Chapter 9

Out of all the Bellos’ tiny homes, Pockaway was no doubt the most modest and rustic. It was still a step up from camping or even “glamping” in a tent of any size, but it lacked amenities such as a full stove, a dishwasher, and, well, a place to bathe indoors.

At the other end of the tiny-home spectrum was the house Anthony stood before now. Lilliputtin’ on the Ritz contained luxury furnishings from top to bottom—and not just a shower but a steam shower, something Anthony himself had never experienced.

Apparently this steam shower needed recaulking, according to his father, who had ordered Anthony out of the house at eight a.m. to “put in an honest day’s work instead of moping around like some kinda mook.” Having only three hours’ sleep, Anthony wished he’d hidden his heartache a little better.

His dad had gone ahead on his own, giving Anthony time to grab a breakfast sandwich and more coffee, both of which he’d sucked down before arriving.

As he went up the path, he brushed away a dead leaf from the house’s cute yellow sign. He’d told his mom that Lilliputian was pronounced LilliPYU-shin and not LilliPUTT-in , but she’d been too tickled by the pun to consider renaming the place.

What was Martin doing right now? Hopefully still sleeping ahead of his long day of travel. If Anthony were there, he’d bring Martin breakfast in bed. Maybe they’d eat it, or maybe it would go cold while they did more gratifying bed things.

Anthony gave his cheeks a light smack to pull himself out of this reverie. The memories they’d made were enough. They’d have to be.

Inside LPotR, he goggled as always at the quartz countertop, the hardwood floor, and the remote-controlled skylights. The house wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but the interior was gorgeous.

“Back here!” his dad called out from the bathroom.

Anthony found him kneeling inside the glass-sealed shower, with strips of blue painter’s tape protecting its sleek white subway tiles. They’d decaulked the shower a week ago, giving it more than enough time to dry.

“Thank God, my knees are killing me.” He handed the caulk gun to Anthony, then hauled himself up using the shower’s grab bar. “You take over for a while.”

Anthony started with the bit around the shower head, craning his neck to make sure the stream of caulk was consistent all the way around. They were using silicon caulk, which was better than latex at keeping out moisture but could be a pain in the ass to work with.

“Your friend go home already?” his father asked, toweling off his hands.

“His flight’s not until five.”

“So why aren’t you with him now?”

Anthony answered with a three-syllable noncommittal grunt. Hopefully this was just small talk and he wasn’t in for another lecture.

“I know you’re looking for a direction in life.” His father leaned against the opposite wall—only a couple feet away, because despite the house’s glamor, it was still a tiny home. “Seems to be a thing with your generation, having midlife crises in your thirties instead of your forties. It better not be a sign you’re all gonna die in your sixties.”

“Great talk so far, Dad. Really, really encouraging.”

“Like you never digressed mid-story?”

Fair point. It was clear where Anthony got his rambling from. “This is a story about my direction in life?”

“Yeah, just gimme a minute, all right?” He took in a deep breath and let it out. “When your mom and I came to Harpers Ferry for our honeymoon, we weren’t looking to uproot our entire existence and move to the boondocks—and it really was the boondocks back then. Middle of nowhere, I’m telling ya.”

Anthony nodded. It had still been the boonies when he was a kid.

“So there we were in the travel agent’s office two months before the wedding. Your poor mother was almost in tears because we couldn’t afford a trip to the Caribbean. Broke my fuckin’ heart. I felt about this big.” He held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

“That must have sucked.” Anthony finished the shower head caulk circle and rubbed his neck. This part of the honeymoon story was new to him. He rarely saw his father admit distress, so there was probably a good reason why he was sharing it now.

“So we’re leaving the travel agent’s empty-handed and just when we get to the door the guy goes, ‘Have you considered Ocean City?’” His dad lifted a putty knife out of the tool box on the toilet. “If I’d had this in my hand at that moment, I woulda gutted him.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Ocean City?”

“Every summer everyone went down the Ocean,” his father said, pronouncing it danny ocean like the native Baltimorean he was. “Ocean City’s an autopilot destination, not a romantic honeymoon you’ll remember the rest of your life.”

“True. So what’d you do when he suggested it?” Anthony pointed to the small bowl of water atop the sink.

“I just stared at him. I was too stunad to do anything.” His father held out the bowl for Anthony to dip his finger in. “Your mom, though? Not so much.”

“I bet.” With his wet finger, Anthony smoothed out the bead of caulk he’d just applied. “What’d she do?”

