Cole Reed steps into the airport terminal and immediately clocks the atmosphere as a grade below “funeral home,” a full spectrum removed from the warmth of the car that dropped him off. The sliding doors barely manage a shuddering, pneumatic whine before sealing behind him, and the kind of cold that knifes under collars settles along the glass and steel bones of the building. There’s the faint whiff of melting snow and bleach—remnants of a morning cleaning crew fighting the entropy of stranded humanity—and then, under that, burnt coffee drifting from a vending cart attended by a woman reading her phone.
A dying phone buzzes in his hand: five percent battery, zero bars. Story of his life.
He hoists his duffel bag higher on his shoulder, rolls his neck, surveys the battlefield. Scattered clusters of the desperate and the dead-eyed: a balding man in a slouch beanie hunched over a laptop, a woman in a camouflage jacket feeding chips to a feral toddler, a college-aged couple buried in a blanket fort of branded travel pillows. Every outlet he can see is already loaded with someone’s device, cords tangled like seaweed. The overhead announcements stutter and loop, all “delayed” and “further updates,” a chorus to the slow-motion disaster unfolding outside, where the sky sags with dirty clouds and the tarmac glistens under new ice.
There’s a working outlet. Or at least, it was working five seconds ago when the guy with the neck tattoo finished charging and shuffled off toward his gate. Cole pounces, navigating around a cluster of wheeled suitcases and over a landscape of splayed legs. The open seat has a view of the runway, a bonus, and he claims it like a territory—drops his bag on the chair, plugs in his charger, and, with the slightly performative grace of a practiced athlete, plants himself next to it.
Only, in the split second before he sits, someone else is there, wedge-shouldering in with the same hungry desperation. They collide, not quite bodily, but enough for a mutual recalibration.
“Whoa,” says the other guy, his tone flat and slightly amused. “You always play this aggressive?”
Cole half-smiles, surveys the threat: roughly his age, a little taller, broader across the chest, with a jawline designed for chewing tobacco commercials and eyes that catch every sliver of movement in the room. The opposing duffel is Under Armor; the logo faded in the way of things that have seen a thousand locker rooms.
“If it’s a competition,” Cole says, “then yeah. Survival of the fittest and all that.”
There’s a flicker of teeth—real smile, not baring fangs. “Darwin would be proud. Or rolling over. Mind if I—?”
They’re both staring at the lone outlet, its double port already a negotiation.
Cole shrugs. “Let’s just agree to joint custody. I’ll take odd hours.”
The guy laughs, more open now. “You can have the first turn. Looks like your phone needs it more than mine.” He points to Cole’s screen, which flashes up a triumphant “3%” in green.
Cole toggles the lock screen, tries to look unbothered. “How’s it look out there?” He gestures to the window, where a snowplow the size of a small whale is making lazy circles.
The other guy, already plugging in, leans forward to check. “Not promising. If we’re lucky, we’re sleeping in those luxury cots they set up by the newsstand.” His phone lights up, and for a moment the blue-white glow catches the side of his face, highlighting the faint scar that splits his eyebrow. “At least they have free Wi-Fi.”
Cole makes a face. “The Wi-Fi’s garbage. And the cots itch. You ever actually slept on one of those?”
“Only when I’m running from home,” the guy says, deadpan. Then, after a beat, “Or coming back.” He stretches his legs out, careful not to bump Cole’s, but close enough that the space between them is negligible. “You local, or just passing through?”
Cole almost says “just passing,” but there’s a too-obvious escape in that, so he hedges. “From Athens. School break.”
He expects the standard nod, maybe a vague “Go Dawgs,” but instead the guy arches an eyebrow, visibly recalculating.
“Georgia?” he says. “You don’t look like a UGA guy.”
Cole rolls with it. “What do I look like, then?”
“More SEC than SEC. But I guess it checks out.” The guy’s eyes flick down to Cole’s shoes, his wrist, then the logo on the bag. “What are you, football?”
He waits a second, lets the question hang, then grins. “Swimming.”
The guy’s grin mirrors his, wider this time, as if he’s scored a private victory. “I knew it. You have that aquatic vibe.”
Cole’s used to the football guess; it’s the default. He’s not used to being read so easily, and he’s not sure if he likes it. “And you? Let me guess—track?”
“Close, but not quite.” The guy shifts, extending his hand in a gesture almost but not quite mocking. “Jalen Brooks. Gymnastics.”
