The Little Things.

Chapter 1The Little Things.

Heron~I dropped my bag on the couch, happy to finally be home. Though I loved playing rugby, jetlag was a real thing. If I were getting any kind of decent sleep, I might not be so damn sour. However, since that wasn’t the case, this was my life right now.I also knew that I had only a few hours of solitude before I was going to have to call my mom to let her know that I was home. Though I always texted my parents of my comings and goings, Mom insisted on a phone call whenever I got home from an away game. Luckily for me, I’d been raised by two decent human beings, so I didn’t mind still checking in with them at the age of thirty-three.My father, Darnold Treyton, was a firefighter, and while he’d raised me to be my own man, he had also raised me to believe in the importance of family. My mother, Rebecca Treyton, was a schoolteacher, and while she had raised me to use my head, she had also encouraged me to follow my dreams. Hence, why I played rugby five months out of the year. While not glamorous, I loved the sport, and I was lucky to be able to do what I loved.Now, while I played rugby five months out of the year, the other seven months of the year were spent working with my father as a fellow firefighter. So, my mom’s worrying came about honestly. When I had decided to become a firefighter like my father, she’d been proud, but like all mothers, her concern for me had risen a notch. Though she knew that my father would never let anything happen to me, it couldn’t be easy for her to not worry about us. So, as a way to repay her for all her love and support, I had chosen one career that could kill me, and another one that could result in permanent injury. Yay me.Granted, with the rugby season ending in June, I always took a few weeks off before going back to work at the fire station. During those weeks, I liked to spend as much time as I could with my little brother and sister, twins that had come as a surprise to everyone. Oliver and Olivia were fifteen and hadn’t been planned. I’d been eighteen, ready to see the world and free my parents of all their parental obligations, when Mom had produced a positive pregnancy test. Luckily, though not planned, the twins had been very wanted, and they were both great kids. However, with the eighteen-year age gap, I wasn’t as close to them as I wanted to be, so I did my best to see them when I could. Considering they’d be on summer break during my time off, I packed as much quality time with them into those few weeks as I could. Plus, it gave my parents a small break.Now, while both jobs were physically demanding, I loved what I did. One job entertained the masses, the other saved lives, and I felt like it was a good balance in my life. Granted, it made dating hard, but with the birth of the twins, I no longer had the pressure of providing grandchildren for my parents if time ended up getting away from me. If I never got myself a wife, then Oliver or Olivia could make it up to my mom and dad. Besides, I wasn’t eager about settling just to meet society’s expectations of how a man my age should be living.There was also the fact that lots of women weren’t too keen on dating a man that played sports or worked a dangerous job. Women liked stability, and my life was far from stable. While it was secured financially, and I considered myself a good man, the physicality of rugby and running into burning buildings made my life pretty unstable. Women weren’t enthusiastic about signing up for a life that could leave them taking care of me for the rest of their lives or turn them into a widow in the blink of an eye.When my phone chimed in my back pocket, I pulled it out, certain that it was my mother. I couldn’t stop my grin as I saw the name flashing across the screen.“What’s up?”“With Mother’s Day out of the way, what are you doing for Memorial Day?”If I had a best friend, it’d be Sean Rian, one of my fellow teammates. He was a fly-half, and one of the best in the league. He was one year younger than me, though he had an inch on me when standing side-by-side. He looked like your classic Irish lad with his red hair, hazel eyes, and ability to drink most people under the table. He was also a devout family man, and whenever we had an open holiday on our schedule, Sean was always inviting me to join him, his wife, and three kids for whatever they had going on. The man was a people-person, and God bless him.“Not sure,” I answered. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to my parents yet.”“Well, we’re having a barbecue at my place, and you can bring the rest of the family if you want,” he offered graciously.“Thanks, man,” I said, meaning it. “I appreciate it.”“Not a problem,” he replied. “The more the merrier.”I snorted. “You’re a strange bird, Sean Rian.”