“Well, you know how she’s always loved her giant purses.”

“Hell yeah, they’re legendary.” He started to caulk around the shower handle. “So did she whale on the travel agent’s head with her big-ass bag?”

“Nope. She turned around.”

Anthony looked at him, at the gleam in his dark-brown eyes and the smirk hiding beneath that big bushy white mustache. “And?”

“She turned around so fast, her bag flew out and knocked over this display rack that was sitting on a shelf by the door. About two hundred brochures went flying, all over the carpet. It was like somebody pointed a leaf blower at a house of cards.”

“Holy crap.”

“We’re all frozen there, staring at the brochures, and each of us is waiting for someone else to do something, anything. And that’s when I see a single pamphlet—not a stack, just one single pamphlet mixed in by mistake with all the others—for that old hotel at the top of Harpers Ferry.” He shrugged. “It looked nice, and we could afford it, so we booked it.”

“And the rest is Bello history. Wow.” He’d never heard this mighty prologue to his family’s West Virginia origin story. “But what’s that got to do with me and Martin?”

“I’m just saying.” His father set the putty knife back in the tool box. “Sometimes the paths you stumble upon are the ones that take you the farthest.”

Anthony paused his line of caulk—but only for a moment, because silicon was so unforgiving. He finished the line, then slowly got to his feet and placed the caulk gun into his father’s outstretched hand.

“Somewhere you gotta be?” his dad asked with a knowing grin.

“Yep.” Anthony walked out into the hallway and down the short flight of storage stairs. By the time he was through the front door of Lilliputtin’ on the Ritz, he was jogging, then sprinting, straight into his flux-y future.

On one level, Martin accepted the end of his and Anthony’s three-day fling—though fling seemed a criminally superficial word to describe what they’d shared. He’d never expected to find a friend, much less a lover, on a trip where the main objective was solitude. Their end had been wistful but harmonious, and every memory would be a fond one. It was all anybody could ask for, really.

On another level, however, Martin’s heart hadn’t stopped aching as he drove to BWI Airport, returned the car, and made his way to the small international terminal. Unshed tears kept collecting in his sinuses. Even his feet seemed to drag of their own accord, tripping over each other in the check-in queue and on the way to the loo.

Here and now, standing in the security line, he scanned the crowd again and again. Surely Anthony would appear among these holiday-weary travelers to see Martin off, maybe even join him on his flight home. Or—like in that one Hallmark film—convince Martin not to go at all.

“Step forward, please,” said a patient female voice.

Blinking himself into the present, Martin showed his passport and boarding pass to the agent sitting outside the security area. Then he went back to searching for Anthony.

“Look at me, sir,” the agent said, less patiently.

“Sorry.” He held still while she compared his passport photo to his face. Then she examined his boarding pass for longer than seemed necessary.

When she was finished, she handed back his documents and pointed to the sign showing the X-ray procedures. “Follow all those instructions to the letter.”

“Of course.” Odd that she’d felt she had to tell him but not everyone else.

He took off his shoes and coat and placed them in a dull gray bin, then did the same with his phone, tablet, keys, and bag of small liquid containers.

While he waited to step through the scanner, he took one last look back for Anthony. Who wasn’t there, of course.

It was his turn now, but an agent stood on the other side of the X-ray machine holding his hand up in a STOP gesture. “Step through the other scanner, please.”

More oddness, but probably a random thing. A few other people in the queue had been asked to enter the booth-like millimeter wave scanner instead of the simple arch-shaped metal detector.

He held still with his arms in the proper configuration, like he was caught mid-cheer after seeing a goal scored. The green light came on, so he walked out and went to the conveyor belt to collect his things.

“Sir, please step over here.”

Now what? He went to a table where an agent was emptying Martin’s entire rucksack, the one he’d packed systematically so everything he needed on the plane would fit.

The biggest and clearly most senior security agent yet came up to the table. He watched the unpacking of Martin’s rucksack, then examined him. “Are you meeting someone?”

“Me?” Martin asked, idiotically. “No. Not at all.”

“Then for whom were you looking?” the senior agent asked with a flat voice and an unsettling adherence to grammar.

“What—oh.” Martin let out a breath. He must have appeared anxious in the security queue as he waited in vain for Anthony to sweep him off his feet.

