Two weeks later, Ty set his carry-on bag on the floor of the lounge and dropped into an empty seat facing the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.
He was late in returning to New York, but the change of plans had worked in his favor. The colleague who was supposed to cover the start of trade talks between the US and the UK had a wife who’d gone into early labor, and Ty had happened to be there to step in. Two foreign reporting assignments in a row—things were looking up.
Ty was exhausted, but it was the good kind of exhaustion which came from work he enjoyed and that contributed to something worthwhile. He would welcome the exhaustion any day of the week over the monotony of muggings and car accidents in Chinatown.
He’d gotten some good stories the past couple of weeks. His favorite was the one with the school children singing and dancing, a spot of joy in a roster of depressing stories. There was a foreign correspondent position opening soon; if he could polish this raw material to a shine, there should be no reason why they wouldn’t give him the job.
Something flashed in the window overlooking the tarmac, and Ty caught the reflection of a figure walking behind him. He snapped his head around but couldn’t find that auburn man bun, or the tensed shoulders that swam in oversized clothes. He must have imagined it—what would be the chances?
But, now reminded, his brain wouldn’t let go of the thought of Donnelly and that strange night in the cabin. Ty wasn’t an idiot—he knew why Donnelly had invited him back to that cabin. He’d had all the reasons in the world not to go. Top of the list was not mixing work and play, lower down was that Donnelly wasn’t really Ty’s type. But he’d still gone, because he’d seen something in those bright-green eyes that belied the gruff exterior Donnelly showed the world.
He leaned forward in his seat and pulled out his phone. By force of habit, his fingers took him to Twitter, and he scrolled through updates without really reading them. Instead he replayed that night in his head: the hazy expression of surrender on Donnelly’s face as he came, dissolving into outrage and disgust—not directed at him, Ty was certain of that, though he couldn’t explain why. But then, directed at who?
He tapped away from Twitter and called up the results of his search efforts the past week. There wasn’t much out there on a Cameron Donnelly who worked for the UN. Ty had tried every search combination he could think of, and had only managed to find a bare-bones LinkedIn page and a protected Facebook profile with a picture of Donnelly that must have been taken when he was in college.
Clean-shaven, ruddy cheeks, wide smile, auburn hair cut short and smart, and green eyes that shone even on the small screen of Ty’s phone. The man in that picture was Ty’s type, but that man was a far cry from the Donnelly he’d met in the refugee camp.
The PA system crackled to life.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is a preboarding announcement for British Airways flight 175 with service to New York JFK. Please have your boarding pass ready for inspection and your passport open to the photo page. We will begin boarding by zone numbers.”
Ty locked the screen on the picture of young Donnelly and stuck his phone in his pocket. As he joined the line of people inching toward the counter, he brainstormed additional search terms. He was acting like a bona fide stalker. At this rate, he’d end up staking out UN buildings and tailing Donnelly back to his apartment.
“Welcome aboard, sir.”
Ty nodded at the flight attendant with an automatic grin, then checked his boarding pass for his seat number: 15C. Shuffling down the aisle, Ty stopped short before he reached his row.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” He laughed out loud.
Sitting in 15A, by the window, was Cameron Donnelly, with his curly man bun and scraggly beard. He turned from the window at Ty’s exclamation and blinked once. Recognition morphed into surprise, which melted into a frown and lips pressed into a line. Ty bit back a snarky comment and stashed his carry-on in the overhead compartment.
“That’s really your seat?”
Ty sat down. “Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m not trying to stalk you.” An ironic thing to slip out, considering the search results still on his phone.
Donnelly’s jaw clenched as he turned back to the window.
“Didn’t realize the UN splurged for business-class seats.”
“Only for those with enough field cred.”
Ty snorted. Field cred, right, which Donnelly apparently had a fuck-ton of because he chain-smoked.
He waved down the friendly flight attendant—the tag on her uniform said her name was Ann. “Miss, can I get a glass of red wine, please?”
“Of course.” She turned to Donnelly. “And for you, sir?”
“Uh, a whiskey, please.”
“Certainly, I’ve got Johnnie Walker Red and Jack Daniel’s.”
Donnelly hesitated long enough for Ty to notice. “Uh, Johnnie Walker?”
“Excellent. I’ll be right back.” She smiled and headed down the aisle, scooting past other boarding passengers to the galley.