“Cole Reed.” Cole shakes his hand, surprised at how solid the grip is. “Damn, so you’re the reason our rec center is always booked.”
Jalen laughs, a quick bark. “I’ll take the blame.” He glances at Cole’s phone, now up to a life-sustaining six percent. “So, what’s a swimmer doing in the middle of a blizzard? Didn’t peg you for the homebody type.”
Cole debates a joke, then opts for partial truth. “It was supposed to be a quick visit, but the weather had other ideas. Now I’m just trying to get back before Coach makes me do double laps for missing morning practice.”
Jalen nods, understanding coded in every muscle of his face. “Coach still have that psycho-with-a-whistle energy?”
“She’s gone next-level. Last week she made us do underwater sprints while reading from a whiteboard on deck. Said it was ‘mental endurance.’”
Jalen’s eyes light with recognition. “Mental endurance. Classic. I had a coach who made us memorize floor routines in Latin.”
“Bullshit.”
Jalen shakes his head, grinning. “Swear on my last protein bar. She said it built neuroplasticity.” He leans back, brushing the armrest between them, and the movement is easy, practiced, as if he’s already calculated the exact angle required to avoid unnecessary contact while still filling the shared space.
Cole’s about to volley back when a group of kids stampedes past, trailing wrappers and screams. He and Jalen both flinch, then share a look: a silent, mutual disapproval of civilian travel.
“So,” Jalen says, “what are the odds we’re stuck here all night?”
Cole glances at the screen overhead, where their flight’s status flickers between “delayed” and “pending.” He does the mental math—storm outside, flight crew probably snowed in at the Best Western, odds of takeoff before midnight about as high as his odds of passing organic chem on the first try.
“Odds are not great,” Cole admits. “But at least we have power.” He gestures to the tiny, flickering light on the outlet.
Jalen lifts his phone, as if in toast. “To surviving the apocalypse.”
“So what year are you?” Cole asks, just to keep the ball rolling.
“Junior. You?”
“Same.”
“Ever been to one of those all-athlete mixers?” Jalen asks, a little sly, as if expecting a particular answer.
Cole winces. “Yeah. Once. Too much Gatorade, not enough food, and half the football team tried to body shot tequila off a volleyball player.”
Jalen laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. “That was you guys? My teammate still talks about it. Swears it’s why the school banned open containers at all future events.”
Cole feigns innocence. “I was just an innocent bystander.”
“Sure,” Jalen says. “You look real innocent.”
Something about the banter settles into Cole’s bones—he’s used to this rhythm, the trading of stories and jabs, but there’s an edge to Jalen, a sense that he’s only half-playing. Underneath, there’s something more analytical, more observant, as if he’s running silent calculations on the interaction.
Cole wonders, not for the first time, how many times he’s had conversations like this and never noticed the subtext. The possibility that Jalen is reading him—not just for athletic prowess or campus gossip, but for something deeper—flares in the back of his mind.
He pivots, testing the waters. “So, you said you were running from home earlier. Where’s home?”
Jalen hesitates, just long enough to register. “Decatur. It’s fine. Just… better in small doses, you know?” His thumb rubs the edge of his phone, a nervous tic quickly disguised as wiping a smudge from the screen. “My mom thinks I’m out here getting scouted by the Olympic committee.”
Cole smirks. “Are you?”
“Not unless they need someone to clean the mats.” Jalen’s smile returns, easy as breathing.
A fresh layer of silence grows between them, but it’s not uncomfortable; more like the settling of snow outside, muffling the worst of the wind. Cole shifts his duffel so their knees are almost touching. On the tarmac, a plane attempts a glacial taxi, then gives up.
Jalen’s gaze follows it, thoughtful. “Think they’ll ever call it, or are they going to make us wait until we’re half-frozen?”
“My money’s on us becoming local legends. They’ll find us a hundred years from now, perfectly preserved in the gate chairs, still waiting for boarding group three.”
Jalen snorts. “If that’s the plan, we might as well raid the vending machine for supplies.”
“You scope it already?” Cole asks.
“Always.” Jalen leans in, conspiratorial. “Pro tip: the Cheetos in these airports are like, half air. But the lemon-lime Gatorade never sells out.”
“You have a vending machine strategy.”
“Survival of the fittest, remember?”
Cole lets the phrase hang, considers it anew.
