I parked in the far corner of a lot in downtown Salem, Massachusetts, a town infamous for its seventeenth century witch burnings. We were months away from witchy tourist season, so it was unlikely that anyone would park nearby and possibly dent the E-class Mercedes Xander had lent me. I took a scenic route and stopped repeatedly, which dragged the travel-time out to five hours fifty minutes and hopefully gave Tommy as much time to sleep as possible.

Thanks to all his shift-switching to accommodate the kitten, the poor guy had worked four nights in a row. Luckily the retreat was designed to allow couples the leisure of staying in their rooms until late morning, so Tommy wouldn’t stray too far from his sleep schedule. I had entered the spring semester final grades on Wednesday, and made sure to get plenty of sleep so that I could do all the driving this morning.

My fiancé snored quietly in the passenger seat like a baby goat, producing a shaky “mehhhhh” with each exhalation. I was loath to wake him, but Tommy was dying to spend some time in this tourist town before we got down to business. So I frittered away another fifteen minutes searching tourist sites and selecting stores and attractions, before kissing his forehead, eyelids, nose, chin, and lips.

Tommy woke up giggling, as intended. “Johhhn! Stop it!”

I did, which made him growl and pull my lips back to his. He tasted as delicious and forbidden as Pixie Stix and I would never get enough of him, but I pulled away when his hand roamed in a southerly direction. Although we weren’t close to other cars, it was still midday in a tourist town.

“Are we at the first rest stop?” he asked.

I took his hands in mine and kissed them. “Nope. We’re in Salem already. How’d you sleep?”

Of course, he immediately began spouting a lengthy apology for sleeping the entire way there, which I kissed away because I still couldn’t get over the fact that I could kiss him now.

“Audiobooks,” I said against his lips. “I now know disturbing things about the human body that I’m dying to tell you but won’t, and then I listened to a silly mystery starring a writer with a psychic cat. Now, let me show you what I have planned…”

Tommy was giddy with excitement as we roamed the streets, dancing from shop window to shop window. We bought t-shirts as well as glittery fripperies for him and vampire-hunting gear for myself, before I dragged him into the pièce de résistance: a store filled with some very popular wizarding merchandise.

“Oh my god!!!” he squealed. “Do we have time to run inside? I have to run inside!”

“Of course we have time,” I said. Even if I hadn’t planned to spend an hour or so here, there was no way I could have turned down anything that made him smile like that.

I coaxed him past the clothing and treats and showed him the one thing I knew he’d die over: custom magic wands. Tommy’s squeals reached frequencies that could only be heard by the shop dog, a sweet old pitbull-golden retriever mix. I had called the store this morning, and the artist said he could have ours finished in time for the ride back home.

I then dragged my fiancé to a café, giving him time to scour the web and obsess over cores, woods, and shape. I barely noticed my food disappear into my stomach as we researched the properties of wand materials. We finally decided on what we wanted and Tommy literally skipped on our way back to the store. For some strange reason, however, the shop owner refused to make a wand with our requested cores. Apparently, thestral tail hair would not bond properly with me and instead strongly suggested dragon heartstring within a walnut wand. Tommy’s request of a chimera scale wand was also met with resistance because they were nearly impossible to obtain. They argued heatedly and Tommy went for a walk around the block to cool down.

“Do you even put a core in there? Why can’t you just tell him it has a chimera scale?” I asked, well aware that the man was a simple wood carver who had found a perfect niche market.

“Of course I put a core in!” he said, affronted. “And I would never lie about my wands. I may not be Ollivander, but I studied under him and I assure you that a wizard must truly know his wand.”

Who was I to argue against such sound logic? I told him a bit more about Tommy and we discussed what the man did, in fact, have that would suit. By the time Tommy returned, the wandsmith suggested a birch wand with a demiguise and unicorn dual core. Tommy’s wand would have vine-like carvings while mine would be geometrically shaped, not unlike the famed Elder Wand.

“We need costumes. It’s almost Halloween!” Tommy cried as soon as we were done, dragging me toward the robes and other wizardware. “Who do you want to be? Pleeease don’t be someone from Slytherin!”

I couldn’t hold back my grin.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“You’re still going to be with me in five months?” I hadn’t meant for that to be a question but it was still hard to believe, especially given the difficulties we’d been having lately.

“Of course?” Tommy tilted his head to the side and then in barely a whisper said, “I thought we were engaged.”

I pulled him in for a big hug. He melted against me, fitting perfectly in my arms, and I kissed the top of his head. “We are, but I’m still shocked you’re willing to put up with me.”

We then spent twenty minutes discussing Halloween costumes.

“But gingers are scary in their own right!” I whined.

“First of all, that’s very bigoted of you,” he said, as though he actually disagreed. “But more importantly, that would be a bit incestuous… Let’s do something more romantic. I’ve always wanted to do real couple’s costumes! How about Hermione and Ron?”

