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Their first night back in the hotel, Alex is so worn out from everything that technically didn't happen—their trek through the jungle, her panic at the loss of her family and the competition-that-never-was—she doesn't even remember how she got to her bed.
The next day Theresa would fill her in, and explain how Alex crashed in the middle of supper. One minute she was moving a piece of fish around on her plate, and the next she slumped forward into the tartar sauce. Then Justin ("oh, mija, it was the cutest thing I ever saw!") tried to carry her to bed, but he was so worn out himself that he stumbled and nearly dropped her ("you sure that wasn't on purpose, Mom?") so Jerry had carried her the rest of the way.
Which would explain why Alex wakes feeling smothered by the softness of her own mattress, stiff and confused and crying out, terrified, for her brothers.
"Alex!" Justin stumbles out of the bathroom, his hair full of soapsuds, a towel slung low on his hips, "Alex, what's—" he skids to a slippery stop on the tile floor, confused by the absence of an obvious emergency.
She sits up in bed, pushes her hair out of her face, and tries to rein in the adrenaline still surging through her body on a tidal wave of panic.
"I thought . . ." she starts, then bites her lip. "I was only remembering—I mean, dreaming . . ."
"Oh." His confusion vanishes, replaced by solemn understanding. "Yeah. So did I." He hesitates, and a rivulet of soapy bubbles traces a lazy path down his cheek, dripping onto his bare chest. "Are you okay for now? Max already went downstairs—something about making a banana hat—and I'm just showering, but I'll be done in a minute, if you're—"
"Sheesh, yeah, go," she affects irritation, waving her hand at him to leave her alone. "Don't need you stinking the place up, do we?"
His concern subsides, he rolls his eyes and retreats to the bathroom once more. Alex waits until he's gone before she draws her knees up under her chin, wraps her arms around them and starts to shake. Hard.
Because the truth is she's not okay at all.
***
Fortunately if there's one thing Alex is good at, it's covering for herself. After quizzing her mother on how she wound up in bed, she lets the nightmare go and tries to enjoy the sun, wandering around the market with her family, breathing in, breathing out, admiring Max's banana hat ("you're going to throw it out before it rots, right, Maxie? You promise?") and making sure Justin is never out of arm's reach.
That last bit would probably be harder to pass off as normal, if only Justin didn't seem equally determined to stay close to her. One time she hangs a quick right and forgets to check that he's behind her. He finds her a minute later, his eyes crazed, his breath coming in quick, short pants.
"You're . . . here," he says, and it's such a lame thing to say that she knows she should mock him for it, call him Captain Obvious, sneeringly thank him for that brilliant deduction, but the truth is she's just so glad to see he's still there, solid and real and remembering her, that all she can do is nod.
"I'm here," she says. She's glad her voice doesn't quiver. "I'm not going anywhere."
He nods, quick, determined, and steps forward to wrap her little hand in his own. "You better not," he says. "If you—" he stops, shakes his head. "You just better not."
She lets him tug her back into the main thoroughfare without complaint. They rejoin their family, chase a monkey away from Max's banana hat, and don't let go of each other until they return to the hotel.
"Alex?" Justin breaks through her wide-eyed reverie (and the sound of Max's snores) some time past two in the morning.
"Yeah?" She doesn't question how he knows she's still awake. Even with the room between them, she's so acutely aware of his every breath that it never occurs to her to doubt that he is equally aware of her.
He doesn't speak, though. Maybe he was just checking to see if she was awake. Or maybe he can't figure out how to ask her to do what she is pretty sure they both want.
Well, she can help with that last one.
"Get up."
"What?" he sits up and looks across to where she is already swinging her legs over the side of the bed, grabbing the topmost pillow up under her arm.
"I said get up. Come with me." She strips a midweight sheet from her bed and heads for the balcony, knowing he might grumble and grouse about it, but knowing also, with a budding warmth in the pit of her stomach, that he will follow her anywhere.
She is knotting herself comfortably in her sheet when he steps onto the balcony, bed-tousled and bleary-eyed in the glow from the outside lights. She smiles up at him from her cocoon.