There are a thousand things he could say, ways he could steer this—toward another story, another joke, or just let the quiet do its work. But the storm outside seems to have put the world on pause, and for once, he’s not in a rush to fill the silence.
They sit like that, two athletes pretending not to weigh each other, their phones humming, their chargers knotted together, the only warmth in the terminal the shared recognition that neither is quite what the other expected.
By midnight the airport has become its own time zone, sealed off from the world by glass, steel, and a blizzard indifferent to any circadian rhythm. A lulling, artificial brightness stains the terminal from above, flickering whenever the wind throws itself hard against the window banks. It’s the kind of lighting that makes everyone look like their own wax figure, a little pale and too smooth, erasing the world outside and trapping everyone in an endless present.
Cole stretches out his legs, propping one sneakered foot on his battered duffel. A few seats down, Jalen Brooks hunches over his phone, thumbs flicking through something on mute, eyes occasionally darting up to check the latest weather crawl. Two hours have passed since their last exchange—a lopsided, sleep-deprived chess match with pieces borrowed from an abandoned kid’s play area. Jalen had lost, but only after dragging out every move with theatrical sighs and calculated hesitation, milking the game for the only entertainment left. Cole had felt himself grinning at the antics, even as he checkmated with a self-satisfied flourish.
Now, silence. Cole’s limbs hum from inactivity, each muscle straining for a purpose beyond staving off boredom. The wind outside has gone from a distant white noise to something more animal—a moaning, low-throated pressure that shudders the glass. In a row of orange seats, two businessmen have constructed nests out of their suit jackets and are snoring in unison, mouths slack. A little girl in a puffy purple coat has long since given up her fight against sleep, curled in the lap of a mother who hasn’t blinked in ten minutes. The rest of the terminal’s population—maybe a dozen stranded souls—are scattered across the plastic terrain like the aftermath of a small, well-mannered disaster.
Cole drums his fingers on the metal armrest, then glances over. Jalen is still at his phone, but the angle of his head makes him look almost conspiratorial. Cole waits, counts to five, and when Jalen finally notices the attention, he quirks an eyebrow.
“Want a rematch?” Jalen asks, holding up a bishop like a bribe.
Cole shakes his head. “Don’t want to break your spirit before we even get to campus.”
Jalen laughs, the sound muffled but genuine. “Didn’t realize you were so charitable.”
“I’m a humanitarian at heart.” Cole leans back, feeling the plastic give under his shoulder blades. “Besides, I need you in one piece tomorrow. They’ll probably make us bunk together, you know.”
Jalen’s mouth twitches into something that wants to be a smirk but doesn’t quite get there. “Yeah, you look like a guy who snores.”
“Not unless I’m completely passed out,” Cole shoots back. “You?”
“I talk in my sleep,” Jalen says, gaze dropping to the chess piece rolling in his palm. “So, if I start confessing national secrets at 3 a.m., just ignore me.”
Cole wants to ask what kind of secrets, but the question gets tangled in his throat. Instead, he gestures at the looming storm outside. “Ever seen it this bad?”
Jalen shakes his head. “Not even close. Last time my flight got delayed, it was barely a dusting, and everyone freaked out. This… this is biblical.”
Cole stares past the frost-caked window, the tarmac a blur of snow and blinking hazard lights.
Jalen snorts, finally setting his phone aside. He shifts, rotating his hips so that his knees angle toward Cole—a subtle recalibration, but one that narrows the buffer of empty space between them.
Jalen’s tongue pokes briefly from the corner of his mouth as he grins. “You ever miss your place when you’re gone?”
Cole shrugs. “Sometimes. Campus gets to you after a while, you know? All the bullshit about being a student-athlete and maintaining ‘integrity’ when literally everyone is cheating or juicing or trying to one-up you. It’s exhausting.”
Jalen nods, face momentarily open. “Yeah. You ever think about just… quitting? Walking away?”
The question hangs there, as if the wind outside has pressed it against the glass and neither of them can wipe it away. Cole feels the urge to answer with bravado, something about never giving up, but he’s too tired to be anything but honest. “Every week. Sometimes every day.”
“Me too,” Jalen says, voice so quiet it nearly dissolves in the air.
They sit in it for a beat—an invisible line drawn between their admissions, pulsing with low current. Outside, a jet engine whines in protest as a service vehicle struggles past, spraying clouds of de-icer over the tarmac. Someone coughs, three seats over, then coughs again, harder. The lights flicker twice, a brief stutter, then settle into their unrelenting glow.