Ty snuck a glance to Donnelly, who was staring resolutely out the window, his expression closed. His nose looked like it used to be straight but had been broken at one point; pale freckles decorated the tops of his cheeks, so subtle they could only be seen by someone sitting close and staring hard. Ty turned away, annoyed at himself for noticing, and yet his eyes kept drifting back.
Donnelly should get rid of that beard, or at least trim it up so he could show off his jaw properly. Or some beard oil, to make it more pleasant to nuzzle against.
Ty jerked his head away and held his chin with his hand as if that would stop his eyes from seeking out Donnelly of their own accord. Where was that flight attendant?
“Weren’t you supposed to have gone home weeks ago?” Donnelly asked, gaze still fixed firmly out the window, his flat tone not giving away any clues as to what he was thinking.
“A colleague of mine was supposed to be in London to cover the US-UK trade talks, but he had a personal emergency. So I stayed an extra week and a half to cover it for him.”
All he got in return was a short, curt nod.
Ann came back with their drinks. “Would you like a newspaper? We’ve got New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Daily Times, Financial Times.”
“New York Times, please,” Ty requested, having difficulty returning Ann’s smile.
“And for you, sir?”
Donnelly turned away from the window but didn’t respond. A frown of concentration marred his forehead, and when Ty raised a questioning eyebrow, the response was a nervous flick of the eyes.
“I’m good, thanks,” Donnelly finally offered after the silence stretched into awkwardness. Ann was professional enough to smile and leave. Donnelly drained his whiskey in one swallow. Ty wondered if he should do the same with his wine.
Left on their own, the tension in their little two-seat row thickened in the dim hum of a boarding airplane. Ty had never been so grateful as when Ann came back with his newspaper. He shook it out and refolded the pages to fit in his lap. Holding the crinkly gray newsprint in his hands always felt comforting; it was the smell, the texture of the paper, the way the ink smeared across his fingers. These days, most of his news came through newswires, word of mouth from colleagues, or Twitter. It had been a while since he’d sat down to read a newspaper front to back, and what with Donnelly glowering in the corner, this newspaper was going to be a welcome distraction.
The distraction took Ty through final boarding, pushback from the gate, and takeoff. It wasn’t until the seat belt sign turned off that he noticed Donnelly had fallen asleep next to him. And then, only because Donnelly was twitching in his sleep, face all scrunched up, mumbling incoherently under his breath.
Ty hesitated, loath to disturb him if he was going to settle into a deeper slumber. But the longer he waited, the more agitated Donnelly became—the mumbling grew louder and the twitching more violent—until it became clear that he wasn’t going to settle on his own.
“Hey.” He shook Donnelly’s shoulder, gentle but firm.
“Wha—” Donnelly jumped. His eyes flew open and his arms jerked up in defense.
“Whoa.” Ty snatched his hand back and held it up, palm out, to deflect any flailing limbs coming his direction. “I think you were having a nightmare. You kept twitching and mumbling.”
Donnelly blinked the wildness out of his eyes, rubbed his hands over his face, and slumped forward in a whole-body sigh. His shoulders still trembled with what was no doubt the adrenaline of being woken up mid-nightmare.
“You okay?” Ty asked, though he already suspected what the answer would be.
Donnelly didn’t respond. It was several minutes before he let his hands fall into his lap and leaned back into his seat. “How long was I out for?”
“I’m not sure.” Ty checked his watch. “Max thirty minutes?”
Donnelly sighed again, and Ty got the distinct feeling that short, uneasy sleeps were common for him.
“Are you okay?” Ty asked again.
The weariness etched in the lines on Donnelly’s face had to do with more than lack of sleep. “I’m fine.” He leaned his head back and stared off into the distance.
He didn’t look fine. Patsy’s words resurfaced in Ty’s memory: something about Donnelly being rough around the edges because of all the things he’d experienced in the field. But maybe those experiences hadn’t just affected the edges.
Aid workers with PTSD couldn’t be that uncommon; after all, they worked in conditions not dissimilar to the military. If Donnelly had really been through all the shit people claimed he had, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine him with some sort of trauma-induced mental illness.
Ty went back to his paper, more staring at the page than reading. Donnelly had closed his eyes, but his posture was too stiff for sleep, his every breath a gasp and then a sigh.
The next time Ann walked past, Ty waved her down. “Can we get refills, please?” He pointed to their empty glasses.
“Certainly. I’ll be right back.”
Ty flipped to the next page of his paper and refolded it.
