Page 8 of What it Takes
Chapter Three
The next morning, Ben woke feeling groggy and not well rested. He wasn’t sure why—and he couldn’t remember anything he’d dreamed about—because if there was one thing he’d mastered over the course of his life as a first responder, it was sleeping well when it was time to sleep.
After throwing back the sheet, he sat on the edge of the bed and scrubbed his hands over his face. Then he swore a blue streak and looked at the cut on his hand. After cleaning it again, he’d decided to leave it uncovered because what kind of damage could he really do to it in bed?
Apparently, the rubbing it over a bristly jaw kind of damage.
A glance at his clock told him he could make it to Sunday breakfast if he hurried. Despite the rough night, he made quick work of his morning routine and threw on some sweats and a T-shirt. His mother’s breakfasts were worth the effort.
At five minutes before nine, he jogged down the stairs that led to where his SUV was parked in the driveway. Then he crossed behind his dad’s work van and his mom’s smaller SUV to get to their back door.
When his parents had expanded the garage, making it a little deeper and adding a second bay, they’d also turned the space over it into a studio apartment for Ben’s younger brother. Jimmy had done his time at a trade school and then returned to Whitford to work for their dad’s plumbing business, turning Rivers Plumbing from a one-man to a two-man show. Because nobody was ever going to get rich being a plumber in Whitford, Jimmy had been happy to live over their parents’ garage. His wife, Chelsea, had been happy to live there, too, until she’d gotten pregnant and they’d rented a house of their own. For three years it had been occupied by a friend of his dad’s until he decided to move south to warmer pastures.
As luck would have it, the apartment was empty when Ben got the call offering him the job. It was close to the fire station, the rent was cheap and he already knew he liked the landlords, so he didn’t bother looking for anything else. At some point he probably would, since living with his parents wasn’t one of his long-term goals, whether he had his own entrance or not.
But right now, with the scent of coffee and bacon greeting him as he stepped into his mom’s kitchen, it didn’t seem like a high priority.
“Morning, son,” his dad said, smiling at him from the stove.
“Morning.” His mom was buttering toast, and he kissed her cheek. “What can I do?”
“Refill our coffees and pour one for yourself, please.”
Ben dumped the cold remains from their mugs and rinsed them before grabbing the carafe. His dad at the stove meant scrambled eggs made with more than the average amount of black pepper and American cheese melted on top. And thick, toasted slabs of his mom’s homemade wheat bread and crispy bacon to go with it.
Definitely worth rushing.
“I was going to call you,” his mom said, “to see if you were coming down, but I’m always afraid I’ll wake you up when you’ve just gone to sleep because of a call.”
“I’d have to be some kind of exhausted to turn down Sunday breakfast. And I told you before, if I’m really beat, I can set my phone to allow the dispatcher and the fire and police stations to call me, but silence everything else. You can call or text me anytime and if I really need the sleep, I’ll get back to you when I wake up.”
“Maybe someday I’ll listen,” she said.
“Don’t hold your breath,” his dad said, following the words with a wink at his wife.
She laughed and waved a hand at the table. “Funny. You two sit down and get out of the way so I can dish this up while it’s hot.”
Thirty-nine years, Ben thought as he obeyed, sitting in the same spot he’d been sitting in since they moved into this house the year he turned twelve. If he was thirty-eight, they’d been married thirty-nine years now and it would be forty years in September, since their anniversary was the same day as their birthdays.
Alan and May Rivers had first met when their respective friends had thrown them parties at the same roller rink. Sharing the same birthday had been an icebreaker and they both claimed it had been love at first sight. He proposed on their next birthday and they were married the birthday after that. The rest of the family had expressed some teasing disappointment their first child hadn’t been born on August 20th, but Ben was more than happy to let his parents keep that spotlight on themselves.
They’d both be turning sixty later this summer, which made Ben wonder if they should have some kind of a party. Sixtieth birthdays. Fortieth wedding anniversary. It seemed like a celebration of some sort was in order. Not a big bash like they’d—God willing—be having in another ten years, but forty years together was an achievement worth a cake, at least.
As he dug into his breakfast, he wondered if he’d missed his chance for a fortieth anniversary cake. Since he wasn’t even dating at the moment, he’d be at least forty before he got to the altar, which meant he was looking at being eighty for that milestone. Doable, maybe, based on his family tree, but he was going to have to start making space in his life for a relationship.
“Got anything planned for today?” his dad asked when they’d finished eating.
The question sounded deceptively casual to Ben’s ears and he suspected he was going to get wrangled into helping his dad with some random project from his mom’s “honey-do” list. And, while he didn’t mind working alongside his dad, he wasn’t committing to anything without some idea of what she was getting them into.
“I’ve got a few things to square away at the station today, but that’s about the only thing.” It wasn’t really a lie, but the amount of things he had to square away and the amount of time it would take would depend on the alternative. “How about you?”
“Thinking about stripping the asphalt shingles off the old shed out back and replacing it with metal roofing. Had some leaks over the winter and it’ll be a good practice run since we’ve only got another few years in this house roof.”
“I can give you a hand today and stop by the station later in the afternoon.” That kind of manual labor, Ben didn’t mind. But the first weekend he’d been back, he’d gotten suckered into snaking a clogged drain for his mom’s widowed friend because Jimmy was busy and he’d spent hours fighting his gag reflex. There was a reason Jimmy became a plumber and Ben was a paramedic. Blood he could handle. The black slimy stuff that lived in clogged drains, not so much.
“You have a cut on your hand,” his mom pointed out. “Make sure you put a padded bandage on it and wear good leather gloves over it.”
Under the sweet maternal concern was an edge of command that made him think of Laney and smile. She’d been cute as hell bossing him around yesterday, and he felt bad she’d been embarrassed to find out he was a paramedic. He hadn’t really been hiding it, but he probably should have mentioned it when she accused him of waiting for her to turn her back so he could spit on his open wound.
