Ben pulled into the parking lot of the Academy campus, turned off his beloved 80s Trans Am, and accessed the app on his phone to find the calendar of lectures for the day. Today was a classroom day; his schedule fluctuated between field/tactical training, physical fitness tests, and lectures on various topics. It didn't matter to Ben what day it was; he loved it all. He felt like he sat through most of these lectures at his house growing up, as his parents casually discussed different elements of the job. If he didn't glean the information from his parents, his Grandpa Harry and Uncle Hutch filled in the blanks with their gift of storytelling from their heyday. He couldn't wait until graduation.
Ben couldn't think of a single time when he didn't want to be a cop. It made sense; it was literally in his blood. In high school, he joined the Palm Beach Police Explorers Program, one of the many organizations created by his father. This program brings recruits high school students to teach them various aspects of police work, focusing on community service and outreach. If students completed the entire program and service hours, they earned a scholarship to the Criminal Justice program at Palm Beach College. Ben completed it all and was now in his final weeks of training. In a month, he would be a police officer.
As he scrolled through the list of lectures for the day, he stopped and smiled. 3:00 p.m.- An Overview of the Homicide Division with Captain Rita Lee Lance. Mom. While most cadets would be embarrassed to have their parents join their class for the day, Ben couldn't be more proud. A trade-off to joining the Palm Beach P.D. was filling tremendous shoes- his parents' names were everywhere. Medals, commendations, near-perfect arrest records… he knew going into it that people were going to expect great things from him. That didn't upset him in the slightest- he was ready for the challenge and aspired to become them. When his father guest-lectured a few months back, the other cadets caught on quickly to the namesake, but only the instructors knew that Rita was his mom. He enjoyed the mystery with this one— some of his classmates were already making comments about special treatment since he had known most of the instructors his entire life. When Commissioner Hudson was on campus doing a tactical training seminar, he accidentally slipped and called him Uncle Lou in earshot of others. He laughed thinking about what they would say if they ever found out that the mayor was his godfather. He had to remember to keep a lid on it today. He honestly didn't care what people thought, but he wanted to earn his rank fair and square. He was determined to not have any preferential treatment, which was hard to do when everyone in his family was a prominent member of Palm Beach.
Before leaving the car, he quickly scrolled his phone, noticing a text from Rosalie. He returned her text about taking some videos tonight at the game and then sent Mom a text: see you at 3 ? ゚ᄂᆱ?.
He chuckled to himself, thinking about his big sister. Rosie was brilliant and beautiful, a mirror image of his mother with a medical brain rivaling his two aunts. However, his training in behaviors (and the fact that they shared a password for the airline app from when he last went to visit her) led him to the discovery that she would be home by the end of the day. He had been getting reminder alerts about her flight since the beginning of the week. He kept it to himself though and was excited that she would surprise the rest of the family. Sam was going to go nuts.
His feisty, tenacious little sister was carrying on the Lorenzo name in her own, spirited way. At 13, she owned him on the court when they played one-on-one; she was destined to be a superstar. Her games had become events, to the point where their parents secretly added some extra private security at the school just in case any old grudges weaseled their way in. It would take a mere two-second Google search to discover who Sam's parents were; Mom and Dad took no chances.
Ben wrestled with the driver's side door, using the screwdriver he kept on hand to pop the handle so it would open. Dad was going to help him fix it once he retired next month, adding it to the list of car maladies they were going to work on together. He grinned as he slammed the door shut and polished the smudged handprint left in its wake. It was going to be a good day.