“Thank you,” Donnelly whispered. “And I’m sorry.”
It was more the tired and resigned tone of his voice than his words that gave Ty pause. “For what?”
Donnelly stared at the empty glass sitting on his tray table, brows furrowed low over his eyes. “For waking me up. And . . . for how I reacted . . . that night.”
The apology was so sad, so defeated, that without making any conscious effort, Ty found himself forgiving Donnelly for the outburst and putting it behind them. Holding a grudge at this point felt like kicking a man when he was down. Ty was intimately familiar with what it felt like to be on the other end of that foot. “Don’t worry about it.”
Donnelly pressed his lips together in what Ty assumed was supposed to be a smile, but it looked more like a grimace.
He ventured forward. “I take it the nightmares are a regular occurrence?”
Now that was definitely a grimace. “It comes and goes.”
“Is there something that triggers it?”
Donnelly shifted in his seat. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
He pushed a little more. “Have you seen anyone about it? Like a therapist or someone?”
Donnelly chuckled humorlessly. “No.” He shook his head.
“No because you don’t want to? Or you’ve never had the chance to go?”
Donnelly finally turned toward him and stopped the questions with a single pleading look. Whatever burdens Donnelly carried covered him like a heavy shroud, making every breath and blink labored. The raw vulnerability on Donnelly’s face was enough to shut Tyler up and leave him aching to comfort the man.
Ann came back with their drinks. He thanked her and took a sip of his wine. Donnelly did the same with his whiskey, and by the time they set their glasses down, the weight of the air between them had eased.
Ty went with a safe topic. “So, are you excited about heading back to the States?”
The hesitation before Donnelly spoke was answer enough. “Sure, I guess. I mean, it’s home.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I haven’t lived there for over ten years.”
Ty nodded his understanding. “Do you have any family in New York?”
The corners of Donnelly’s lips curled in a small grin and then grew into a genuine heartfelt smile, like the one he’d given the kids at camp. It softened the world-weary lines on Donnelly’s face and was so infectious that Ty couldn’t help but smile along. He’d known Donnelly for all of a week, but he could tell that that smile was rare.
“My sister lives in New York. My parents are up in Westchester County.”
The smile lingered with unspoken memories. What must it feel like to look forward to being with family? “You’re close to them.”
“Yeah.” The smile grew wider, the crinkles around Donnelly’s eyes deepening.
Lucky. “They must be happy to have you back.” Some wisp of his own envy must have slipped into his words, because Donnelly regarded him with a touch of curiosity. Ty retreated behind his journalist mask, polite and charming, but markedly removed. “Well, aren’t they?”
Donnelly’s expression softened again. “Yeah, they probably are. They’re generally an enthusiastic bunch.”
For the life of him, Ty could not imagine Donnelly coming from a family described as enthusiastic. But then, what the hell did he know about families?
“How about you? Do you have family in New York?” Donnelly’s words were hesitant, and he worried his bottom lip with his teeth.
The mannerism reminded Ty of that night when he’d been nibbling on that lip with his own teeth. It took a second for him to refocus on the question. “No. I don’t have family.”
“None?”
Ty shrugged. Everyone always seemed surprised to hear that, but there was nothing surprising about it to him; it wasn’t like he knew any different.
“I’m sorry.”
Ty paused at the unexpected response. “For what? It’s not your fault I don’t have family.”
“I know, but it’s . . . it’s nice to have family.”
He’d bet it was. “I wouldn’t know.”
Ty waited for Donnelly to ask the inevitable question of what happened to his family. But even though Donnelly glanced over at him several times, the question never came. He should have been grateful—he hated explaining his nonexistent family. Instead he started talking.
“I don’t know who my dad is. He was gone before I was born, and my mom never talked about him. My mom died from breast cancer when I was eight. We didn’t have any other family or any close friends, so I grew up in the foster system in Jersey.” Ty couldn’t remember the last time he’d willingly spoken those words to another human being. Maybe he had finally grown out of his discomfort, or maybe it was Donnelly, but talking about his childhood wasn’t as painful as Ty had remembered it to be.
“Oh.”
Ty braced himself before checking Donnelly’s expression. He hated the pity he’d gotten from teachers and the disgust from other children, as if being an orphan and a foster kid defined who he was, and made him weak, difficult to handle, or even dangerous.
