Where All Paths Meet, page 35
part #3 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
“He didn’t make me get it,” Tean said. “He stole my identity and created the account himself.”
Missy’s smile got bigger. “I see rings.”
“Yes,” Tean said, touching his gold band absently, “and it’s always getting caught on something. With my luck, I’ll probably get my hand ripped off during the walrus ride.”
Missy turned a look on Jem.
“He’s been under a lot of pressure,” Jem said, slinging an arm around Tean. “Walrus fever.”
Missy laughed again, as though that made sense—as though any of it made sense—and Tean decided he was going to become a hermit. Nobody ever came and bothered hermits, and if they did, hermits were legally allowed to shoot at them with .22s until they left.
“Did you register already?” Missy asked. “The desk is over here.”
“Nope,” Jem said as he urged Tean forward. Then, in a whisper, he added, “I know that look, Teancum Leon. You are not allowed to become a hermit.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
Jem actually snorted at that.
“Heather,” Missy said as they approached the registration desk at the far end of the lobby, “this is Dr. Teancum Leon, with the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources. And this is his…” She let the sentence trail.
“Troublemaker,” Jem said. “Jem Berger.”
Heather was an older woman, white, with a wattle of crepey skin. Her color was bad, and although it was hard to tell because she was sitting behind the table, she looked too thin, with only a hint of residual weight around her middle. She searched through the badges until she found Tean’s, and then she started putting together a welcome kit—a tote bag with a conference program, flyers from industry and academic journals, some sort of little spongy thing that was probably meant to be for stress.
“Do you know the environmental toll of printing waste—” Tean began.
Jem cleared his throat. When Tean shot him a look, he was innocently studying one of the plastic reindeer overhead, whistling “White Christmas.”
“I can connect you with your dog,” Heather said as she passed the bag over. She had a gravelly voice, and she coughed before continuing. “If that would help.”
Missy made no effort to hide rolling her eyes.
“Like, long distance?” Jem asked.
“No, thank you,” Tean said.
“How did you know we had a dog?” Jem asked.
“We’re fine, thanks.”
Heather smiled at them: yellow, crooked teeth. “I can sense him with you. A black dog. I get the feeling of bigness. Is he big? Does he have a big personality? His aura has melded with yours.” She frowned. “Did you lose him recently?”
Jem’s mouth opened in shock. “I did. How did you know that?”
“We didn’t lose him,” Tean said, taking Jem’s elbow and trying to pull him away. “You took him for a walk without a harness, and he got stuck in the McCoys’ fence.”
“He’s speaking to me right now,” Heather said, closing her eyes and touching her temples. “He misses you a great deal.”
Jem nodded at him with a grin, and Tean spotted the dog hair on his sleeve that had, against all odds, survived a full day of travel.
Brushing away the fur, Tean said, “If anything, he’s getting so many treats that he’s going to have diarrhea or bloat or pancreatic failure or diabetes by the time we get home. Maybe all of them.”
“Yes, well, if you’re worried about him—” Heather opened her eyes and fumbled for a card. “—I also perform remote healings.”
“No,” Tean said.
“I’m interested.” Jem snagged the card. “Very interested. Thank you so much.”
“Heather,” a woman snapped. “I told you: this is a professional organization, and there’s no place for that kind of nonsense here. If you’re going to bother the speakers, I’ll have someone else staff the registration table.”
The speaker was a broad-shouldered, big-chested woman, her skin dark and lined from the sun, and she looked militant in a khaki shirt with epaulettes. The only thing missing, Tean decided, was a riding crop.
As she approached the table, Tean tugged Jem backward until they’d joined Missy. The woman planted herself in front of Heather. “What’s the status of my room?”
Heather’s shoulders curved in, and she sank down in the seat, not meeting the other woman’s eyes. “The resort staff say it’s all cleaned up, but they don’t know how the cats got in—”
“Cats,” the woman said and gave an unpleasant laugh.
“That’s Yesenia,” Missy whispered. “She’s the president of the association.”
