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Make Benny laugh.
I caught him off guard with that, as designed. He recovered himself as quickly as he let it slip. The smile vanished, laughter a onetime guffaw that echoed and then flew away. That elation never left his eyes, though he schooled the lower portion of his face into submission. I stepped aside and gestured for him to come in.
Bennett let out a low, appreciative whistle when we reached the kitchen. “Yeah, I guess she remodeled it at some point,” I said.
His brow lifted. “Eightburners? Does Cordelia even cook?”
“Nope,” I said, “but the caterers she hires do. The last time I was home, this whole thing was, like, one giant surface ofwood. Everything was hidden behind a wood facade.”
“When was the last time you came home?” Bennett found a seat at the island. He chose a spot closest to the exit, in case he needed to make a hasty retreat.
“Eight years ago,” I said as I walked to the opposite end of the kitchen where the corner held the caffeination station. “Christmas. Rachel and I got smashed after my mother fired her for the one hundredth time, according to Rachel. She’d been counting.” I laughed lightly and wagged my head at the memory. “Christmas morning was rough that year.” I pulled out the clear drawer for the pods beneath the machine and waved my finger at the assortment. “There’s a lot here to choose from. Any preference?”
Bennett stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “Whatever you got.”
“Cream? Sugar? Fake sugar? Oat milk?” We didn’t have oat milk, but everyone in LA did. Hopefully, he wasn’t one ofthosepeople.
“Plain is fine. That is a fancy-looking machine.”
I dropped in a Bennett blue-colored pod and hit the Brew button. The machine whirred to life. “All chrome and polished finishes.” I grabbed a wand protruding from the side and triedveryhard not to make a crude gesture. “There’s even a steamer. Fanciest home machine I’ve ever seen.”
“You mean those things aren’t a dime a dozen out in LA?”
I readied a second mug from the cabinet for myself. “There’s this weird throwback trend right now. People are obsessed with pour-overs and grinding beans in these little spice grinders. Takes about ten minutes just for a small regular coffee.” Bennett’s coffee finished. I swapped out the mug for mine and dropped in a fresh pod. Caramel-hazel, like my eyes. “I have a cheap drip machine at my house and that’s good enough for me, thank you very much.”
I brought the mug to Bennett and set it gently on the counter between his hands. In all this sea of white finishes and his black uniform, those blue eyes glistened like the only color an artist needed to paint a masterpiece. We stared for a prolonged moment, a microsecond too long for propriety’s sake. A tether formed between us, or at least had been forming. I could almost see it, like the concealed side of a waxing moon.
My coffee finished brewing and I retrieved it. Sat next to Bennett. He had his hands locked onto his mug like they were a heat sink for the warmth.
“How’s your father?” I asked, a question I researched an hour ago. A quick scan of obits for Walter Dubois in Acton, Massachusetts showed the man was still kicking.
“Ol’ Walt. He’s doing great. His back isn’t so good, but he’s managing. Still plays poker with the boys every Friday night.”
I had been blown away by Walt’s kindness the first time Bennett brought me over. Most of the fathers I met in Concord were stuffy and too busy to interact with their own kids, let alone their kids’ friends. Walt shook my hand, commented on my sturdy grip, and clapped me on the back when I agreed to help him retrieve something from a high shelf. He and Bennett were not the tallest of men.
I gained precious insight into Bennett’s psyche after meeting his father. Before that, he had told me how his father divorced his mother. They lived down in Virginia, and Walt brought them to Acton after a friend offered him a job. Bennett hadn’t gone into detail then about the circumstance of the divorce and the move, and why he walked with a slight limp in his left leg in those days. I only found out why later in the summer, after countless nights atop our blanket of red clover by the river. When the gentle rushes of the water whispered for us to share truths, encouraged by a stalwart warden overhead in the starry sky.
“I’m happy to hear that,” I said and blew on the coffee so that I could take a careful sip. Bennett kept his between his hands. “Wow, he must have been so proud when you became an EMT.”
Now, I knew damn well Bennett Dubois had been aparamedic, because I replayed the entirety of each of our interactions thus far a dozen times an hour. I knew that paramedics made sure you never referred to them as EMTs. I also knew Bennett was likely to correct me, and in fact, I had planned on it. I gave the wrong information because I wanted to seehowhe would correct me.
“He was very, very proud when I graduated from the paramedicine program.” Subtle, gentle correction. Nothing terse or inflammatory. He was tactful, I’ll give him that.
“And the cop thing. When did that happen?”
“Two years ago. I had been working as a paramedic in Boston since I graduated from the program. A decade of seeing some pretty awful things. I had to get out.”
I leaned back and gestured to the whole of the room. “Then you landed in Concord PD. Not too shabby.” I scratched at my beard. “I guess Newburyport would be pretty cushy, too. Sudbury is probably quiet. Anywhere but Boston.”
He snickered, but it came out as air through his nostrils. No smile. “Funny you say that. I actually applied for a position in Newburyport. Concord was hiring and they had their eyes on someone else. But my dad used poker night with the chief to help me out.”
I slapped the island and grinned. “Good ol’ Walt! Love to hear it.”
He rubbed at the stubble on his chin and rolled his upper lip in his teeth. “Yeah. He’s great.” A shadow crossed his face. Both sets of fingers drummed on the un-sipped mug. “Hey. Listen, I’m really sorry to hear about your mother. It’s never easy.”
His kindness touched a spot in me that I used for emotion while on set. When filming, I proactively opened the gate to that spot, going through a mental exercise to tap into things. Yet here, sitting with him in the quietude of a spring New England morning, he opened that gate himself with only a few words. I looked away from him to keep myself in check. A walnut formed directly in my throat. I swallowed hard. Took a sip of coffee. Burned my tongue.
Couldn’t look at him.
