Checked Baggage

By Valentine Wheeler

A Thanksgiving Romance

When Faris has to take a trip back to his family's home in Lebanon to handle his grandmother's estate, he finds himself caught between the world he left and the world he's built himself in the United States. After an exhausting stay with his boisterous extended family, all he wants is a quiet trip home and a chance to rest before Thanksgiving with his parents in Massachusetts. But the weather has different plans for him.

Charlie's father left when he was a toddler, and he's never gotten a chance to connect with his paternal roots. A trip to the village his grandparents left in the 1930s gave him the facts but left him yearning for a connection he still didn't feel.

When both men are stuck in Beirut for the night unexpectedly, can they find the feeling they're both missing and make it home in time for Thanksgiving?

• Language: English
• Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
• Release date: Nov 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949909241

Valentine Wheeler

Valentine is a latecomer to writing, though she’s always been a passionate reader. Through fanfiction she found her way to an incredible community of writers who’ve taught her to love making stories. When she isn’t writing, she’s making bad puns, yelling about television, or playing with her small child. Her life’s ambition is to eat the cuisine of every single country.

Book preview

A NineStar Press Publication

Published by NineStar Press

P.O. Box 91792,

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199 USA.

www.ninestarpress.com

Checked Baggage

Copyright © 2018 by Valentine Wheeler

Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2018

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at the physical or web addresses above or at [e-mail].

Printed in the USA

First Edition

November, 2018

eBook ISBN: 978-1-949909-24-1

Warning: This book contains sexual content, which may only be suitable for mature readers.

Checked Baggage

A Thanksgiving Romance

Valentine Wheeler

Table of Contents

Dedication

Checked Baggage

About the Author

To my Saber and Khalif ancestors, whose homelands I’ve borrowed for this piece.

FARIS’S SUITCASE WHEEL caught in a rut between the carpets, so he yanked it harder, cursing under his breath. The woman turning the next switchback of the long, snaking check-in line gave him a dirty look from under her hijab. Faris glared back as she turned the corner out of view behind a large, loud family. Frustration simmered in his stomach after a few minutes in the airport. He wasn’t looking forward to the day of travel ahead of him.

He pulled his T-shirt away from his chest, grimacing at the sweaty feel of the cotton. Beirut was too warm in November. Not Charleston-summer hot, sticky and burning like a slap to the face with a wet towel. It wasn’t steamy or boiling or anything so extreme. No, Beirut was a comfortable sixty-eight degrees on November 19th, and Faris hated it. He missed the pinprick pain of ice peppering his face, the driving Boston wind, the coats and scarves and hats that would be starting to layer everyone, making them all the same size and shape and color against the reds and golds of the fall foliage.

When Faris was young, they flew to Lebanon every spring to his parents’ hometown, landing in the early morning and finding Teta at the arrivals sign ready for the drive up the long, steep highway to her house on the outskirts of Aley. At least up in the mountains, it was a little cooler than in Beirut. If he closed his eyes now, he could imagine it was one of those trips. The airport sounded the same. It even smelled the same, scuffed carpet and sweat and allspice and tahini—

Faris’s stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t had much breakfast. He opened his eyes and caught sight of the source of the smell: the man he was passing now across the stanchion belt was digging into a plastic container of rice and meat. Faris looked away before the man could catch him staring, and instead, caught the eye of the airline employee directing the line. The uniformed man waved him forward impatiently, and Faris grimaced and muttered an apology for holding up the line.

Faris handed his suitcase to the agent behind the desk, watching the familiar battered, red leather case disappear through the slot in the wall. She handed him his boarding pass, then shooed