“I was hoping my—a-a-friend—” He stopped stammering. Only honesty would see him boarding his flight rather than being strip-searched in a brightly lit room. “I met someone over the holiday, and we got on so well, in a romantic sense, I thought perhaps they might, I don’t know, appear at the last minute and stop me getting on the aeroplane. Like at the end of a rom-com?” He sighed. “It’s stupid. That never happens in real life.”

The senior agent narrowed his eyes at him, then perused the contents of Martin’s rucksack arranged on the table. Finally he nodded. “You may proceed to your gate.”

“Thank you.” Martin started stuffing his crap back into the rucksack. “Sorry to alarm.”

“By the way,” the agent said, “your checked baggage has been pulled for examination as well. So it might be late arriving at your final destination.”

Martin gritted his teeth. Better to have his bag arrive late at home than in a foreign country. “Thank you,” he said again.

Having learnt his lesson, he didn’t look for Anthony at the gate—not until the last moment before handing his boarding pass to the airline worker, and even then it was nothing more than a cursory glance. Anthony wasn’t coming.

On the plane, he settled into his aisle seat, then pulled out his phone to check, one last time, if Anthony had answered the texts Martin had sent an hour before:

Martin

Thank you again

For everything

No reply. Martin couldn’t stop himself sending more sincerity. What did he have to lose?

I hope we meet again someday

He kept his eyes on the screen, looking for the dots to appear indicating Anthony was composing a reply.

Martin recognized the sinking sensation inside him. It was the same heavy emptiness he’d felt that Christmas night in the control center, as he and his team waited for Beagle 2 to send its signal back to Earth.

“Pardon me,” said a male voice with an accent from the American South, “I think I got the window seat here.”

Martin smiled by reflex, and, in the tenth of a second as he looked up, he truly believed Anthony was surprising him on the plane , just like in that one film where?—

No. It was some random guy with a beard and a cowboy hat.

Martin’s smile vanished as his heart seemed to shrivel up inside his chest. “Of course.” He stood in the aisle to let the man settle in two seats away, leaving the middle seat empty between them.

“You bound for Iceland or Scotland?” the man asked as he unfolded a copy of the Wall Street Journal .

“Scotland. Home.”

“You left home for Christmas? Did your job make you do that?”

Martin hesitated. “More of a personal mission.”

They chatted now and again for the first hour of the flight. Stanley, it turned out, was from Texas and had never lived in West Virginia, which proved Martin had yet to discern the nuances of southern accents.

A regular international business traveler, Stanley fell asleep directly after dinner, a feat Martin found impossible despite his pillow, sleep mask, and chamomile tea. Next time he’d bring sleeping pills. If there was a next time.

When Martin managed to fitfully doze, Anthony’s face appeared behind his eyelids. Why hadn’t he answered the texts? Was he trying to make a clean break? Would they never have contact again? The thought was too sad to bear.

At the stopover in Reykjavik, Martin drank an espresso and watched with other excited travelers as green and pink curtains of aurorae appeared in the pitch-black sky outside the terminal.

The first glimmers of daylight were gracing the horizon when his plane touched down in Glasgow—fifteen minutes after he’d finally fallen asleep, of course. Blearily he fished his phone out of the seat pocket and switched it on to find out which family member would fetch him from the airport and take him back to his flat.

There was a text from his mum—plus two from Anthony.

Anthony

No thanks needed. It was my pleasure!

And yeah we should totally meet again lol

Martin let out a relieved laugh that was almost a cackle. The woman across the aisle raised an eyebrow at him.

As he took his rucksack from the overhead compartment, Martin wondered at the lol at the end of Anthony’s last message. It was a common verbal texting tic, but Anthony hadn’t used it before, and it seemed out of place here. Maybe it meant Anthony didn’t really think they’d see each other again but was willing, as ever, to embrace the uncertainty.

Martin shambled through baggage claim and customs, his eyes watering from a steady series of yawns.

He rounded the last turn before the arrivals terminal and started down a long, sloping corridor. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Another text.

Anthony

How about I come see you for Hogmanay?

Martin stopped in his tracks, prompting a, “Fuck’s sake!” from the young woman behind him.

His thumbs couldn’t move fast enough over the keys.

Martin

YES!!!

You mean this year?

He kept walking, dragging his rolling suitcase with one hand and holding up the phone with the other.

Of course this year!

Martin hit the microphone button and dictated his response. “Amazing, full stop. When will you arrive question mark.” He thumbed the send button and stared at the screen as he walked.

How about now?