It looked like Yesenia might have said more to Heather, but at that moment, screams erupted from the front of the lobby. They all turned to watch as two Santaland security guards—whose street cred, Tean considered, was probably undermined by the red jacket with white piping—dragged a struggling young woman toward the doors.
“No!” she was screaming as she kicked the air and writhed in their grip. “No! Let me go! It’s not real!” Her labored breathing had the quality of real panic. “It’s all a lie! I have to tell them!”
The automatic doors slid shut behind her, and the muffled screams slowly faded into the distance.
“Jesus,” Jem said under his breath.
“I have to see to that,” Yesenia said, striding toward the doors. “Don’t let me catch you again, Heather.”
Heather, still shrunken in her seat, sent a gray-faced scowl after the other woman.
“Uh.” Missy gave an unsteady laugh. “Sorry about that, Jem. There are always people who show up at these kinds of events. The ones who think we’re not doing enough. And the other side, who think we’re doing too much already.”
When Jem looked a question at Tean, he gave a tiny shake of his head: a silent answer of Yes, but not like that.
“I think we’ll get our room,” Tean said. “Grab our luggage, get unpacked.”
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Missy said, wrapping him in another hug that, once again, Jem propelled Tean into. “Thank you for coming.”
“It’s really—”
“No, seriously, thank you.”
Tean wondered if wriggling was ineffective; maybe he should duck and try to slip under her arms.
“It means so much to me,” Missy said, and she sounded, all of a sudden, on the brink of tears. She released him then, stepping back, blinking rapidly. “Go on, get your room. But please, we have to grab dinner one of these nights. We have so much catching up to do. And I want to get to know Jem—I mean, I don’t even know what you do.”
“Real estate,” Jem said. “I’m literally the most boring person you’ll ever meet. Ask me about escrow accounts.”
Tean couldn’t help the laugh that erupted, and he changed it into a fit a coughing when Jem whapped him on the back.
They got the card keys to their hotel room, and they retrieved their luggage from the rental car. Even though it was evening, the air was so hot and humid that it felt like they were swimming in a broth of skin cells and off-gassing decomposition and redneck conservatism. Tean was explaining this to Jem in the elevator, at length, until he saw the smile on Jem’s face and made himself stop.
Their room was clean, small, and cool, with the mini-split AC churring happily. It had a connecting door that, Jem checked, was securely bolted from their side. More importantly, they had a big bed, and even though they’d been together years, Tean blushed when Jem bounced on the bed, reclined on an elbow, and waggled his eyebrows.
“Come on,” Jem laughed and flopped onto his stomach. “I want to call the girls.”
Tean joined him on the bed as Jem placed the call. A moment later, the video started, and a giant, wet, black nose snuffled across the screen. Squeals of laughter filled the background.
“They thought that would be hilarious,” Hannah said. Tean’s friend—and co-worker at the DWR—appeared a moment later as Scipio, their black Lab, moved away from the camera. “Here they are. Scipio says hi, by the way.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Tean said. “We could die in a fiery plane crash—”
He grunted when Jem elbowed him, and then the girls were there.
Sofia was ten, her hair still in the braids that Jem had done, and she was filled with a ten-year-old’s outrage. “It’s my turn on the Switch but Anahí won’t let me have a turn even though she died and Hannah said when she died it was my turn!”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Jem said and laughed.
The patter of feet announced Anahí, and Sofia sprinted away—doubtless, Tean decided, to reclaim the Switch. Anahí was only six, her dark hair short, a bow in it already falling halfway out. She was holding a slice of pizza—well, a fraction of a slice of pizza, since Hannah had clearly cut it in half for her.
“We’re having pizza!” Anahí screamed and then ran away again.
“Are you being good?” Jem called after her, but excited screams were the only answer.
Hannah appeared a moment later, tucking chestnut-colored hair behind her ear. “They’re being wonderful. Although nobody mentioned the exploding toy boxes.”
“Just leave it,” Jem said. “We’ll pick up when we get home.”
“They’re not supposed to be having pizza,” Tean said.
Until then, Tean hadn’t known people could share an eye roll over FaceTime.
“Vegetables—” he tried again.
“We did pizza salad,” Hannah said. “And yes, they both ate their salads. And they’ve both been wonderful. And in case you’re wondering—”
“I’m not,” Tean said.
