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“This is bad, Laura,” Clint said with a groan, and Laura felt a shiver of fear run down her shoulders.
She clutched the phone tighter. “Clint, are you hurt?” she asked. “Phil said this would be a milk run.”
Clint and Phil never gave Laura mission specifics, obviously – she had no idea where Clint was calling from right now – but Phil had acquiesced a while ago to at least give her a classification of risk when Clint got called out. She had asked him one night as they sat sharing a bottle of wine together on her porch swing while Clint put Cooper to bed. ‘If I spend all my energy worrying like they’re all high-risk, I’ll burn myself out in five years, Phil,’ she had said. He thought for a minute and offered a hierarchy: milk run, standard, risky, high-risk. It was basic, but it gave her some reassurance.
This was supposed to be a milk run.
“It is a milk run,” Clint replied, and Laura could feel through the phone the roll of his eyes, “But it’s a long-assed milk run and I guarantee I’m not going to survive. I’m going to melt.”
Laura laughed. Complaining Clint ™ was practically standard; she shouldn’t have let a moment of panic sneak in. “You’re not going to melt. Our barn is melting, by the way, but you won’t. Clint, it’s 102 with no breeze here today.”
“Liquid, Laura. I’m going to become Clint-flavored goop. 102 with no breeze? Try 101 and 70% humidity?”
“We’re officially the hottest place in the country, Clint. We win.”
“I’m sitting on the hottest rooftop in – well, where I am,” he replied, and Laura figured that meant he was out of the country. She swallowed the worry that always got added for that.
“Your kids are out in the back yard sitting in a plastic kiddie pool, and they dumped every piece of ice in the freezer into it,” Laura said, and she leaned over to look out the kitchen window and keep an eye on the kids. Cooper was shoving an ice cube down Lila’s bathing suit.
“I’m soooo fucking jealous,” Clint replied. “I want a kiddie pool filled with ice.”
“Do you think Phil would go for that? You could stand in it on the roof.”
“Phil’s wearing his suit, complete with jacket, at the moment. I don’t’ trust his judgment at all on this,” Clint replied, and Laura heard something in his voice.
“Seriously, are you okay?” she asked. He sounded sad, and talking about Phil never made him sad.
He sighed. “I really wish I were in the kiddie pool with Cooper and Lila. Miss you guys.”
She closed her eyes. “We miss you, too.” She didn’t tell him how Lila’s current daddy-phase had led to tears four nights in a row and cries of “I just want my Daddy!” It wouldn’t help.
“It might be another week,” he added.
“It’s not supposed to cool down here,” she said. “Maybe if you don’t turn to goop on that roof, you’ll be able to come home and sit in the kiddie pool. Cooper will put ice down your shorts.”
“That sounds amazing,” Clint answered, and Laura could hear the longing in his voice. She thanked the universe that she’d found someone so willing to enjoy their family as Clint was.
“Try not to turn to goop in the meantime,” Laura said.
“Ugh. Phil’s gonna have to ship me home in a bottle at this rate.”
“Nope,” she said. “I only live with solid-form husbands.”
There was a pause, and then Clint spoke in a fake-sultry voice. “When I get home I’ll show you my solid form.”
She burst out laughing, and she heard him join her. “God, I miss you,” she said. They let a silence linger for a moment. “Get yourself done and home, okay?”
“Okay,” he said. “Make some extra ice for me?”
“Done,” she answered. “Love you.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Love you, too. Hug the kids for me.”
“Of course. Hug Phil.”
“Yep. Maybe I’ll put ice down his suit pants.”
Laura sighed. “I’d like you to come home from a milk run in once piece, please.”
“Fine. Bye Laura.”
She hung up and watched the kids play in the pool for a few minutes, thinking about Clint, melting on a rooftop somewhere in the world.
A week later, Phil gave her a heads up on what time Clint would be home, so she and the kids filled the pool with ice, and Clint climbed into it with all his clothes on as soon as he stepped out of the car.