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The road trip starts at a rental car from a shop in California.
They all wedge themselves into the vehicle. Martyn drives. Cornelia accepts the back seat because she doesn’t need the leg room. Dan’s adamance that he and Phil play rock, paper, scissors for the passenger side is futile. Phil wins because no one wants to deal with his motion sickness.
There’s a pile of junk food at Cornelia’s feet, American chips and sweets to snack on until they reach the desert. Their bags are all shoved into the back in a haphazard pile. Martyn turns the key in the ignition, and they hit the road.
“If Phil gets the front seat, I call dibs on music,” Dan calls. They’ve reached the highway by then, turned off the GPS in favour of following a straight line for the next couple hours.
“No fair!” says Phil. “I can’t control my motion sickness.”
Cornelia rolls her eyes. Martyn laughs.
“Stop fighting, kids,” he says. “Dan can play his music. He has good taste.”
Phil huffs. Dan presses his knee against the back of Phil’s seat, just to annoy him. Payback, he supposes, for Phil making him squeeze himself into this little space.
“I like your brother better,” says Dan. “He’s nice to me.”
---
Dan first met Martyn on Christmas Eve eve of 2009.
He walked through the door with headphones around his neck and a backpack slung over his shoulders and loud hellos to family he hadn’t seen in a while. Kath swept him into a hug. Nigel, too. Phil hung back next to Dan, by the archway into the lounge, with a shy little smile on his face.
Dan’s arms were crossed over his chest, anxiety strung tight in his spine.
Martyn just held his hand out and said, “Dan, right? Mum mentioned you’d be here.”
They’d all sat around the lounge that night. Dan was wedged between an arm rest and Phil’s hip, laughing along to all the London anecdotes Martyn had to share. They didn’t actually speak much that day, or the next, before Dan had to catch his own train back home for Christmas Day. He was Phil’s mate from Wokingham back then.
(Phil told him later that Martyn had come into his room after Dan left and asked about him. That’s when he found out they were dating, when Martyn first declared he liked Dan.)
Kath made them all play a board game. A family tradition, Martyn said.
Dan smiled so much he felt it in his cheeks for the rest of the night.
---
Phil falls asleep first that night.
He always does, at home and especially on vacation. Dan’s trained his insomniac brain to fall asleep to the hushed rush of London traffic and the quiet creaks of their flat. The buzz of bugs and howls of coyotes in the distance keep his mind awake long after the desert sky’s gone black, dotted with stars.
The floor is cool when he slips out of bed. Phil’s used to sleeping next to the glow of Dan’s laptop, but he doesn’t particularly want to lose himself in the endless scroll of social media tonight.
He steps into the kitchen, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and his pants, to find Martyn leaning against the counter.
“Oh,” he says. “Didn’t expect you to be up.”
Martyn smiles. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be, like, the functional one?” says Dan.
He shrugs, and slides a bag of crisps leftover from the drive across the counter so Dan can have some too.
“I reckon it’s the heat,” he says. “Corn’s out cold though.”
The corner of Dan’s mouth quirks up. “So is Phil.”
Martyn nods. Dan shoves a handful of crisps into his mouth. The soft whistle of the wind drifts past the kitchen window. Another coyote howls in the distance. If Phil were awake, he’d probably be making Howell puns right now, giggling too much at his own jokes.
Martyn’s not quite like Phil in that way. He tilts his head and says, “What about you?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you awake?” he says, concern furrowing his brow.
Dan quirks a smile. “Unfamiliar mattress, strange noises, that kind of thing,” says Dan. And then, for good measure, “I’m doing good, I promise."
Martyn nods and reaches over to grab a crisp.
---
Their first serious conversation took place on Martyn’s balcony during a cold London night.
They left Phil and Cornelia inside, discussing something music related. Dan hadn’t been paying much attention. He hadn’t been able to pay much attention to anything back then. Martyn noticed, sitting across the lounge from him, and motioned for Dan to follow him outside.
He’d stood there, arms wrapped around his middle, as Martyn said, “I heard what happened. Phil said you’re having a rough time with it.”
Dan swallowed, shrugged. “It’s a rough thing to deal with,” he’d muttered.
“I can imagine,” Martyn said. “Or, well, maybe I can’t, not fully. But I would imagine.” He looked out over the city and took a sip of his beer. “You know you’ll get through this, though, right? You guys have that radio thing coming up and YouTube’s going well. This isn’t going to ruin that.”
Dan just shrugged.
They hadn’t really become friends until he and Phil had moved to London. Distance was an easy barrier to getting close with your boyfriend’s brother, he supposed. There was a lot Martyn didn’t know about him back then, a lot Dan didn’t even know about himself.
