Advent Calendar - Day 17 Fiction from Byron Beach

 

YAY! Byron Beach is back this year with a holiday coda for Out of the Blue. Byron's coda picks up after Coda 61 (written in 2020). I love, love, love the photos and the attention to historical detail (among other things)!

The Return Voyage

December 1927

First class on the RMS Majestic

They were singing carols again.

Cowboy heard them drifting down the passageway before he saw a single tinsel-covered soul. “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” sung in accents from half the ports the RMS Majestic had ever touched, and all of them just a shade too cheerful thanks to the legal booze now that they’d cleared American waters. The beloved Magic Stik was rocking easy in the winter swell, and the brass rails under his hand were cold enough to remind him he was very far from Texas.

Up ahead, Bat stood frozen by the porthole, staring out at the dark Atlantic like he meant to take a running jump.

Bat had tells, little ones. This was his biggest.

“You’re doin’ it again,” Cowboy said.

Bat didn’t turn. “Doing what?”

“Starin’ like you’re fixin’ to swim back to New York.”

Bat’s shoulders went stiff, the way they always did when he felt caught. In the glass he looked every inch the English gentleman: clipped blonde hair parted just so, Kings College tie in a perfect double windsor, cheekbones sharp enough to cut tin cans. Handsome, yes. But wound tighter than a fresh lasso.

“If I were to jump, Cowboy,” he said coolly, “it wouldn’t be into the North Atlantic.”

“That’s not a denial, darlin’.”

The way he flinched at the endearment twisted something in Cowboy’s chest. In Texas or New York, “darlin’” had made Bat light up like dawn. Here, surrounded by bankers, duchesses, and stewards trained to hear scandal through steel bulkheads, the word yelled danger.

“Come inside,” Bat muttered. “Before Mrs. Vanderbloodybilt expires unexpectedly.”

Cowboy followed him into the stateroom—Bat’s, though the adjoining door between theirs was propped open, same as always. Bat never shut Cowboy out, not really. Not even now, when he thought he should.

The room was all gleaming wood and polished brass. Only the Heiß and Kalt on the bathroom taps 

 betrayed the ship’s German birth as the S.S. Bismarck. A tiny Christmas tree stood on the writing desk, brave little baubles shining as the ship rolled. Cowboy smiled at it. Bat had lit up when the steward brought it.

“Fittin’ they’re singin’ that hymn,” Cowboy drawled, leaning in the doorway. “Faithful as they come, that’s you.”

“To what?” Bat snapped. “Family duty? Creditors? A crumbling estate?”

“Your family,” Cowboy said evenly. “Your departed brothers. Archie.”
He hesitated, then added, “Me.”

Bat didn’t like hearing that last truth spoken plain. Cowboy could tell—Bat’s shoulders rose just a fraction, like he was bracing for shellfire.

Bat fiddled with a Christmas bauble, voice tight. “I’m dragging you back. From Texas. From New York. From being yourself. And now you’re to play estate manager and… fairy godmother, sprinkling your inheritance over Denforth Castle so the tenants can eat goose at Christmas.”

Cowboy snorted. “Pretty sure you callin’ me a fairy godmother won’t go down well at your club.”

“Be serious.”

“I am.” Cowboy stepped forward, letting the door swing shut behind him. “You’re the one treating my choices like they’re the blessed gifts of the Magi.”

Bat’s laugh cracked. “Aren’t they? ‘Welcome home, Aubrey, and who is this mysterious American who has singlehandedly saved your estate?’”

“You introduced me as a mysterious American long before I earned the title,” Cowboy reminded him gently. “And in England, I’m just your war chum who needed a job. No one’s gonna think twice about us. Anyone who could is dead—may they rest, so none of them are gonna be writin’ to The Times.”

Cowboy saw Bat’s jaw work. That hit somewhere deep.

“In New York,” Bat said softly, “that first night – Tony at El Fay—”

“Which Tony?” Cowboy grinned. “Texas Guinan’s Tony? Bartender Tony? Cole-Porter’s best “friend” Tony?”

The ghost of a smile tugged at Bat’s mouth. Cowboy treasured that flicker; it felt like seeing a wild bird settle on an open palm.

“That night,” Bat continued, “no one stared. No one whispered. You put your hand on my knee and I didn’t think once about my family or… the law. I just breathed.”

Cowboy’s voice went soft. “Hell of a thing, breathin.’”