"Come on," she says, and reaches up to catch his hand. "We'll sleep here, tonight."
"Alex, I don't know . . ."
"Can you sleep on that mattress?" she asks. "Really?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Then lie down," she orders. He shakes his head and smiles.
"Fine. But not like this. Here, move over."
He crouches down and peels the blanket from her legs, flattening it, spreading it, patting it into place like a cat making its nest. When he is done the blanket is rearranged from cocoon to cup. The soft, cozy pod is just big enough for him to snuggle down by her side and, after only the briefest hesitation, wrap his arm around her waist, tucking her in against him.
She settles her hands on his arm, a featherlight touch gracing the warm weight of protection he offers. Her every tension eases from her body, borne away on her next sigh. His answering sigh ruffles her hair, warms her neck and makes her smile.
They do not speak. She feels her limbs soften and grow heavy. The sleep that so frightened her when she was alone in her bed, on the verge of suffocation, comes now as a welcome friend.
She drifts off peacefully, warmed from the inside out.
That night she feels warmer than usual when she settles down beside him. She is careful to keep her face turned away, in case brushing her teeth four times wasn't enough to get the smell of the rum off her breath. The warmth in her stomach spreads in a slow, delicious crawl to each of her limbs, weighting them and at the same time making her feel light and sweet, like she could float up to meet the stars.
She knows Justin is awake, too; the arm around her is tight and aware, rather than the gentle dead weight it becomes after he nods off.
"Mmm," she sighs, and snuggles into him. His breath hitches, which strikes her as funny, so she giggles. His breath hitches again.
"Alex," he says, as though he's going to deliver important information, so she musters the sort of solemn attentiveness she thinks he'd expect but the message never comes. Instead he just sighs, which makes the hairs at the nape of her neck lift and settle. She imagines the little hairs like a curtain, fluttering in the breeze, and giggles again.
"What's so funny?" he asks. She sobers.
"Nothing." She roots closer, ignoring his sounds of discomfort. "Nothing's funny."
She tries not to think about what is especially not funny tonight, but the problem with trying not to think about something is you just end up thinking about it more. She scowls, and grips his arm possessively.
"What is it?" he prods, so she sighs, flops over and looks up at him. The planes of his face are cast in a sharp study of shadow-and-light, thanks to the orange glow of the hotel security lamps. His expression is hard to read.
"It's our last night," she says. Something on one side of his face tightens, but she still can't make out what he really looks like, so she keeps talking. "What are we going to . . . I mean, when we go home . . ."
Home looms like a tornado-type threat, bearing down on them, threatening to split them apart. Justin must see it too, because his grip around her tightens until she squeaks, he apologizes, and loosens his hold.
"I don't know," he says. "I mean . . . well, we have a balcony there, too."
"Yeah," she scoffs, "because even assuming Mom and Dad wouldn't find us there the next morning and lose their shit? I really don't want to be on the balcony in, say, December, freezing my ass off. Genius."
"December?" Justin sounds startled. "Do you think—I mean, in December will we still need—" he stops, and swallows hard. "You think?"
Even now she can't watch him round a corner without her and not be choked by the fear he won't return. He can't let her out of his sight without starting to hyperventilate, grabbing her hand like a life preserver when he finds her again.
"Yeah," she says softly. Maybe it's the rum talking, or maybe it's the way she only feels safe when he's holding her. "Yeah, I think we will."
She watches him consider this, the electric orange light playing over his face in a ghostly echo of that other night, the one when she used his arms and the firelight to keep her nightmares at bay. Finally he nods, pulls her close, and sets his chin to her shoulder in a way that means he's decided something.
"All right," he says. Just two words. Nothing else, no explanation or anything. But somehow, because it's Justin who's her brother and so embarrassing and such a dork and yet weirdly, improbably brave at those few times she forgets how to be brave herself, those two words are all she needs to hear.
She snuggles down in their nest, safe and at peace and, okay, maybe just a teeny bit drunk as well, and faces sleep without fear.
