tired to hold the books himself. Ollie would never miss seeing him like that, but the ritual of reading to him had taken on its own importance. For ten years he’d had the military to structure his days. He felt unbalanced without a routine.
“Okay,” Theo said with the exasperation only an eight-year-old could manage. “But you have to work on your Chiron voice, Dad, it’s silly.”
Ollie held up the towel for him to step into. “You like my silly voices.”
OWNING A CENTURY-old mansion was a lot of work.
With nothing else to fill his weekend, Ty set about making the place habitable. It took him the better part of a day to go through and organize the stuff his dad had piled up all over the house. Most of it was headed straight for Goodwill or the trash, but every few hours he found a keepsake of his mother’s that stopped him in his tracks with fresh grief.
But not for his dad.
Sunday the real work began. Ty took down the curtains and rolled up the carpets. He dragged all that to the sun porch at the back of the house so he could have someone pick it up to be cleaned. Then he pulled the cushions off the furniture and stripped the beds—all eight of them. Anything too moth-eaten to use went into a trash bag. The washing machine went nonstop. He deep-cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom closest to his bedroom, then ordered takeout and passed out in front of his laptop after half a beer.
And then it was finally Monday, and Ty had something todo. Thank God.
He showered and shaved and dressed in a pair of his blue work pants and a plain T-shirt. He still hadn’t done a proper grocery shop, so he ate leftover takeout for breakfast, brushed his teeth, and then drove to the school. Henry had said there would be paperwork to fill out, and in the afternoon he’d have to stop by the police station for a background check—Ty wasn’t looking forward to those memories—but since he had an active paramedic certification in another state, they were pretty sure he wasn’t a risk to students.
Embarrassingly, it was only seven thirty when Ty stepped into the office at the school. Sure, he had good memories of this place—before his mom died and everything turned to shit—but seven thirty? Ty was turning into a suck-up in his adulting years.
He didn’t have long to feel self-conscious about it, because the woman behind the front desk looked up and caught his eye and Ty almost swallowed his tongue. “Holy shit—Peggy?”
“Tyler Morris!”
Ty barely had time to brace himself before five foot two inches of ballistic human hit him in the chest. Peggy hadn’t grown much since high school, even if she was now part of running the place.
“You are the last person I expected to see here again,” she said when she’d released her death grip on his rib cage. Then she paled and amended, “Oh God, I didn’t mean that in an offensive way, just—uh, I remember you swearing you were never going to come back here, so… I guess you’re in town for the funeral?” Her face fell. “Shit, I would’ve gone if I realized—”
“It’s good to see you too, Peggy,” he interrupted before she could work herself into a froth. Apparently not everyone in town hated him after all. “It’s been a long time. Yeah, I’m here for—well, not only the funeral, I guess. I have to sort out a few things.” Like his entire life. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’m actually here because I need to fill out some paperwork so I can help out Coach Tate?”
“Oh,you’rethe one!” She beamed at him even as she shook her head and retreated behind her desk to find the appropriate folder. “When I heard the rumor, I thought it was going to be Ollie Kent.”
There was that name again. Ty told himself he wasn’t going to be jealous. He cleared his throat. “I’ve heard that name a few times. Do you know the guy?”
Oh God, was that ablushspreading across her cheeks? “Everybody knows Ollie. We actually dated for a hot minute in high school, if you believe that.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe that?” Peggy was smart and pretty, even if she’d never had the ego to think of herself as one of the popular girls.