“And now we’re going back to a ninety-four-room mausoleum where everyone watches and whispers and the vicar suggests suitable girls—”

Bat stopped himself. Cowboy stepped forward and set his hands on Bat’s shoulders, steadying him as the ship rolled.

“Look at me.”

Bat tried not to. But he knew the exact moment he lost that battle—those blue eyes of Cowboy’s never blinked, and the whole world narrowed into understanding.

“I like New York,” Cowboy said. “I like not watching every touch. I like Broadway. And I like that waiter Tony who gave you free drinks ‘cause he liked your smile.”

Bat murmured, “He liked yours.”

“Hell, he liked both of us.” Cowboy chuckled. “But New York will keep. We’ll go back. Right now, we’re goin’ to Kent. To that cold pew your great-whatever built. And we’ll pretend to sing hymns while hummin’ ‘Noël, Noël’ from Sixth Avenue.”

Bat choked out a small laugh. “You’ll scandalize the verger.”

“Only if I get to sit next to you. M’ Lord”

The tree ornaments chimed as the ship rocked.

“It isn’t fair,” Bat whispered. “Your inheritance could build you a ranch or a mansion in Dallas or buy you every car in Texas. Instead you’re… wasting it on Denforth Castle.”

That hurt Cowboy more than Bat knew.

“First off,” Cowboy said quietly, “most of that money came from a forgotten ranch my mama,  owned out in Wortham that turned out to be sittin’ on an ocean of oil. My daddy, God rest him, ain’t got a vote anymore. Unless you want me staying in Dallas?”

“Aloysius—”

“And second,” Cowboy went on, “I ain’t marryin’ your estate.”

Bat startled like he’d been struck.

Cowboy softened his voice but kept it honest. “When I wired that money to Coutts & Co., I was telling the Bank of England, the good Lord, and whoever else was listening that Lord Aubrey Bryant, Denforth Castle, and young Archie, Earl in the making, were standin’ steady. And I was tellin’ you: I’m yours. For good.”

Bat’s breath trembled.

“You think Texas is easy?” Cowboy asked quietly. “Two bachelors running a ranch together? Neighbours smilin’ but never askin’? Me making excuses every time you visited? Bat, nowhere’s easy for men like us. Home is where you are. Always has been.”

That broke something loose in Bat. Cowboy heard it in the breath Bat let out—long, shaky, like he’d been holding it since France.

“You’ll have to call me ‘my Lord’ in public,” Bat murmured. “And we can’t touch at dinner.”

“I’ll still be waking up next to you most mornings,” Cowboy replied. “Ridin’ your fields. Learning the names of your tenants. Hearing that woman in the village tell the story of how you rescued her cat—”

“It was a very large tree,” Bat muttered.

“Tallest damn tree in Kent.” Cowboy grinned. “And at night, I’ll walk that long draughty corridor and into your room, and you’ll give me that look that says ‘this is mad,’ and kiss me anyway.”

Bat turned, opened his leather case, and pulled out something small and ornate.

Cowboy recognized it immediately—an old iron key, worn smooth by a century of Bryants.

“This is the key to the west door,” Bat said. “Only the family uses it.”

Cowboy’s throat clenched. No outsider had ever been given such a thing.

Before he could embarrass himself with tears, Cowboy dug into his pocket and produced a shiny brass key.

“And this one’s to the apartment in New York the lawyer’s fixin’ up for us,” he said. “Top floor, big

windows, real ugly wallpaper you’re gonna hate. I wired him yesterday from the wireless room to say we’d take it after Easter.”

Two keys. Two homes.

One life.

They stepped close, hands closing together, the keys chiming between them. Cowboy kissed him—slow, sure, nothing held back.

“Fear’s easy,” he murmured. “We take it together. I wasn’t in that club in New York for any of the Tonys. I was there ’cause you were. Same goes for your drafty old pile. I’d rather be freezin’ with you than warm anywhere else.”

Bat swallowed a sob. “You ridiculous man.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

They stood that way, two men in a warm cabin on a cold ocean, holding on while the Magic Stik carried them toward Christmas.

Finally Cowboy pulled back. “Come on. They’re stringin’ lights on deck. I wanna see you pretend you don’t like ’em.”

“Cowboy—”

“And after,” Cowboy added, low and wicked, “you can inspect the adjoining accommodations.”

Bat straightened, dignity returning. “Cowboy, the White Star Line has no idea what’s about to happen in their first-class Georgian suite.”

Cowboy grinned. “Merry Christmas.”

Bat slipped both keys into his waistcoat, right over his heart.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispered. “Let’s go home.”