Cole shifts, runs a hand over his short hair. “So, you got any wild party stories, or do you just play chess in your spare time?”
Jalen opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” Cole says, making it a challenge.
Jalen leans in conspiratorially, lowering his voice so that only the two of them can hear. “Okay. Sophomore year, end of the fall semester. My roommate’s girlfriend brings a batch of ‘special’ brownies to our floor Christmas party. I have, like, zero tolerance, so I eat half a brownie and twenty minutes later, I’m convinced the RA is an undercover cop sent to break up our illegal holiday gift exchange. I panic, flush my own Christmas presents down the toilet, and end up hiding in the laundry room for two hours, talking to the dryers like they’re hostages in a negotiation.”
Cole tries to suppress a laugh, but it erupts anyway, a sharp burst. “You’re lying.”
Jalen holds up his right hand. “Swear to God. Ask anyone on my floor. I had to write three apology emails and pay a fine for damaging university property.”
“Dude.” Cole is doubled over, tears stinging his eyes.
Jalen feigns modesty, but the way his face lights up is unmistakable. “Alright, your turn.”
Cole straightens, biting back residual laughter. “Okay, this one’s legendary. You know Pi Lam?”
“Sure,” Jalen says. “The one with the green porch.”
“Yeah. They throw this party every spring called Soggy Saturday. They fill their basement with kiddie pools, beer, and I swear, live ducks one year. The point is to get everyone so drunk and waterlogged that no one remembers what happened. Anyway, I’m there with the swim team, because obviously, and someone dares me to race naked through the pools. Not to be outdone, I strip down, make it three laps, and end up crashing into the food table—except it wasn’t food, it was a cake someone made shaped like the Dean’s head. I took out the entire thing, and the video made the rounds for weeks.”
Jalen is shaking with laughter now, his hand on Cole’s arm as if to steady himself. “The Dean’s head?”
“Full fondant. The nose was actually pretty accurate,” Cole says, grinning.
They’re both laughing now, faces flushed, the kind of giggle fit that’s only funny if you’re both desperately trying not to disturb the stillness of a near-empty terminal. When the laughter finally dies down, Cole feels lighter, as if something brittle in his chest has softened.
A silence falls, not awkward but weighted, each of them still breathing hard from laughter. Cole notices that their knees are nearly touching, the space between them reduced to a shared conspiracy. He’s aware of Jalen’s smell—faint detergent and skin, something clean but distinctly human.
The wind rattles the windows again, a percussion that syncs up with Cole’s heartbeat. He risks a glance at Jalen, who is looking at him with an expression that’s hard to parse—half amusement, half something else.
Cole shifts in his seat and clears his throat like he’s about to answer a question in class. “So… you got somebody back home?” he asks, aiming for casual, like it’s just another athlete small-talk checkbox.
Jalen’s mouth quirks. “Yeah,” he says, eyes sliding away toward the glass. “Tasha. She’s gonna be pissed I’m stuck here.”
Cole nods too fast, relieved and weirdly disappointed at the same time. “Amber,” he says, holding up his phone like proof. “She’s probably already writing my obituary.”
Jalen snorts, but it doesn’t fully land; there’s a tightness under it. “They act like we choose this,” he mutters. “Like we wake up and go, ‘You know what sounds fun? Missing dinner and getting yelled at.’”
Cole huffs a laugh. “Right? And then when you try to explain it, you just sound like a douche.”
Jalen glances at him, something cautious in his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, quieter. “Or like you’re hiding something.”
“Amber’s always on my case about missing date nights for practice,” Cole blurts, instantly regretting it.
Jalen’s expression shifts, something guarded flickering in his eyes. “Tasha’s the same way,” he says. “You’d think they’d understand, with us both being athletes. But somehow it’s always, ‘Why can’t you just skip this one time?’ Like, the world will end if you don’t show up for a group hang at Applebee’s.”
Cole laughs, but there’s an undercurrent to it now. “She’s good, though. Amber. Patient, mostly. Puts up with all my bullshit and still finds time to decorate my entire apartment for the holidays, even though she’s allergic to pine. That’s commitment.”
Jalen looks at him, steady. “Sounds like you really care about her.”
Cole nods, then shakes his head. “Yeah. I do. I think.” He wonders, not for the first time, if the words mean the same thing out loud as they do inside his head.
