Page 23 of All the way home

At once, Rena understands his hesitation. Dully, she says, “Oh.”

A grim silence falls.

The same tightness that’s been eating at her for twelve months constricts around Rena’s heart.

Lucas clears his throat, eyes trained on the spot where Kieran disappeared. “So . . . are you going to run interference?”

It’s tempting.

It’s so tempting.

But . . . she shakes her head. “No. Interfering would be going out of bounds.”

“Okay.” Lucas nods, then sucks in a breath and repeats, “Okay. I’ll follow your lead.”

In truth, Rena would love nothing more than to follow this poor, unsuspecting Not-Josiah and tell him to walk away, but she knows how well that would go. Kieran’s stony fury is crystal clear in her head, and that silence. Every moment of his life, Kieran’s been loud, except for when he’s angry. She doesn’t think she can stomach that frequency of quiet directed straight at her.

Not again.

Chapter Seven

Zach

As he follows Kieran away from the gate, Zach can hear Mara’s voice in his head.

You gotta give him credit for boldness.

“So we’re going to . . . walk around the airport?”

“Considering we’ve both got legs,” Kieran says, which is just so nonsensical that Zach doesn’t know how to argue. “We can leave your backpack with my sister if you want.”

Yeah, Zach is definitely getting robbed. Again. He can envision this as part one of a multistep plan: Get him alone. Get him to give up his bag.

Turning on his heel, Kieran takes one look at Zach and laughs. Then, as though he’s in his head, he tells him, “We wouldn’t steal from you.”

“That’s what someone who was going to steal from me would say,” Zach blurts out before he can stop himself, and then has to fight every urge to wince.

One hand held aloft like he’s in court, Kieran says, “I solemnly swear that me and mine will not abscond with any of your property.”

Zach splutters.

“No offense, but if I was going to pick someone from this gate to steal from, you would not be my top choice.”

“You keep starting sentences with no offense and then going on to say something objectively horrible anyway,” Zach says, without malice. He’s fairly certain that anyone who says abscond is probably not going to . . . well, abscond. But if Kieran thinks Zach’s last bag is leaving his line of sight at any point this evening, he’s out of his mind. “And I’ll keep my bag. But thanks.”

Grinning, Kieran starts walking away, as though certain Zach’s going to follow.

And because curiosity never killed anything clever enough to understand consequences, and he’s already gotten several of his worst-case-scenarios out of the way today, Zach does.

This close to security, the crush of noise and color in the terminal is overwhelming—it’s all too easy to absorb the energy, the clattering from every direction, a baby wailing down the hall, the beeping from various machines, announcements over the loudspeakers. An extended family moves as one, kids sitting on top of luggage piled so high the man pushing the trolley has to crane to the side to see. There’s so much vying for Zach’s attention—everywhere he looks there’s an ad for something new: a fancy watch, a perfume that promises seduction in a bottle, the next sleek and unattainable smartphone—that he blinks, turning this way and that to take it all in.

Somehow, though, Kieran is what keeps drawing his eye. Kieran is the focal point of every frame, standing out from the backdrop of suitcases and suits. It could just be his teal coat, or the way his hair seems to fall just-so, but more than that, there’s something about him that radiates ease. He takes up space the same way Mara does, something about his posture magnetic and warm.

Neither Zach nor Kieran bothers with making conversation in the chaos, but as they leave security behind, the silence becomes more and more pronounced, until it’s definitely weird. It’s definitely weird, and Kieran’s going to think Zach’s weird, and then what?

“You’re also headed home, I presume?”

Here it comes. The questions, back and forth like tennis. Zach’s fucking awful at tennis.