Prologue

Jeremy wasn’t really thinking about the rain until ten minutes after he walked through his front door.

There, in the entryway where the coat stand and pile of shoes used to be, was a stack of boxes. Cardboard boxes, sealed and everything. He stopped, staring at them, because none of them sported Amazon Prime tape and his mom hated buying clothes online. She always said they never fit right, always hit her hips the wrong way. The only thing she bought online was —

“Mom!” he yelled, pushing the front door closed behind him. “Please tell me these boxes aren’t full of shoes!”

He heard her laugh, and then she appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. A silver fork was stuck behind her ear, she had a smear of something black across her cheek, and she was grinning like a madman. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Jer.” Rochelle uncapped a gigantic Sharpie and scrawled ‘SHOES’ across the side of one of the boxes. Then, she rounded on him and kissed him on the forehead. He was just a little taller than her, and she danced on her tiptoes to reach him. “How was school? Did your final go okay?”

“Fine. I like integrals.” Jeremy could feel the rain dripping from his hood through his hair and down his neck. “Why did you pack all of your shoes?” He brightened. “Are you donating? Downsizing? Helping the fashion-challenged?”

“As much as they need it, no.” She cleared her throat, almost nervous. “Actually, these are going to Scotland.”

“Scotland,” Jeremy repeated, his heart thumping in the back of his teeth. It took a moment for it to click, and when it did, he found that he couldn’t look at her. “You got the job.”

“I did.” Rochelle was watching him, he knew it. “We fly out in a couple weeks, so there’s enough time for us to get our visas and for you to finish school. They have a cottage ready for us, right on the seafront, isn’t that nice? And it’s got furniture in it, so we only have to ship our clothes and everything, and we’ll have all summer to settle in, and St. George’s, that international school I was telling you about? They’ve got a place for you and they’re—”

“Coat stand,” said Jeremy. Rain was dripping from his hair to his glasses.

She blinked at him. “Y-yes? What?”

“It’s gone.”

“Oh!” Rochelle looked around, from the boxes to his feet. “Yeah. I moved it upstairs.”

“Where should I put my raincoat?”

Just then, her phone rang, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” blaring from her back pocket. She bit her lip but answered it anyway. “Hi, Steven!” Her accountant. “Oh, yes, I actually did manage to find— Hey, Jeremy! Where are you going?”

“Buy more boxes,” he replied, closing the front door behind him. He stood on their tiny front porch a moment, the small overhang protecting him from the rain, and listened to it patter against the sidewalk. It was really coming down, a summer storm, and the air was thick and muggy. His glasses couldn’t decide if they wanted to fog up or flood.

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He took a step down onto their front walk and put his foot directly into a puddle. The water sloshed into his shoes, flooding his socks with warm, muddy water, and Jeremy stared down at the concrete, his stomach rolling as he remembered planting basil in a chipped terracotta pot and sitting in the sun to eat a hot dog drowning in mustard and onions.

“Cool,” he muttered, all to himself, and set off, sloshing through the mud of their miniscule front lawn until he reached the sidewalk. The rain was drowning his glasses as well as his shoes, and he felt himself notice it, hate it, for the first time that day.

Two blocks later, he was in a McDonald’s and ordering a blue raspberry slushie, shivering in the air conditioning. Jeremy sat down in a booth by the streaked, greasy windows and watched his windbreaker drip puddles on the seat. Then, he pulled out his phone, which, somehow, was dry, and made a call.

Jo picked up on the second ring. “Uh-huh?”

“Hi,” he said.

“Why are you panicking?” Something rustled in the background.

Jeremy frowned. “Who says I’m panicking?”

Jo snorted. Four nasal beeps filtered in through the line, followed by the hum of a microwave. “You only call when you panic.”

“What are you making?” Jeremy wiped at his lenses. The restaurant turned into a blurry mess of whites and greys and yellows.

“Hot Pocket.”

“Pepperoni or meatball?”

“Pepperoni.” She clicked her tongue. “You’re in the McDonald’s, aren’t you?”

“Nope,” he said.

Ten minutes later, Jo sat down across from him, her dark blue hair frizzy from the rain, and took a huge bite out of her Hot Pocket. Through his messy glasses, she looked like a fluffy troll.

“Elegant,” Jeremy deadpanned.

“I’m a regular debutante,” she said, mouth open.

“I’m surprised it lasted this long.” He gestured to the Hot Pocket.

“Please. I made a second one before I left.” She pulled his untouched, half-melted slushie over to her side of the table and took a huge gulp. “Okay. Spill.”

He looked over her shoulder, focusing on what appeared to be the drinks machine. “She got the job.”

To her credit, Jo’s pause was small, just a moment’s hesitation between bites. “Quick, but not surprising.” She took another sip, rolling over the words before she said them. “When do you leave?”

“I don’t know exactly. A few weeks.”

She did the mental math in seconds. “At least twenty days, then. What’s this place called, again?”

“Dunsegall.”

“Done seagull,” she parroted, then grinned.

Jeremy smiled down at his straw wrapper. He could feel her looking at him.

“Where did you tell her you were going?”

“To get more boxes.”

Jo nodded, and he watched her squeeze her Hot Pocket. The cheese bulged from the crust, threatening to ooze out onto the table, but then she stopped and took another bite.

“Okay,” she said, mouth full, and stood up. “First, you’re going to buy a mountain of food. Then, we’re going to swing by Staples and get enough boxes for your meager, pathetic, sad-boy possessions, and not once are we going to clue your mother in on the fact that this move is going to decimate your entire social life and make you a perfect candidate for psychiatric help by age thirty.”

He nodded and stood up as well. “Cool.”

Once they were in her car, Jo riding shotgun with a lap full of steaming McDonald’s, she added, “Well, maybe not your entire social life. There’s bound to be at least one strapping highland man who’s gonna pull up his kilt and make you dizzy.”

Jeremy jerked the steering wheel, swerving the car on purpose, and Jo’s answering laugh rang in his ears.