“Well, are you available now?”
The interview went significantly better than the apartment hunt. It turned out to be mostly a formality; Ollie was trained in military operations and firearms use, so he was overqualified to babysit bank pickups. The company only operated during daylight hours, which meant he only had to find a couple hours’ worth of childcare for Theo, and the school had a latchkey kids program. Ollie just had to wait for his police clearance to come through and he could start job training tomorrow.
For the first time in months, some of the tension between his shoulder blades unknotted. Theo was in school. Ollie had a job. They had a line on a place to live. It wasn’tperfect, but it was all they needed for now. Maybe the owners would agree to a six-month lease and he could spend the meantime looking for something more appropriate.
His improved outlook lasted through picking up his kid (“Dad! We learned abouttadpoles! Did you know some frogs can lay ten thousand eggs a day?”), celebratory dinner at the town’s most upscale restaurant (an off-brand Applebee’s), a night’s sleep (blissfully without PTSD nightmares, possibly because the motel mattress was so awful Ollie couldn’t sleep deeply enough to dream), and dropping Theo back at school the next morning.
He went back to the motel and spent another half an hour looking through rental listings. If anything, the offerings depressed him more than they had two days ago.
But he couldn’t make himself pick up the phone to call Jenna until he’d done one last drive-by evaluation of the place.
The guest cottage was in a good neighborhood, close enough to the school that Ollie could even walk him in the morning, if he wanted to, and still get to work in plenty of time. It was situated on a boulevard lined with mature oaks. Ollie could just imagine what it would look like in summer when a broad, leafy canopy covered everything. A well-maintained sidewalk boasted chalk art from neighborhood kids—another great sign for Theo.
But as Ollie approached the block the guest cottage was on, his heart sank.
There was a firetruck parked on one side of the street, and dark smoke billowed into the sky.
Ollie pulled the Honda to the side of the road and parked a few houses down.
A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, several retirees and one young mom with a toddler on her hip. Ollie put his hands in his pockets and leaned in to eavesdrop.
“—not rented yet, thankGod—”
“What do you think happened?”
The sound of splintering wood split the morning. A cloud of dust and ash went up.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen,” said one of the firefighters, “is why you don’t do your own electrical work. Leave that stuff to the professionals.”
Ollie felt sick. If he’d been a little more desperate, he and Theo could’ve been in that house.
That settled it. He needed to raise his standards, even if it meant another few miserable weeks at the motel. The alternative was moving in with his parents, and Ollie could not do that.
Looked like the motel was home sweet home for now.
TY’S TWOclasses shadowing Henry had not prepared him for the second graders.
This was likely because Henry only taught high school classes, and he knew that if he subjected Ty to seven-year-olds first thing he would flee for the hills.
Ty liked kids, he reminded himself.
Okay, well, Ty liked tigers too, but he wasn’t going to lock himself in a room with twenty of them for forty minutes.
He did have an educational assistant in each class, which helped immeasurably. This one’s name was Miss Tina, and she knew all the kids’ names and the fastest way to get them to listen.
“I also have their IEPs and medical needs memorized,” she assured him at two minutes to the bell. “Two peanut allergies in this group, one with epilepsy.”
“Wow. Kinda glad I’m a paramedic.” Though at the moment a little anaphylactic shock might be easier to handle than keeping the kids’ attention for the whole period.
Ty didn’t have a textbook for teaching first aid to kids. Hell, if one didn’t exist, maybe he should write one. But he certainly wasn’t going to have time for that in the next couple of weeks, because it immediately became apparent that he would need all his energy to keep up with the kids… and he only had to teach three periods a day.
Fortunately Tydidhave a well-developed projecting voice, as well as a lot of firsthand experience keeping a cool head. “Good morning, second grade! My name is Mr. M”—like hell were the kids going to call him by his father’s name—“and I’ll be your health teacher for the next couple of weeks while your regular teacher is out.”
Tina had warned him about the likely influx of questions, and he fielded them for a few minutes because it would be unproductive not to.
And then they got down to the brass tacks of child-appropriate first aid, beginning with the obvious—a primer on when and how to call 911.
Which, naturally, began with a primer on when and whynotto call 911.