He took a sip of his own drink, and said over the murmur of the city, “My mum doesn’t know.”
“Huh?”
“She doesn’t know I’m bent,” he said. “She thinks I’m straight and Phil is actually just my best mate and now this shit is plastered over the internet and I don’t– Things are just starting to get good and I just don’t want to have to deal with this right now.”
He swallowed, stared down at his feet for a long moment while Martyn stared at him. There was a lot he didn’t say that night, a lot he didn’t feel able to explain to someone quite like Martyn.
“Oh,” was Martyn’s response. “Well, that bloody sucks.”
Dan’s response was a bitter sort of chuckle.
They hugged that night before going back inside.
---
“Anyone wanna go for a walk?”
Martyn’s just stepping out of the house when he asks. There’s a hat on his head and sunglasses perched on his nose, a smile on his face. Phil groaned from where he was sitting, sunscreen slathered so thickly across his face that Dan could see white in a few places along his nose. Or maybe he’d just forgotten to rub it in.
“You just made us walk like halfway across the desert to see a sand dune,” he grumbles. “Let me rest.”
Cornelia laughs. There’s a bottle of beer balanced on her knee and a happy gleam in her eyes when she turns to Dan. “I can stay back with him if you want to go.”
“That’s code for she’d rather you go,” says Martyn.
Dan hums. He pushes himself up from his seat. His legs are starting to get sore from all the hiking they apparently do while in America, but he’ll have time to recover when they get back to England.
“Sure, I’ll come,” he says, grabbing his bottle of water, tugging a cap over his curls.
They walk in silence for the first stretch, the easy kind that Dan associates mostly with this specific group of people. Crickets sing in the distance. There’s a whole collection of wild sounds filling the air around them. The wind sweeps across the sand and some animal cries out in the distance.
Dan steps around a cactus. Martyn chuckles next to him, nudging his side.
“How are you doing, by the way?” he asks. “Now that the high’s starting to die down?”
“Is it really?” says Dan. “I still kinda feel like I’m riding it.”
Martyn looks over, grinning. “In a good way?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Definitely in a good way.”
---
They sat around Dan and Phil’s dining table one night in early 2014.
A bottle of wine sat, unopened, in the kitchen, waiting for the time to celebrate to arrive. An infinite collection of paperwork, printed with concrete information and vague dreams alike, was spread across the table between them, stained in dashes of bright yellow highlighter.
“You guys have really thought about this,” Martyn said.
“Yeah,” Phil said. “Well, it’s a big thing, isn’t it?”
Martyn laughed, dry and surprised sounding. “That it is, that’s for sure.”
He reached out, grabbed one bundle of papers full of research they’d done on clothing production. He flipped through it, probably without reading a word. Dan fidgeted in his seat anyway, leg bouncing under the table, feeling like all the work he’d done was under scrutiny by some kind of expert.
Martyn wasn’t an expert in clothing production, but he knew about a lot of things Dan and Phil didn’t.
Dan sat on his hands to keep from fidgeting too much. “We have a proposition for you,” he said.
Martyn looked up, hummed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Dan. “We’d like you to join us as, like, a director of the company.”
Martyn’s eyes went wide, grip going lose on the papers he was holding so they fell back onto the table. “Legit?”
Phil laughed. “Yeah, legit,” he said, voice gone half teasing. “You have expertise in management that we don’t. We could really use you on our team.”
They sat there. Martyn looked back down at all the papers. “Give me time to look all this over and talk to Corn before I finalize my decision,” he said, “but I’m pretty much down already.”
Dan smiled, something like relief unfurling in his chest. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Martyn. He looked up at them, grinning wide and excited and engaged. “Family business, right?”
Phil nodded, just one quick, content bob of his head. “Right.”
---
They play games at night, in the house where the bugs can’t reach them and the wind whistles past windows.
Phil plugs his switch into the TV. He keeps the blue joy-con for himself and hands the red one to Cornelia. Dan hands his spare grey one to Martyn. They huddle around the lounge, Cornelia’s legs on Martyn’s lap, Dan’s tucked under himself in his chair.
Back home, they’d usually play a few quick levels of overcooked, yelling at each other under their neighbours hate them.
Here, with the chirp of crickets outside the house, the heat still bristling across their skin as the sky goes dark, Phil opens Super Mario Party for a more chill night of gaming.
It doesn’t end up chill. It never does.
Cornelia ends up hunched over her own lap. Phil grips the remote so tight it almost pops out of his hands. Martyn’s teeth are digging harshly into his lip. Dan might have screamed once or twice.
