My Ex Is Excellent at Emergencies

How it begins

Ben could stop a tent collapsing in a gale, restart a generator in the dark and persuade a frightened stranger to cross a flooded lane. He could not tell Jo why he had left the kitchen light on for three months after their separation.

She knew this because he had just listed the first three skills to her class.

The fourth had appeared on the electricity bill.

“Your guest instructor,” the village chairwoman announced, “comes highly recommended.”

Jo looked at the recommendation form. Her own name appeared at the bottom. She had written it years ago, back when sharing a surname had seemed less important than sharing a useful skill.

Ben gave her the careful nod he used around unstable ladders.

“We can do this professionally.”

“We have before.”

The volunteers waited beside a stack of sandbags. Someone had brought biscuits. Someone else had misunderstood the equipment list and arrived with a decorative garden hose.

Jo divided them into teams.

The exercise was simple: redirect imaginary floodwater away from the hall. Ben would supervise the barrier. Jo would manage communications. Nobody needed to discuss their former flat, the silence after work or the way he could always find the right words when an ambulance was involved.

For eighteen minutes, the plan worked.

Then the hose burst.

Real water struck the chairwoman's shoes. The decorative attachment flew into the hedge. A volunteer shouted an entirely unnecessary warning about pirates.

Ben caught the hose. Jo turned the valve. They moved together without speaking, the old rhythm arriving so easily that she nearly resented it.

The class applauded.

Ben looked at her, wet hair falling into his eyes.

“Coffee after?”

“Is something on fire?”

“No.”

“Someone trapped?”

“No.”

Jo took the towel he offered.

An ordinary invitation. No problem to solve, no person to save. Just two adults standing beside a puddle.

For once, neither had prepared an exercise for what came next.