Oh. That kind of role-play.
Every kid’s hand went up. Ty went through three demonstrations, and when the kids had gotten the hang of giving their names and locations and details of their made-up injuries (or the made-up injuries of their friends), Ty let them split up into pairs to keep practicing until the class ended.
“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” he told Henry in the teachers’ lounge at lunch. “There’s a reason people go to college to learn how to be a teacher.”
“Tina and Josh said you did fine. Relax,” Henry soothed. “It’s just another day in paradise.”
Ty eyed the couch and wondered if it would be empty enough next period for him to have a nap. He had prep for the next two periods, meaning he could recover… or spend time figuring out how he was going to expand his material for the sixth-grade class he’d have after that.
Maybe he could wrangle both?
The sixth graders turned out to be his least favorite. They didn’t respect his authority, they didn’t raise their hands, they talked back, they whispered and giggled. One of them, a redheaded girl with smattering offreckles across the bridge of her nose, threw a paper ball at his head. Ty caught it one-handed and redirected it into the recycling bin next to his desk.
“Did you even go to school to be a teacher?” one of the boys in the third row asked.
“No. A fact for which I’m currently very glad.” That earned him a few laughs. Maybe this class needed a different approach. “I went to school to be a paramedic.”
The kid’s eyes lit up. “Whoa! So you’ve treated people in car accidents and stuff?”
“And stuff,” Ty confirmed.
Another kid leaned forward. “Did you ever see anyone die?”
And suddenly they were so fucking young. Jesus. Ty had been that young once. “Yeah,” he said. He let the words come out as heavy as they wanted to. “Some of them were younger than you.”
Finally the class went silent. The EA looked like she didn’t know what to do.
Ty sat on the corner of his desk and resisted the urge to massage his temples. “Look. I can’t teach you how to be a paramedic in six weeks. There’s just too much to know, and the school board would probably try to put me in jail for traumatizing you. But I can teach you enough about first aid that if you get hurt, or your friends get hurt, or your family member gets hurt, and there’s no one else around to help you, you can give them the best possible chance of a full recovery. I can teach you how to help someone stay alive until the professionals get there. But only if you let me.”
The redhead and the third-row boy exchanged glances.
The girl nodded.
“Okay,” the boy said. “Where do we start?”
TUESDAY NIGHTafter baseball practice, Ty did not get invited to beer and dinner.
“It’s date night,” Henry explained as they walked toward the parking lot. “We get our favorite takeout and watch trashy TV.”
He said it like he couldn’t wait for that kind of domestic night in. Ty’s heart panged in his chest. It sounded amazing.
When was the last time he had a night like that? Before Myra moved away, definitely. Even then, they’d both had busy schedules, both on shift work that didn’t always line up. Sometimes they only managed to havebreakfast together as one of them was coming off shift and the other one was going on, but those moments felt all the more precious because of it.
But there was no point trying to date now, he thought as he waved goodbye to Henry and folded himself into the driver’s seat of his truck. Ty knew himself pretty well. He was an overcommitter. Case in point: He’d signed up to help coach baseball and ended up teaching elementary school. He could not date casually, which meant he couldn’t date. He would stay in town until he got as much of his father’s affairs settled as he could, and then he would go back to Chicago, where he belonged, where his team needed him. Where he could save lives.
But God, the idea of going home to an empty house—an empty house hehated—for the next few months made him feel like he was going to suffocate. He rolled down the truck window and closed his eyes to feel the breeze on his face.
He was just telling himself to get over it when a familiar Honda pulled into the parking lot next to him and Ollie Kent got out of it.
Ty took him in, head to toe, and somehow managed not to sayHey, rent-a-copout loud. But that took all his restraint, which was probably why the next thing out of his mouth was “New job?”
Truth told, Ollie didn’t look a lot better than Ty felt. Ty didn’t know if that was because the mushroom gray of his uniform was sucking the color out of him or if he’d had a day like Ty had. Maybe worse.
Ollie didn’t bother trying to smile. “Gotta make a living, I guess. How was baseball practice?”
“You wanna replace me again?” Surely Ollie knew he’d filled Ty’s role on the team when Ty changed schools. “I don’t think this team’s bound for the championship. Although on the plus side, none of the batters hit themselves with the ball this time.”
Ollie actually laughed, and color returned to his face. “I think this is the first time I’m realizing how different it’s going to be not having my kid around all the time.”