“You’re one to talk,” he retorted.Ignoring that, I said, “I’ll hit you up after I speak with my parents.”“You better.”After hanging up with Sean, I grabbed a water from the fridge, then grabbed my bag from the floor. I needed to get to all the domestic shit that I didn’t have time for before Mom took up the rest of my day. Our next game was a home game, so that helped, but being on the road was no joke. If I had millions of dollars or my face was as popular as Clayton Kershaw’s, then banks would probably stay open late for me and so forth, but I didn’t play professional baseball, nor was I pulling in seven figures a year. Come to think of it, the man probably pulled in eight or nine, though I didn’t follow the MLB close enough to know for sure.Dumping my bag on the bed, I unzipped it, then started pulling out all my dirty clothes and other bullshit that I accumulated from the hotel rooms. Most of the time, it was napkins with phone numbers on them, but I always ended up with a complimentary pen or shower cap in my bag. I was always in such a hurry to pack and go home that I usually just tossed whatever was nearby in my bag.After tossing all my dirty clothes in the hamper, I turned on the shower before stripping bare. While I had taken a shower at the hotel this morning, I never felt clean until I took a shower at home. Home showers were just more relaxing, and I needed to relax like a motherfucker. The insomnia was still winning, and I could only hope that being home might help.Once I was out of the shower and laundry was underway, I checked my mail, paid some bills, then picked up the phone to call my mom.As soon as she answered, she said, “Took you long enough.”I grinned. “I miss you, too.”She harrumphed, and that just made me smile more.*****Eliza~While I was grateful for having a job that paid my bills, the monotony of it got to me sometimes. I was a medical data clerk, and though I was good with computers and organized enough to be good at my job, there was nothing exciting about the work or the office that I worked for. I also made enough to only pay my bills. Now, while I wasn’t poor, my savings account was one of the saddest around.I also wanted to get out of my apartment, though that was beginning to look like a lost cause. Now, while I was grateful to have a safe place to live, my goal was to own a house. I wanted to live the suburban dream, though my dream didn’t necessarily include a husband or children at this time. I was only thirty-one, and while some people felt like your thirties were the perfect time to get that husband and kids, I didn’t just want a husband and kids; I wanted what my parents had shown me growing up.Though every day hadn’t been perfect, my parents’ marriage had been the stuff of dreams. My dad, James Dodger, had been a commercial pilot, and my mother, Mora Dodger, had been a nurse. They’d both had demanding careers, but that had never stopped them from making each other a priority. They’d been a team, and I’d never felt neglected or like a burden, even with no siblings. We’d been happy, and I was very aware of how lucky I’d been to have them as my parents.Four years ago, they’d been on vacation in Chile, and the country had suffered one of their worst earthquakes in its history. My parents had lost their lives, and it still hurt to this day. While I’d been fortunate enough to have them in my life for the first twenty-seven years of my existence, the plan had been to have them in my life for the next fifty.At any rate, they hadn’t been the only ones to lose their lives during that fateful day. Thousands had parish, and I tried not to think about how horrifying it’d been to ship their bodies back to the US like they’d been packages from overseas or something. It had taken weeks before I could finally find the time to grieve properly, and the memories still brought tears to my eyes if I fixated on them too much.Three months after losing my parents, I had settled their affairs, and instead of keeping the money from their estate, I had donated it all to the citizens of Chile. My mother had been passionate about being a nurse and helping people, so I’d done what I was sure that she would have wanted me to do. I had given their money to the people that had needed it at the time, and though that left me trying my hand at a second source of income, I’d do it again. My parents had been all about helping others, and that was what I’d wanted them to be remembered for.So, for all that my life sounded sad and in serious need of something interesting, I did have support in the form of my best friend, Coops Donnelly. Coops was thirty-one, five-foot-eight, blonde with startling blue eyes, and she’d just gotten her real estate license a month ago. She was also married to her high school sweetheart, Ranger Connelly, and they had a set of seven-year-old twins that drove her