Page 33 of All the way home

OK, let me know when you’re boarding?

I’m gonna leave halfway through your flight

you got it boss

“Do you ever think about who people are?” Kieran asks.

Blinking up at him, Zach backtracks to see if he’s missed something.

Kieran points at a couple walking in front of them. “Like, who are these people? What’s their deal? Are they siblings? Married?”

It sounds like Kieran’s finished, but before Zach even opens his mouth, he’s going again.

“The possibilities are endless. I mean, especially in a liminal place like this.”

Liminal. Zach turns the word around in his head appreciatively. Really, Kieran’s right. There’s no guarantee of having anything in common with anybody at an airport besides that you’re all trying to be someplace else.

The couple in front of him are walking together, but they’re not talking, and they’re not holding hands, which rules out a lot of clues. He’s tall, built like an enormous teddy bear in jeans and a puffy vest, strides so long that next to him, the comparatively tiny woman in a gray pinstripe pantsuit has to hoof it at twice his speed, heels clacking.

“What if they’re here together, but only begrudgingly? Maybe they’re planning a wedding. Or they’re business colleagues. Or rivals.” Eyes bright, Kieran turns to Zach, smiling like all this is one giant inside joke.

“I like the wedding planning idea,” Zach offers, because even if he’s lost the plot of this conversation, he wants to be in on the joke.

Clapping his hands together, Kieran nods. “Yes. But still rivals. Best man and maid-of-honor. They’ve hated each other in silence for months, but they’re stuck traveling together to the wedding—of course it’s a destination wedding—and they’re going to have to stick out the delay and try not to kill each other. I give it until one slow dance at the reception. One-night stand. Accidental pregnancy. Boom. Their kid cures cancer.”

Kieran’s talking so fast it’s hard to keep up with his train of thought, like maybe he’s on drugs.

Is he on drugs? They probably wouldn’t have let him through security if he was obviously high. Zach is just terrible at noticing these things.

Warily, Zach says, “You talk a lot.”

The second it’s out, he winces. That was an asshole thing to say.

But Kieran just shrugs. “Well, you don’t, so one of us has to.”

Or we could walk in companionable silence while I figure out how to talk to you and not die.

“I’ve never been known for talking much,” Zach admits.

“Rena is the same way. We’re twins—Mum used to joke that there was a limited supply of sonic space between us and I stole all of it.”

“Twins,” Zach muses. “Which one of you is evil?”

“Oh, definitely me.” Tossing him a grin, Kieran continues, “Anyway, stop me if it gets to be too much. Rena’s tried to train me into talking less, but I’m an old dog.”

No part of Kieran looks like an old dog, but Zach doesn’t say so.

Heaving a sigh, Kieran continues. “I always wonder if other people think about these things.”

It sounds like Kieran’s brain operates on a whole different spectrum than his does, like he’s having twice as many thoughts as Zach at any given minute. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you never know what people are thinking. They could assume anything about you and you’d never know.”

Eyeing Kieran’s peacoat and shiny shoes, Zach nods. So maybe that’s why he’s made such an effort. “I guess I haven’t really thought about it before.”

With a flourish, Kieran gestures to the people sitting at a half-empty gate, half of whom are watching them. “I mean, to a stranger, we could be lifelong friends, right?”

“Right,” Zach echoes, feeling slow and unoriginal.