“Even Ron doesn’t want to be Ron,” I grumbled. “I think Harry and Ginny would suit us better.”

“I thought you wanted to be the ginger?”

“I do!” I argued, because height was just a number. Or was it age? Regardless, both were numbers double that of the real wizard and, for this purpose, both were irrelevant. “Do you think I can’t pull off Ginny? I’ll get a wig and some hair dye so the carpet matches the drapes.”

He looked at me oddly. “So… you’re trying to scare me? Because I’ll be the only one seeing the carpet.”

Did he expect me to wear a mask? “I think everyone will see my beard.”

“Ohhhhh… the upstairs carpet!” he said, as if that made any sense. Where else would the carpet be? Flooring is directly connected to walls. “That would definitely work, if you don’t want to shave. So does that mean I get to be Harry?”

“Of course!” I said. We then assembled elaborate costumes and agreed to get real glasses from a flea market or ebay, because the plastic ones looked ridiculous, and picked up a few treats as well.

We reached the resort less than an hour later and were greeted by a silent, shifty-eyed valet in his mid-forties, and a far-too-friendly, ethereally beautiful young man, who immediately opened the back door and pulled out our luggage.

The car was whisked away as soon as we removed our bags, and the staffer introduced himself effusively as Alistair, “But you must call me Dare! I simply insisted that I be the one to welcome you. It isn’t often that we have a gorgeous, young queer couple gracing us with their presence.”

“I’m Trip Watson and this is Tommy Powers,” I told him, shaking his hand and then, in a flash of covetousness, physically blocked the pretty man from shaking Tommy’s hand.

“Your celebrity name would be Power Trip! Oh, that’s too, too wonderful! It is so very nice to meet you!” the man ejaculated. Actually, his words were more a bubbling stream than explosive burst, but he seemed so excited that it was entirely possible that he physically ejaculated as well. “Come! I’ll take you to your suite and then show you around the grounds!”

He tried to take two of our bags, insisting that he was far stronger than he looked. Tommy mouthed ‘let him’ at me, so I allowed him to pull the suitcase and carry-on, carried the garment bag and my laptop bag myself, and reluctantly agreed to allow Tommy to carry the bag containing his own tech and our Salem memorabilia. Tommy rolled his eyes and sarcastically thanked his stars that he had a big, strong man to take care of him.

Dare told us all about our suite and the day’s schedule and then went on to wax poetic about New York. This was his last weekend at the resort, where he ran ‘the physical activities,’ and next month would be visiting a friend in Brooklyn who was going to help him launch his career. Tommy shot me a quelling look and I held back all questions and suggestions regarding Dare’s backup plans. Apparently I was supposed to ignore the obvious — this poor, naïve kid was looking to make his mark on Broadway, and the city would chew him up and spit him out as it had millions of young men before him.

The suite was gorgeous but filled with a decorator’s special touches that likely hid a plethora of spy gadgets, which we’d deal with when we got back. As soon as we set our bags down, Dare handed us key cards, took each of our hands in his, and led us out the door. I looked jealously over to determine whether Tommy enjoyed having the golden boy’s attention, only to see him scowling at my hand clasped in Dare’s. It had been obvious for the past year that I was unreasonably jealous, especially considering I had been the one that instigated our breakup, but it had never occurred to me that he could get jealous over any attentions paid to me. I had been his from the moment our eyes met.

We had gotten a floorplan of the resort and its buildings, and had seen photographs, but it was entirely different navigating the grounds ourselves. There was a ballroom, restaurant, gymnasium complete with Olympic-sized pool and rock climbing wall, sauna, full-service spa, archery, horseback riding, outdoor pool and hot tub, gardens, and fire pit. Dare assured us that we would have down time to explore on our own during the scavenger hunt, but would otherwise have a full schedule since our ‘three-day weekend’ was barely more than two days long.

“And you will be coming here each afternoon,” Dare said as he brought us to an ominously unlabeled, solid door. “You will have sessions together and individually. Trip, you get to go first. I’ll bring Tommy to get a mani-pedi and then you can switch. After that, Trip will come back and you’ll all have a short discussion about your goals for the weekend before you’re released to settle into your suite. Byyyyyye!”

I was still trying to make sense of that when Dare began dragging Tommy away. Why couldn’t we have mani-pedis together? Tommy waved goodbye, dimples flashing as he silently laughed at me; I probably looked as bereft as a kid dropped off for his first day of kindergarten.

I took a breath and turned the handle to find… a kind-eyed elderly woman in a sitting room, a tea service set in front of her. Rich adults rarely needed etiquette lessons, therefore…

“Come in, come in!” she beckoned, and I entered the room and sat on a floral damask loveseat. “Would you care for tea, coffee, or water? And these cookies are sugar-free. I have the survey you filled out, but it’s always better to hear it all from you. Would you prefer that I call you Trip or John?”

And so began a stressful hour of conversation.