crazy most days. They also had two dogs that made up her perfect house of chaos.Coops and I had met three years ago, and it’d been completely by chance. I’d been buying some flowers for my parents’ grave, and Coops had entered the flower shop, looking haggard and like she might go viral at any moment. She’d needed a last-minute flower arrangement because her mother-in-law was a soul-sucking demon sent to make her life a living hell-her words, not mine. Apparently, her mother-in-law was of the hellish variety, and though Ranger did his best to shield Coops from his mother’s poison, he wasn’t always successful.Nevertheless, one look at my face, and Coops had said to hell with her monster-in-law, had asked me if I was okay, and when I had broken down in tears, we had ended up spending the afternoon at Rosario’s, a little café two doors down from the flower shop. Coops had listened to me grieve my parents, and the crazy woman had kept rejecting her mother-in-law’s calls the entire time. From there, we’d become best friends, and she was still the best person that I knew.Back to my life, such as it was, instead of throwing myself more pity parties, I had decided it was high time to venture out of my comfort zone. Though I’d never quit my job because of the steady income, two weeks ago, I had decided to try my hand at vlogging some baking creations. The internet was filled with people making extra money by videoing their talents, and though baking wasn’t on my list of skills, I could read and do math, so how hard could it really be? Plus, it wasn’t like I had to stick to baking if it didn’t work out for me. There were plenty of other things that I could try until I found my niche.So, two weeks ago, I had made my first batch of cookies on a live stream, and though they hadn’t turned out as fabulous as I would have liked them to, I’d gotten three followers out of it. I had also chosen to do my videos live, so that people could connect with me better. Pre-recorded reels and edits only showed perfect processes with the flawless final product, and that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted people to see the real me. I wanted them to see where I messed up, so that they could save themselves the headache later. Perfection was for airbrushed models in men’s magazines; it wasn’t realistic for normal people, and I was hoping that it’d help people identify with me better.Now, as for my second attempt at baking the other night, my NASCAR cupcakes had turned out to be another disaster, but I’d had four viewers that night, which had been one more than my first show. Granted, my lack of viewership could be that my live streams were done late at night, but I didn’t have time to do them in the day. I worked from eight to five, then after getting home and doing whatever required adulting that needed to be done for the day, that didn’t leave me much time in the evening. By the time that I finished dinner, paid bills, cleaned, did laundry, or whatever, it was close to nine at night. So, after setting out all the ingredients for whatever I was showcasing, it was close to ten by the time I even turned on the camera.Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to give up just yet. My dream of owning a house was very real and important to me, so I could deal with a few setbacks if it eventually got me that damn house. Yeah, I knew that it was going to take a lot more than four viewers for advertisers to start knocking on my door, but that was okay; I wasn’t afraid of hard work. Once I got better and more familiar with the ins and outs of creating internet content, I could even move my time slot to the morning before I had to go to work.Eating my tuna salad sandwich, I thought about what I should try next. The cookies and cupcakes hadn’t worked out as well as I had liked, but with Memorial Day coming up, maybe something patriotic would do nicely. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to make anything with a Mother’s Day theme, and I imagined that Father’s Day was going to be the same. I could do all the other holidays, but not those two days. At least, not yet.However, as I scrolled through Pinterest, what was easier than cookies or cupcakes? I mean, the cupcakes had come out edible enough, but the decorating had been horrendous; I could admit that to myself. Perhaps that’s what I needed to practice more on, the decorating. It wasn’t as easy as a lot of vloggers made it look. Those techniques required a lot more skill than I had given them credit for.When I came across a recipe for sugar cookies, I decided that sugar cookies were going to be my next adventure. I could decorate them in red, white, and blue, and then maybe say something kind about the Memorial Day holiday.Satisfied with my choice, I went back to eating my lunch before heading back to work.