“I can get your bag back.” The voice came from behind.

“Excuse me.” The words spat out of my mouth, my body whipping around.

“I said, ‘I can get your bag back’.”

I glared at him. Scruffy, in a faded and cracked leather jacket. A backpack, emblazoned with a Canadian flag, thrown over one shoulder. Trust a Canadian who hadn’t lost his luggage to think he had the solution to my problem.

“I’m sorry.” He raised both hands, took a step back. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. It’s just…”

“Just what?” Just thought he’d step in, unasked, and be of some help? Like I needed a hero to sort my crap out.

I snapped the phone shut and shoved it in my pocket.

“It was pretty hard not to hear. You were practically yelling.”

“If you haven’t noticed, it’s a bit noisy around here. Though I would have thought it hindered one’s ability to listen in on a conversation.”

“You know what? Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged his shoulders and opened his hands up. He started backing away from me the way you would from one of those end of the world street barkers. “You seem to have everything under control.”

He turned his back and walked away, shaking his head. Good riddance. But I couldn’t stop watching him, striding out onto the concourse. In a few seconds he’d be swallowed.

Damn.

I raced after him, grabbing hold of the worn leather to stop him when I caught up.

“I’m sorry. I’m just… It’s been a bad day and it’s not even ten and I haven’t had my caffeine injection for the day.” I rubbed at my temple where the start of a headache niggled. “Can we start over? I’m Lily.” I held out my hand. “Well, Lilith. Lilith Thomas. But I never liked Lilith. Seemed like I should be wearing black, have too many piercings and–”

“Smite me with the fury of the Old Testament?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not usually so–”

“Stubborn? Angry? Frustrat–”

“Lost.”

He put his backpack down and took my hand. “I’m Mat. Although, if you’re ’fessing up to Lilith… I guess I can tell you, I’m actually Math.”

“Math? Like mathematics?”

He nodded, squeezing my hand just firm enough to send shivers through me.

“Family name?” I asked, trying hard to ignore the way my hand in his made me feel.

“Lazy name. I was supposed be to named Mathew, just one ‘t’, but the clerk got distracted filling out the birth certificate and my parents were supposed to get it changed, but they never followed through with anything.”

“You can follow through?” I raised an eyebrow, allowing my hand to linger a little longer than I should have in his.

He let go of my hand and shrugged again. “I suppose, if I couldn’t I’d have never left home.”

His words hung between us, until I realised I was staring at him and blushed. “You coming or going?”

“I’m heading back to where I grew up.”

Reflex almost led me to crack a mathematics joke about his answer not really adding up—just to see his smile come out again—but I held back. Instead I searched for something meaningful to say, and “I guess home means different things to different folk” slipped out.

“It’s more like home might still be where I used to hang my hat. I’ve been gone for a while.”

“How long?”

“Three years this time. All up though, almost a decade.”

“What part of Canada are you from?”

He looked confused, until I pointed to the flag on the backpack.

“I’m not Canadian. It was a joke from my friends before I left the first time. They said with me being the typical ugly American, the world should think I was from somewhere else.”

“So you’re a backpacker?”

“Travel writer.”

A spark of excitement ran though me at the prospect of getting a straight answer for the first time all morning. “In your professional opinion then, how long will this,” I waved my arm to indicate the chaos around us, “last?”

“That depends. If you’re like me, and can’t just hand over the price of a new ticket, it may take a couple of days. A week tops.”

“A week!”

“The upside? The government, or other airlines, will do what they can to get everyone to their destinations. At least here they’re forced to put you up and feed you in the interim. But if you can buy a new ticket, you can leave whenever you want, assuming there is a seat to buy.”

“But what about the luggage?”