“Um, well, I’m on a—” What had Frank called it? “Gap year, I guess.”

“University next year?”

“Internship.”

“Well done. But—I hope you don’t mind me saying—you look like a man needs a new start in life. To do something a little unexpected.”

Jack opened his mouth, and then—

“Oh sure, you’re thinking, a year off, that’ll do the job,” and Aengus took a healthy swallow of stout, “But I’ll bet you have a plan for this year. Everything decided. Your planes, your hostels, down to when you’ll wash your pants, am I right?”

Jack thought about the carefully scheduled flights, the reserved bedsits, the folded new clothes in his case. Every stop along the way had been suggested to him, arranged for him, and Jack had just...agreed. He had figured that he didn’t know enough about the world to make too many decisions by himself.

He frowned. Aengus waited, placid. A mature face; youthful eyes.

And then Jack had the oddest thought. About Genni Jones.

Jones, whom he’d spotted slumming at the college bar across from Johns Hopkins after he and Meg had taken a tour; Jones, splitting pitchers of beer and flirting outrageously with Phillippe Dumont, and the few words he’d overheard between rounds of pool and kisses with Meg.

Theo. Ireland. Yes, Phil, really. Cork. Who the hell knows why.

Ran away.

And then Jack was thinking about Theo, that last uncomfortable meeting at his house. His slate eyes, intense, and his filthy lips, and that feeling, the itching thing, the lack.

Theo, whom he couldn’t call Beau anymore, not even in his head. He thought about all of that vibrating anger, the inexorable pull, the feeling he didn’t want to understand, and he knew that the formality of last names was no longer adequate for a relationship which was...

Well, whatever it was.

“Oh, I know that look.”

“What?” Jack blinked. Aengus laughed and tossed back half a pint at once. “Whoever she is, son, you’d better be after her.”

Jack nearly choked on his own beer. “What?”

“Ah well, you don’t need to play coy with me, but I’ll leave you your secrets.” And he winked. “But there’s something in you, Jack, that’s calling out—for your other half, or for adventure, a good long wander—or maybe just to forget.”

Jack shrugged a bit, and looked down at his soggy beer mat.

“Sure.” Aengus nodded, decisive. “You’ll never find that with a plan. You just need to go.”

Jack turned his wrist to look at his watch one more time. He was about ten minutes away from being too late for his flight.

“I’m off home now. My Caer is like to toss me out if I don’t get there in time for my tea. Should I drop you at the airport?”