Page 107 of All the way home

Then he straightens and realizes at once how close Kieran is right now.

Oh.

Mere inches.

Zach jolts back, still breathing hard, and abruptly wishes he hadn’t. One hand pressed to his heart where it won’t stop hammering, he sags against the pillar.

Eyes bright, Kieran’s grin is infectious. After a moment to breathe, he says, “That was fun.”

“One second.” Zach slides an inch farther down the pillar, shaking his head. “I might be having a heart attack.”

“Come on,” Kieran whispers after a moment to recover, putting his coat back on at last. “Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, Zach pushes off the pillar and doesn’t make it three steps before his phone starts to ring. He must have accidentally turned his ringer on at some point during all the chaos. Fumbling to silence it, Zach sees the screen and his stomach turns over.

Seth is calling. Again.

He mutters, “What the fuck?”

Pivoting on his heel, Kieran raises both eyebrows. “What?”

And so—fuck it.

Zach lifts the phone to show Kieran the screen. He’s nearly tempted to answer it and hand the phone over, just to see what would happen, but that’s definitely the adrenaline talking.

Kieran’s eyes go wide even as he smiles. “The Seth? Seth with a heart?”

“Shut up.” A flash of heat to his cheeks makes him rub his forearm against his forehead. “I just never got around to changing it.”

“What if you have a secret boyfriend, and you’re just saying you broke up?”

Zach declines the call and keeps walking. “That really does sound like me, doesn’t it?”

“Hey, we’re strangers, remember?”

As Kieran falls into step next to him, Zach elbows him.

This part of the airport is quiet. The lights are low in this wing, and people seem to be using it as an unofficial napping place. In one dark corner, a parent sways back and forth, rocking a baby to sleep, and in the other, there’s—

A lone gray suitcase under a plant, with a tiny piece of purple elastic around the handle.

“What?” Muffled against his palm, Zach lets out a completely undignified noise of delight and takes off, sliding to his knees in front of it. The lock has been smashed—his stomach drops unpleasantly—and he yanks the zipper, fingers fumbling in disbelief.

“Is this your suitcase?” Kieran asks incredulously, just behind him.

“Yes!” Wrenching the zipper open, Zach flips the lid up, heart hammering, rifling through socks, a few T-shirts, the sweaters too bulky to fit in his backpack, and—

The gifts are still here. Everything’s been unwrapped, brown paper torn to shreds, but it’s all still here. The lumpy green scarf for Tove. The now-full leather journal for Mom. Erik’s electric-blue paracord keychain. The aluminum lantern for Dad is a little dented, but only on the side, not on the top, where he’d painstakingly poked holes in the shape of the Aquila constellation—Dad’s favorite—and inside, the lapis lazuli beaded necklace for Anwen rests where he’d left it tucked inside tissue.

Zach collapses forward onto his hands in relief.

Thank God. It’s only right then that he realizes he’d never really let himself think through what might happen if he didn’t get his suitcase back. Honestly, he probably has all the delays to thank for it. And the fact that whoever took his bag has more expensive taste than Zach can offer.

“You made all this, didn’t you?” Kieran asks at his shoulder, with a soft note of incredulity.

With a jolt of surprise at his proximity, Zach straightens. “Yeah.” Taking the lantern, he holds it to his chest, abruptly self-conscious. “We do pretty much only homemade gifts in my family.”

And this is the part where Kieran examines everything critically, Zach knows. The part where Kieran sees what different worlds they come from. He’s not stupid, he knows—by everything—that Kieran’s family is not the type to sit around the Christmas tree and exchange DIY projects. They don’t really have much in common at all, and at some point the bubble’s bound to pop. At some point Kieran’s going to realize that this can’t possibly turn into anything real, and he’ll walk away, or worse, stay and scoff.