“Tasha’s great, too,” Jalen offers. “She’s in pre-law, which means she can argue me into the ground about literally anything. I never win.”
Cole grins, imagining it. “Do you ever just let her win?”
Jalen shakes his head, mock-serious. “Nope. Gotta keep her sharp.”
They both laugh, but the sound is softer now, threaded with something unsaid. The conversation stutters, as if both of them have reached the edge of an admission and are too cautious to cross it.
Cole glances down at his hands, then back up. “You ever think about… I don’t know. What comes next?”
Jalen doesn’t answer right away. He pulls his knees up, resting his feet on the seat’s edge, and hugs them with his arms. The motion is childlike, vulnerable, but somehow it suits him.
“Sometimes,” Jalen says, voice low. “But mostly I just try to get through the week without fucking up.”
Cole nods. “Yeah. That’s fair.”
A hollow boom reverberates through the terminal, and for a moment the lights gutter, plunging everything into twilight. When they return, the world feels different, as if someone has shaken the snow globe of their existence and let the flakes settle in new patterns.
Jalen shivers. “I should probably try to get some sleep,” he says, though he makes no move to leave.
“Yeah,” Cole says. “Me too.”
Neither of them does.
Instead, Jalen leans back, folding his arms behind his head, and stares up at the terminal’s ceiling. The posture leaves his neck exposed, jawline sharp against the glow.
They lapse into another silence, but this one feels companionable, a shared buffer against the boredom and cold. Cole becomes acutely aware of every detail—the buzz of the vending machine in the corner, the way Jalen’s leg bounces in time with the tick of his watch, the smell of burnt coffee and wet winter air that pervades the terminal.
Jalen shifts, uncurling from his seat with a grunt. “Dude, I gotta piss,” he says, matter-of-fact.
Cole nods, already standing. “I do too, actually.”
They move without ceremony, weaving through the scattered bodies of the terminal—the sleeping businessmen, the mother and her kid, the TSA agent still glued to her phone. The bathroom is a 300-foot walk down a corridor that stretches like a throat, fluorescent lights humming overhead, the air getting colder and emptier the farther they get from the gate. Their footsteps echo off the tile, two sets of sneakers slapping out of sync. Neither of them speaks.
Inside, it’s even colder. A cleaner’s yellow mop bucket squats in the corner, exuding the tang of ammonia and wet rubber. The urinals line the wall, blinding white beneath the flickering fluorescents, each separated by a pathetically symbolic partition.
Jalen sidles to the urinal beside Cole, two feet of nothing between them.
Cole unzips, grins to himself, and aims. The sound of piss on porcelain is absurdly loud, almost obscene in the hush. He expects Jalen to launch into a joke, but instead the gymnast just stands there, breathing slow, head angled down but gaze clearly canted sideways.
Cole can feel the look. He gives it a few seconds, then turns his own head, eyebrows raised.
Jalen’s eyes snap up, caught in the act.
“Dude. Are you—” Cole lets the question hang, savoring the reversal. “You’re seriously checking me out?”
Jalen blinks, unrepentant. “Just wondering what they’re feeding you in Athens. That thing looks like it could tow a car.”
Cole huffs a laugh, relieved. “Don’t be jealous.”
Jalen glances down at his own fly, then at Cole again. “You’re not shy, are you?”
“Why, you want to see it in action?” Cole shakes off, tucks away, but makes a small show of the last gesture.
Jalen rolls his eyes, but there’s a pink flush climbing his cheeks. “I’ve seen better.”
“Liar.” Cole takes a half step back, pivots so they’re now facing each other, two athletes still squaring off. “Come on. Bet you don’t even have the balls to show me yours.”
There’s a heartbeat—Jalen’s mouth twitches, eyes darting past Cole’s shoulder to check for witnesses—then he pops the button and slides down the zipper. With a studied nonchalance, he fishes out his cock, uncut and still half-sleepy but thick, heavier than Cole expected on a guy with a gymnast’s frame.
It’s Cole’s turn to stare. “You ever heard of manscaping?”
“Some of us don’t have two hours to shave for a meet,” Jalen retorts. His hand cups himself, adjusts, then lets it dangle.
Cole can’t look away, and now it’s obvious. He tries a joke, but it gets stuck in the gluey tension. “Okay, you win. But only because mine’s still thawing out.”
Jalen’s smirk is real this time. “You talk a lot of shit for a guy who’s staring at my dick.”