The second to last mini-game is a two vs. two that involves throwing pie in each other’s faces. It’s entirely a coincidence that most of Dan’s pies land on Phil’s Monty Mole. And that Martyn’s do too.
And that Dan’s yelling: “Just hit Phil he’s a bigger target. Aim at Phil!”
Martyn laughs so much he doesn’t play the last few seconds of the game. The moment the timer buzzes, Dan bursts into giggles so loud his chest aches.
The game declares him and Martyn the winners.
“You guys were ganging up on me,” Phil whines.
“That’s what big brothers are for,” says Martyn, still laughing.
Dan’s still trying to catch his breath when he says, “Mate, that’s literally the rules of the game.”
On screen, Dan’s Donkey Kong and Martyn’s Hammer Bro high five.
---
There were a few moments that reminded Dan of just how much a part of the Lester family he was.
Late Florida nights, when the heat had just started to fade and the aircon of Kath and Nigel’s timeshare home, were among them. Dan sat on the floor in his pyjamas, an oversized jumper pulled over his head. Phil was next to him, wearing his atrocious emoji pjs, their knees pressed together under the coffee table.
“The youngest get the floor,” Martyn said, sticking out his tongue until Cornelia slapped at his thigh.
Dan stuck his tongue out back, like Adrian used to do when they were little.
“Get along, boys,” said Kath. Laughter rang in her voice and happiness crinkled the corners of her eyes.
Dan found himself smiling up at her as Martyn huffed a loud, “Okay mum .”
They played a game of Charades that night, pulling cards out of a box so old Dan was certain it had been in Florida for years. Dan stood and sat back down so many times his knees started to crack. He drank enough glasses of wine to make his laughs ring loud, his acting a little clumsy.
He and Phil won.
“They cheated,” Martyn said. He was more than a little tipsy, laid back on the sofa with one leg flopped over Cornelia’s lap.
Kath clicked her tongue. “I’m sure they didn’t.”
She packed up the box, excusing herself and Nigel for bed and leaving the four kids sitting in the lounge alone. Phil’s head fell back against the sofa cushions. Dan’s fell against his shoulder.
“That was fun,” said Cornelia, looking down at Dan. “It’s nice having you here this year.”
Dan hid his smile in the fabric of Phil’s t-shirt. Phil’s fingers slid up to run through his hair.
“Yeah,” said Martyn. “I get to pick on you more this way.”
He took a sip of his drink, chuckling when Cornelia swatted at his thigh again.
“What?” he said. “I have too. He’s my little brother now. It’s practically my job.”
“Yeah, that’s your job,” said Cornelia.
Phil laughed. Dan blamed his tipsy brain for how happy it made him to be part of the family that night. He’d never been someone’s little brother.
If this is what it meant, he kinda liked it.
---
They make a fire for the last night.
Well, Martyn and Dan do. He doesn’t trust Phil with a pointy fire stick, so he sends him inside with Cornelia to collect the snacks. Martyn throws logs, left there by the property owners, into the fire pit as Dan tries to keep the little spark of kindling burning long enough to light everything else aflame.
It does, with a lot of blowing and Martyn’s muttered encouragements. One of the logs catches with a loud crackle and the first pop of embers into the sky.
“Ay, you did it!” says Martyn. “London boys can totally survive in the while.”
“Hate to break it to you mate, but I think this is where my survival skills end.”
Martyn laughs. He drops into the patio chair behind him, reaching down to grab a beer from the case at his side. He pops off the cap and holds it out to Dan in silent offering.
Dan sinks into his own seat on the patio with the beer in his hand, cold glass resting against his knee. The desert air is still hot, probably too hot for a fire. The wind carries the smoke out and over the sand. It’s gotten just dark enough that a few stars dot the sky. Dan’s spent a few late nights in the desert watching them fade into view.
“It’s been a good trip, huh?” says Martyn.
“Yeah,” says Dan, just as Cornelia and Phil step out of the house.
Cornelia has boxes of graham crackers and candy bars balanced between her arms. Phil’s hugging a big bag of marshmallows to his chest, the bag already torn open. There’s definitely already a marshmallow in his mouth. Dan rolls his eyes.
They both sit down, too. Dan’s head tilts back, smiling at the sky.
Phil’s poking a marshmallow with a roasting stick. Cornelia’s eating chocolate by itself.
Tomorrow they’ll be in Vegas, where the city light drowns out the stars.
Tonight, Dan looks over the fire, at the burst of embers popping out of it before floating onto the sand and the way it casts a faint orange glow on everyone’s faces.
Martyn reaches across the gap between their seats and clinks their beer bottles together. There’s no cheers, no toast.
This is enough.