They stay together in the airport, and between them try to keep Max from patting the dog that comes to an excited, barking 'sit' beside the youngest Russo's bulging suitcase.
"Hey, doggie!" Max exults. "Hey, whatcha want? Oh," as security congregates around the family, "I bet it's my pineapple."
It is, indeed.
"His name is Frank!" Max protests, reaching longingly for his pineapple as the unsmiling security guard bears it away.
Jerry, rather than answering the questions put to him by the dog's handler, tries to cast doubt on his youngest son's paternity. "Nobody in MY family ever acted like this," he explains, which is Theresa's cue to hiss at him in rapid, angry Spanish, using the only words Alex took the trouble to learn—the same ones she'd been under strict orders not to use when their grandmother came to visit.
"All right Mom!" she cheers, which is apparently not the sort of thing good, supportive daughters say under such circumstances, because both her parents give her the stinkeye just before the whole family is issued a stern warning by security, and ordered to continue to their gate.
The flight home is the cheapest one Jerry could find, which means they change planes twice before they finally land at LaGuardia just after midnight. It's late, and they're all exhausted. Everybody staggers out to the taxi line, rumpled, stiff and bleary-eyed. Alex nods off on Justin's shoulder as their taxi crosses the bridge.
She awakens to her mother's gentle touch, and blinks, disoriented, at the sight of Theresa's sleepy smile.
"We're home, mija. Let's get you up to bed, okay?"
Alex is instantly wide awake, a cold knot of dread settling deep in her gut.
When she closes her eyes, she knows what will happen. Her brothers will be taken and her parents will look at her as though she is a stranger. She will be so utterly lost and alone that she will scream until the too-soft, too-warm mattress smothers her into silence.
The thought of it makes her stomach clench in panic, her heart fighting to escape the too-tight confines of her chest. This is it. She's going to die, right here, of a heart attack. They'll find her in the morning and—
"Alex?"
The voice that speaks her name is so quiet she thinks she might have dreamed it. She waits for it to turn into a nightmare; instead, it turns into the soft creak of her door. Her brother's silhouette is outlined by the dim light in the hall.
"Alex." His whisper is the sweetest, most wonderful sound she's ever heard. "Get up."
"What?" she bobs up in bed, squinting at him. She can't see his face, but she could swear he smiles, just a little.
"I said get up," he says. "Come with me."
Then he heads down the hall, moving with all the confidence of a boy who knows his sister will follow him anywhere.
A nest of blankets is centered on the balcony, a pair of pillows propped at one end. Justin finishes setting the alarm on his phone, places it carefully on the floor by their makeshift bed, and gives her a crooked smile.
"Well?" he says. Her answering smile is so warm and bright and grateful, it makes him turn pink. "Come on." He nods at the blankets. "Let's get some rest."
The night air is chilly here. It's drier than the warm, clammy nights they left behind, but that's okay, because Justin makes up for it by feeling warmer in New York than he ever did on vacation.
She roots in close, relishing the now-familiar way his breath catches as she shifts against him, all soft sighs and curves in his arms. His breath, hot on her ear, blows a tendril of hair over her cheek. It tickles. She smiles into the lamp-lit sky.
"What are we gonna do in December?" she mumbles, as though she actually cares, as though she is the sort of person who thinks as far ahead as December when everything she needs and wants is here, now, keeping her safe and warm.
Justin, who is the sort of person who thinks ahead for five Decembers, surprises her with his answer.
"I don't know. A heater, maybe? A spell? Some sort of climate-controlled eco-bubble over the balcony? One night in your room, next night in mine? We'll think of something when the time comes. Right now, I don't care."
He doesn't finish the thought, but he doesn't have to. She knows he doesn't care about the rest of it because everything they could have lost is still too recent, their fear too raw, to let them care about anything more than they care about this.
She never wants them to be anything but this. She cares more about them being this than she has cared about anything in her whole life. It would probably terrify her, if it didn't feel so right.
For now, she needs him. He needs her. Whatever this is, no matter what later might bring, they have tonight, and each other.
For now, that's enough.