“—they’re much, much easier, and more pleasant, to be around than their foster dads.”
“Thank you for taking care of them,” Jem said. “I’ll Venmo you some money for the pizza.”
“Oh my gosh,” Hannah said. “Do you want to talk to Scipio again?”
They disconnected. Jem kicked off his flip-flops and went down a rabbit hole on TikTok. Tean had trained himself to tune it out, but he was fairly sure, from the bits and pieces that filtered through, it was about animal psychics. Tean checked his email, did a quick scan of his paper, and then, when he realized it was total crap, decided to rip it down to the studs and start from scratch. It would be considerate, he decided, if hotels provided metal trash cans so you could burn things more easily.
“Nope,” Jem said, kissing him on the side of the head as he took the laptop away. “Either we’re going to do something incredibly wicked in this giant bed, without children or dogs or neighbors to distract us—”
“If you’d closed the blinds last time like I asked—”
Laughing, Jem kissed him again, on the mouth this time, a little slower. He leaned back, smiled, and said, “Take a shower, and we’ll go to sleep. I’ll ravish you in the morning.”
So, they got ready for bed, and in the dark, smelling like Santaland soap (peppermint and rosemary, which was weirdly wonderful), with Jem warm around him, Tean should have fallen asleep immediately—they’d had an early flight, a layover, a long drive. But he twisted and squirmed and pushed the blankets down and pulled them back up again.
Finally, with a growl, Jem pulled Tean against him. He nuzzled into Tean’s shoulder, and when he spoke, his voice was muzzy with sleep. “One.”
Tean let out a tiny laugh in spite of himself.
“It’d better be a really good one,” Jem mumbled.
“Do you know if people reused just two feet of holiday ribbon every year, we’d save 38,000 miles of ribbon? That’s enough to tie a bow around the planet.”
Jem’s mouth was rough as he kissed Tean’s shoulder and settled them together a little more comfortably. Tean was at the edge of sleep when, from a great distance, he heard Jem murmur, “With that much ribbon, imagine how many geese you could strangle.”
Acknowledgments
My deepest thanks go out to the following people (in reverse alphabetical order):
Jo Wegstein, for helping with so many continuity errors and points of accuracy, for making me laugh about those wedge-shaped nipples, and for lending her expertise about so many things (like Zodiac’s emergency lights!).
Mark Wallace, for catching my missing quotation marks, for helping me with the overall readability of the story (especially those long sentences), and for sharing his honest experience of the beginning chapters and of the ending.
Tray Stephenson, for asking about Blackfriar’s tin eyes, for suggesting word order changes for clarity and emphasis, and for lending his editorial eye to my many errors.
Nichole Reeder, for helping me with staging (Jack with his back to the wall), continuity (Jack’s age – and more), and for noting my new favorite word :-).
Pepe, for asking (as usual) such wonderful questions about—some of which I’ve tried to answer—and for giving me the great idea to bring back Ms. Prinze.
Cheryl Oakley, for asking tough questions about Cecilia and Noneley, for pressing me about the portable safe, and for catching so many of my typos – Paxton’s raspier voice!
Raj Mangat, for helping me make Maggie’s disappearance work so much better, for her feedback about Jack and H’s first time, for making me laugh about Scipio/Scorpio, and for always being so kind and encouraging as I tried to tell the story I wanted to tell.
Steve Leonard, for meticulously inspecting (among other things) the timeline of events, for his kind words about Jack and Holloway, and for making me laugh about the new Ward and June Cleaver.
Fritz, for (among other things) suggesting I explain the solution to the combination, guessing at the meaning of my mixed-up sentences, and worrying about Ms. Albrecht’s poor Elantra!
Austin Gwin, for (as always) being my go-to guy for help with cars, for gently correcting Jack’s conversation with Ariana, and for help with my typos (who’s for whose!).
Savannah Cordle, who—as usual—asked so many good questions (most of which I hope I answered), for her feedback about clarity in several key points, and for sharing my love of these guys right up to the end!
About the Author
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Gregory Ashe, Where All Paths Meet