But Donnelly didn’t express any of that. Ty only saw acceptance, like his sob story was the most normal thing in the world. It was the reaction Ty had always wished for, but now that he’d gotten it, he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
So he kept talking. “My mom was an only child, at least as far as I know. Her parents were in Asia—Singapore, I think—but they were estranged, or maybe they were dead. I never knew what happened there.” Why the hell was he sharing all this?
Donnelly cocked his head, but no shock yet. “Have you ever tried to find them?”
“No.” The thought had never occurred to Ty. “My mom never really spoke about them, and she didn’t leave me any information that I could use to find them. I’ve never really thought of myself as someone with grandparents.”
He wished Donnelly would say something, anything, so he could react to it, or at least change the damn topic. But the silence stretched and, despite knowing better, he succumbed to the urge to fill it.
“When I was a kid, I figured if I had grandparents who wanted to know me, they would have tried to find me. But I never heard from them. And Child Welfare hadn’t been able to track them down.” He shrugged. “It never bothered me that much.”
Donnelly nodded and didn’t press the matter, but instead of feeling pleased, Ty found himself fighting back irritation. It was like he’d been saving this story his whole life, and when he finally shared it, the reaction was disappointingly anticlimactic.
“What made you want to become a journalist?”
The change of subject only brought up more memories of his mother.
“My mom was a journalist. Or, at least, she worked at the local newspaper. So, who knows. She might have been a secretary.” He fingered the paper that sat folded in his lap. “But there used to be stacks of newspaper at home. They lined an entire wall, taller than I was.” The image of the hallway that housed the towers of newspaper was clear in his memory.
“After she died, I used to steal old newspapers out of trash bins. I liked running my finger over each line until my skin turned black. I would stare at the pictures, studying every detail. They were like portals into a new and exotic world, an escape from whatever I was living through at the time.”
Now they were even—an odd exchange of secrets that had no purpose and no end. It wasn’t how Ty did life, and he wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it when they landed and went their separate ways. But in the closeness of their two-seat row, somewhere over the North Atlantic, it felt like the most natural thing to do.
“So where are you headed from here?” Tyler asked him as they stood next to the luggage carousel, waiting for their bags to come out.
Oh, the number of ways Cam could answer that question—most of them some variation of Who the fuck knows? But that wasn’t what Tyler was referring to. “I’m crashing with my sister for tonight, and then we’re driving up to my parents’ house for the weekend.”
Tyler nodded. “Where does your sister live?”
“SoHo somewhere.”
“Ah right, you mentioned she was a fashion photographer,” Tyler said.
Being stuck in close quarters for eight hours and unable to sleep had unlocked Cam’s sharing side, or maybe it was Tyler and his constant barrage of questions, pulling personal information out of Cam that he would never have thought to divulge.
“Yeah, she’s a bit of a diva.”
“Is she coming to pick you up?” Tyler asked.
“No, she’s got a shoot scheduled or something. Besides, she doesn’t have a car, so we’d be cabbing it anyway.”
Cam jumped when the light on top of the carousel flashed and the loud horn blared, the metal conveyor belt groaning to life. Fuck. He clenched his jaw and balled up his fists as he waited for his heart rate to normalize. From the way Tyler eyed him, he was pretty sure his reaction had not gone unnoticed.
“I’m not far from SoHo. Over in Tribeca. You want to share a cab?” Tyler carried on, and Cam gave small thanks that he hadn’t pressed the issue.
“Um.” It was a simple question, but his brain was still preoccupied with that blaring horn, and it took him a moment to formulate the answer he wanted. “Yeah, sure.”
Bags started sliding out from the mysterious belly of the airport, and passengers rushed forward to grab their belongings. Cam kept one eye on the conveyor belt and the other on Tyler, standing next to him with a sleek leather satchel slung over his shoulder and a navy sports coat tucked over an arm. He stood tall and straight-backed, almost regal with his coifed hair and crisp clothing.
He looked like he belonged in New York.
Cam’s hair was falling out of its ponytail, and his raggedy clothes hung on his body. His rundown backpack lay at his feet, heavy with his banged-up laptop. Who was he kidding? He was a field guy—what made him think he could cut it at a desk job in New York?
A silver hard-backed luggage case slid out onto the conveyor belt, and Tyler moved forward to pull it out. As he bent over, Cam couldn’t help but notice the way his jeans hugged his thighs, the curve of his buttocks. By habit, Cam flicked his eyes away, scanning the crowd for anyone who might have caught his indiscretion, but no one was paying any attention.