Martin’s steps slowed. Did Anthony’s now refer to this week or?—

Look up buttercup

Martin stopped and slowly raised his eyes, afraid of what he wouldn’t see.

Anthony stood at the end of the corridor, not twenty feet away, with a suitcase at his feet. His dark hair looked slept-in, but his eyes were bright as ever, as bright as faerie lights in a forest.

Martin dropped his suitcase handle and ran to him. Their embrace nearly knocked them over from his momentum.

“Oh my God, you’re here.” Martin squeezed him tight, tucking his face into Anthony’s neck and inhaling his scent, to confirm this wasn’t a dream. “You cheeky bam, you.”

“I couldn’t stay away,” Anthony said. “I tried, I swear. Just not very long, and not very hard.” His grip suddenly loosened. “Dude, your suitcase is now an unattended package. Someone’s gonna blow it up if you don’t grab it.”

“Oh! Right.” Martin hurried back with Anthony on his heels. “How did you arrive here before me?”

“Direct flight from Dulles.”

“That must have cost a packet on such short notice.”

Anthony shrugged. “I still have most of my severance from the TV station. This seemed like a worthy extravagance.” He grasped Martin’s hand. “By the way, sorry it took me so long to answer your texts. At first I thought it might ruin the surprise, but then later I thought I might be a dick for leaving you hanging, but by that point, my phone was in airplane mode, and I totally forgot I could use the plane’s Wi-Fi to send texts.”

Martin had missed Anthony’s run-on streams of consciousness. “I forgive you.”

The main terminal of Glasgow International Airport had never looked so bright or sounded so joyful. They shifted swiftly round the other passengers, sometimes separating but always reuniting.

“I cannae believe this!” Martin shouted for the third time in a minute, his body buzzing too much to stay silent. “Wait, why did you text me just now to see if it was okay to come?”

“I figured for once I should ask permission instead of forgiveness.”

“What if I’d said no?”

“I would’ve gone home.” Anthony tilted his head. “But not till after Hogmanay. You made that sound fun.”

“So eventually you would’ve found another hot Scot to kiss at the bells?”

“I never say ‘never.’”

Martin laughed, then remembered the missing member of their trio. “Who’s looking after Betty?”

“Mom and Dad. Oh, and guess who phoned the rescue yesterday, wanting to adopt a senior dog? Sadie Flaherty, Pumpkin Spice’s mom. Remember I gave her the business card? I think Betty and her would be a good match.”

“That’s brilliant.” He nodded toward the exit where his mum had said she’d pick him up. “But won’t you miss her?”

“The whole point of fostering is to let them go to their forever home. I’ll always love Betty, but she was never mine to lose.”

“Will you see her before she’s adopted?”

Anthony nodded. “The process usually takes a couple weeks, and I’ll be home on January third.”

So he’d be here a full week. Enough time to discover whether they had something worth arranging their lives around, for a long-distance or even not-so-long-distance relationship. Martin couldn’t wait to start down this potentially sublime path.

They went out into an unusually clear and bright Glasgow morning and made their way to the A zone of the sheltered car pickup area. “Mum said this was where she’d be.” He looked to the right along the queue of cars parked beside the pavement.

“Might be that car with the big ol’ brindle greyhound head sticking out the back.”

Martin looked to the left where Anthony was gesturing. Sure enough, his best friend’s needle nose was pointing their way, his ears fully pricked.

“Jarv!” He tugged Anthony toward the car. As they reached it, his mum got out of the driver’s seat. “Mum, this is Anthony. He’s to stay at mine for Hogmanay.”

“Hiya!” She smiled, unfazed, as though he brought home an extra man from every trip. “Welcome to Glasgow, Anthony.”

“Thanks!” He beamed at her, then at Martin. “It’s great so far.”

They put their baggage in the boot, then Anthony sat in the front passenger seat while Martin slipped into the backseat with Jarvis, who licked and snuffled his face, whip tail thonking against the far window.

“How was your Christmas?” his mum asked in a guarded tone as she merged into airport traffic. “Anything interesting happen?” She held up a hand, no doubt referring to his bandaged one.

“That’s a funny wee story,” he said. “I’ll wait and tell the whole family at once.”

“Cannae wait. What about…you know.” She glanced at Anthony beside her.

“It’s okay, Mum, he knows about the Curse. In fact, he may have helped me break it.”

“Och, that would be amazing.”

“Aye.” Martin looked at Anthony, who gazed back at him, amber eyes full of affection. “A fucking Christmas miracle.”