Page 51 of Snow Globe Secrets

My heart pounded, but my words were true. “It is good to see you, old friend.”

“Holy fuck, ET. It’s good to see you too.” He embraced me then, ignoring the hand he had outstretched to me, slapping my back three times as I’d heard him do to his son. He pulled back but held onto my upper arms, leaning in to look at me. “But I don’t think I can call you my old friend. Damn, Randy, you look good.” He squeezed my arm before letting go and turning his head toward the house. I followed his eyes, and we both watched as Austin landed on the top step and hugged Stephanie.

“Hey, honey. Check it out! Randy got hot.” Austin whipped around to face us, and his eyes locked with mine, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.

Behind him, Stephanie laughed. “Well, you can see nothing’s changed around here, Randy. Marty still has no filter. Come on, you two, it’s fucking freezing out here. Grab your shit and get in the house.”

I reached for my suitcase, and Marty yanked the handle from me as it hit the ground. Austin was back by our sides. “Oh good, Dad. Here, take this too.” Austin handed him his laundry bag, then tapped me on the small of the back. I really wished he would stop touching me. He’d done it so casually and right there in front of his father. “Let’s grab the cooler.”

“Cooler?” Marty asked.

Austin spoke as we hefted; I, apparently, was incapable of that particular function in the midst of my old friends and their son. It was going to be a long week. How I wished I could crawl back under the snow globe. It’s shattered, my ever-helpful brain reminded me.

“Oh my God, Dad!” Austin began before he looked at me, crooking his head toward the SUV. “On three. One, two, three.” He let out an adorable and somewhat-familiar-sounding little grunt that brought back memories in a very tactile way my pants tightened.

Austin led the way and finished his thought to his father. “You should have seen us at the grocery store. We bought a shit ton of food. And a whole case of beer, of which we drank exactly one each! The cashier thought we were having a party. And we were like, nah, just preparing for the storm. This is all for us!”

As if he could sense my nervousness and was trying to help, he laughed encouragingly and looked at me as we lugged the cooler to the house.

“We didn’t even pack any of the booze,” he shared as we hobbled to the front door. “Too bad. It was a really good IPA.”

I found my voice as we mounted the front steps and stepped through the door. “Actually, that’s not quite true. There are two bottles in there that I’d bought earlier. One red, one white. I just assumed things hadn’t changed that much between you two, and that I’d need one of each as a hostess gift.”

Marty had kicked off his shoes and took the handle from me. Our hands brushed, and I remembered how I used to avoid touching him when we were younger, afraid that my feelings would pour out through my skin and send a message to my otherwise-clueless friend. The brush of his hand sent no shockwaves through me, standing in his foyer, his embrace in the driveway truly just the embrace of two old friends.

“Here, I got this. Kick off those boots, then take the other side from the kiddo. We’ll deposit this in the kitchen, and I’ll give you the grand tour. Aus, your mom took the laundry bag upstairs for you.”

Austin kicked off his shoes as I traded off holding the cooler with him. Our fingers brushed as well, and the part of my body that had started to calm down perked up again as a zing worked its way through me, and my heart skipped a beat.

He scurried up the stairs that were directly in front of the entrance as he yelled, “Wait, Mom. That stuff’s all clean.”

“Jesus, Austin.” I could hear Stephanie from down the stairs. “Did you make the poor man do your laundry?”

I caught Austin looking down my way with a smile as his father led me past the stairs, through a dining room, and to the kitchen. I could also hear his response, which he shared rather loudly, for our benefit, I presumed.

“I know how to do my own laundry, Ma!”

With a “harumph,” Marty and I hoisted the cooler to the square island with the forest-green countertop that took up the center of the kitchen.

He opened the lid and looked inside. “That’s a lot of fucking food.”

“We didn’t know how long we’d be.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Randy.” He hugged me again, and I felt none of the tension and none of the energy that I used to during our roommate days.

“When we invited you, we didn’t mean for you to be stuck with the kiddo like that.”

The word “kiddo” sounded so wrong, but Austin was his kid, after all, so really it was just a reminder that I had swapped one anxiety for another when I was around Martin.

“Well, you can’t predict the Upstate New York weather. At least he made it from Hampstead okay, and we were stocked up and back at my cabin before the worst of it hit.”

Martin had a hand in the cooler. “This stuff is still cold,” he said, pulling the two bottles of wine out and placing them in a wine cooler that was tucked amongst the kitchen cabinets, under the counter.

“Come on, I’ll unpack the rest in a few. You must want to freshen up. I’ll show you your room and the bathroom. Take your time. It’s become a tradition that we order pizza on Austin's first night back. Steph doesn’t really cook much, and I’m usually the one who goes up to get him, so”—he shrugged—“pizza night.”

I smiled warmly at him and responded as he walked back toward the stairs at the front of the house, and I followed. “I cannot tell you how much I missed New York pizza when I was overseas. I don’t think I even realized it myself until I was in Manhattan and had my first slice.”

“Overseas! Man. It’s been so long. I cannot wait to hear every single thing. But first, here we are.” There was a small landing at the head of the stairs, with a number of doors encircling it. Marty pointed straight ahead first. “Our room.” Then to our left. “That’s our office. Well, mostly Steph’s home office, but I occasionally do stuff for the restaurant in there as well.” Then he pointed to the other side of the landing, where three more doors were clustered down a small hallway. Marty pointed to the doors as we entered the hallway. “Austin’s room,” he said, pointing to the door at the dead end. “The bathroom and … Aus! What are you doing in there?”