This was why he’d come home. So he could be himself without constantly looking over his shoulder or feeling like he was putting the safety of everyone around him at risk.
Tyler dragged his suitcase toward him with a grin, and for the first time, Cam let himself stare. The memory of Tyler’s lips under his, the smoothness of his skin under Cam’s hands—he might be allowed to look now, but Cam doubted he’d ever get to feel Tyler’s body the way he’d felt it that night.
Pushing the idea out of his head, he caught sight of his bag as it dropped onto the metal conveyer belt. He jogged to grab it and drag it back to where Tyler waited, again with a sting of embarrassment when he placed his bag next to Tyler’s. His wasn’t even a suitcase; it was an oversized military-grade nylon duffel bag with handles barely attached and covered in duct tape.
“Ready?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah.” He followed Tyler out of the baggage claim area. As the automatic doors slid open, they were greeted by a huge crowd of people, signs, flowers, and even a large bundle of balloons floating off to the right. The din of emotional reunions bounced off the sleek metal walls and reverberated through the airport terminal.
He fought to breathe through the overstimulation, seeking some of the cool calm of his dark place.
“Cam!” a female voice shouted, and he turned to find Isabelle marching toward him with a giant smile on her face.
Izzy dodged around passengers with carts full of luggage in her stiletto boots. Cam dropped his bag and caught her as she threw her arms around him.
“Hey, Izzy.” Her hair flew into his face, but he didn’t mind. She always had a massive mane of thick red curls, and underneath whatever expensive shampoo she used was the smell of home. It unlocked the part of himself that he held so tightly in control, and suddenly he was fighting to keep back the tears. “I thought you said you had to work.”
Izzy pulled back, and her smile quickly morphed into a frown. “Skype has been good to you, brother. You look so much worse in person.”
Cam winced. “Thanks.”
“Cam!”
Beyond Izzy’s big hair, he saw his parents approaching. Oh god, his parents had driven all the way from Scarsdale, north of the city, to pick him up from the airport. He blinked at the tears, but felt his eyelashes dampen.
Hugging first his mom and then his dad in turn, a few drops rolled down his cheeks, and he tried to wipe them away before anyone saw.
“How was your flight? Are you tired? Did they feed you?” Cam’s mom fired off questions.
“Wendy,” his dad said. “I’m sure they fed him on the plane.”
The corners of his mouth curled up. His mom was about as good an interrogator as Tyler. Oh shit, he’d forgotten about Tyler. He stood a few steps behind them with a polite if somewhat formal smile on his face.
“Mom, Dad.” Cam stepped to the side. “This is Tyler Ang from CBN. He was in Dadaab covering the refugee crisis, and we happened to be on the same flight home. Tyler, these are my parents, Wendy and Bill.”
Tyler shook his dad’s hand, and then his grin deepened as he turned to Cam’s mom. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You have a most impressive son.”
“Oh, thank you.”
Cam almost rolled his eyes as his mom flushed at Tyler’s praise.
“And I’m Isabelle, Cam’s sister.” She stuck her hand out and met Tyler’s gaze with an elegantly raised eyebrow and a shrewd look. It had been a while, but Cam recognized it as the look she gave to all the boys he brought home, as if she was trying to size them up.
“Isabelle. A pleasure to meet you too.” Tyler returned Izzy’s look with nothing but charm.
Then Tyler turned to him with the same pleasant professionalism as the first time they’d met on the fields of Dadaab. Gone was the snarkiness from early in the flight, the gentle concern when Cam had awoken mid-nightmare, and the easy rapport they’d fallen into afterward—it bothered Cam more than he wanted to admit.
“I take it your transportation plans have changed,” Tyler said casually. “It was great chatting with you. Take care.”
They shook hands, and like that first time, the smoothness and warmth of Tyler’s palm against his own was unmistakable. “Yeah, same to you.”
Tyler gave him a nod and strode toward the exit in long confident strides, his shiny silver luggage case rolling alongside him.
“What’s the deal with him?” Izzy asked, staring after Tyler, her arms crossed.
“What do you mean?”
She turned her scrutiny on him for a moment before shaking her head. “Nothing. Never mind. Come on. Let’s get you home.”
As they headed out to the parking lot, Cam couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder one last time in the direction Tyler had walked off in. But he’d disappeared, and the space between them filled with people waiting for loved ones.