Since I updated Bastien on my afternoon, he plans to pick me up earlier. I barely am finished packing when he texts that he is here. I was expecting him to be late. As I understand it, the kid loves to speed but is chronically tardy. The combination makes him just on time. Caro would not put up with his driving though, so I had assumed they wouldn't get here for another hour. I was very wrong.

With Stéphane's gift wrapped in my arms and my bag over my shoulder, I make my way downstairs. Bastien is circling the block since there is no parking. I have to practically leap into the empty front seat.

"You're lucky he made me get out at the last red light," Caro says behind me.

"Hello to you too," I roll my eyes.

"Happy birthday!" Bastien yells, cutting Caro and I off, pulling the car away and beginning our drive.

"Isn't their birthday tomorrow?" the man in the backseat, Cletus I'm guessing, says.

He looks so Texas. He's wearing cowboy boots in December. That's how Texas he is. I will have to ask Caro later how they met because as far as I know, she's never been to Texas, and I cannot imagine him living anywhere but the Lone Star state.

"I was born ten minutes before midnight, and Stéphane was born ten minutes after," I explain. The question is a frequent staple of my childhood.

"Our parents originally didn't want them to know who was born first, but it was just their luck that they were born on separate days," Caro offers. She turns back to Cletus. "I think it's sweet. They were good parents, you know. I bet we'll be that good someday."

I don't know why she's lying. Our parents weren't evil, but calling them passable is about as good as it gets.

"Eight hours," Bastien says in French. Caro kicks his seat, but he continues. "Esti de tabarnak de sacrament, I've been trapped in this nonsense for eight hours!"

"You poor thing," I coo at him.

"I thought you said Cole never speaks French," Cletus whispers.

"She doesn't," Caro agrees.

My nose snorts. That's not true. I speak French with Estelle at least twice a month. My preference is English, but French has its uses. Speaking French provides intimacy, and it also provides me with the opportunity to shit-talk people to their faces.

"Only one-hour more," I offer to Bastien.

"Then nine on the way back," he says. "And thirty hours in a cabin. Stéphane better appreciate this sacrifice. Cole, do you think your FBI connections could help me get out of jail if I murder this guy, or is it better to try to bury his body in the park and hope the only thing that finds his body is a pack of hungry wolves?"

"Wolves don't scavenge that frequently," I say. "You've got better luck with bears. Anyway, I wouldn't bother burying him. People get lost in national parks all the time. Make it look like he wandered out."

"You're working with the FBI?" Caro cuts in.

I resist the urge to groan. This is going to be a miserable car ride.

While I manage to fend off questions about the FBI, promising to answer them once we see Stéphane so that I don't have to repeat myself, I do not manage to avoid listening to Caro and Cletus chat. Bastien keeps trying to crack jokes whenever Cletus speaks, we only get ten minutes in before Caro and Cletus recount their love story.

Caro got a nice job as an early education childcare worker at the only private school in New Hampshire. She's always been a homebody, and so she refused to move out of the state. One of her roommates had a cousin visit from Texas, and that cousin was Cletus, and the rest is a miserable awful history.

Cletus worked at a tourist attraction in Texas where people come to spray paint Cadillacs. If he didn't have a cowboy hat next to him in the backseat, I would think he was lying. Caro teaches art classes though, so I guess I'm not surprised. They did long distance until she agreed to move to Texas for the summer once school ended. To make things even, he moved to New Hampshire with her in August, and he agreed to stay until Christmas. They're both trying to convince the other that their home state is the best.

Honestly, I'm on Cletus' side, which I hate to say. Caro hates moving, but at least she could work at a French private school in Texas. He can't work at a tourist attraction spray-painting vintage Cadillacs that are half buried in New Hampshire, and I'm not sure what kind of transferrable skills you can get from a job like that.

The only way this could be worse was if the profilers were in this car too. That would surely be Hell.

Eventually, we pull into the park. We explain to the guy working the toll booth that we are the Bouchards. He radios for Stéphane but lets us through. We pull through. Bastien insists that he knows where the campsite is, but he clearly doesn't. We get lost, and then Stéphane calls Caro because he drove up to the front looking for us, and then it takes another fifteen minutes before all of us pull up to the cabin that Stéphane booked for us.

Caro practically squeals. She is basically out of the car as soon as we pull up. She runs into Stéphane's arms, and he hugs her. I get out next.

"Happy birthday!" Stéphane says, waving at me.

"Happy early birthday," I grimace.

We hug each other, and then Bastien and Stéphane do a secret handshake they made up when Stéphane and I were fifteen and Bastien was ten. Cletus and Stéphane have the most awkward hug possible. I am guessing that Stéphane doesn't like Cletus either, even if I know that he would never admit such a thing.

Stéphane shows us around the cabin. It's much nicer than I was expecting. There are four different bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and even a bathroom. It's still a cabin, but it's way nicer than any place we went camping as children.

"Staff discount must be great," I remark, looking around.

"It builds with years of service," Stéphane explains. "It helps that I've hoped around jobs too. Lots of the workers know me."

"Know you? They've got to be in love with you," Bastien calls out from the kitchen. "We've got a fridge!"

"Cletus will get our liquor to put in it!" Caro says.

It still is strange to see all of my siblings here. If Stéphane and I weren't twins, you would think that I was adopted. They all look so similar. They all have the same blonde-but-almost-brown hair. I'm a ginger, with freckles. They all smile in the same way too. Only in the smallest of ways do I blend in. Stéphane has blue eyes, but the rest of us have green eyes. My brothers have the same bone structure, from their face shapes and harsh jawlines to their muscular physiques. I am strong like them, but if you look close enough you might notice that Caro and I have the same cheekbones. I don't quite belong here, but at least I don't feel like they are all speaking a secret language that I don't know.

That position is reserved for Cletus.

We all decide to crack open drinks and talk. All of us have had some major development since last Christmas. For Caro, it is her relationship with Cletus. I wish Stéphane weren't a good big brother, because he asks Caro about it, and I have to hear the story all over again.

Bastien, Stéphane and I all talk about the physical training we are doing for our jobs. Stéphane is applying to online schools so that he can get a bachelor's degree in biology. He cannot stick to one job. He was a park ranger at a different park for a couple of years, and then he started working here as a fire lookout during the off-season. When I moved back two years ago, he switched to Shenandoah permanently. Now, he is a firefighter for them. He wants to do research next.

Bastien talks about military applications briefly, but then I cannot stave off any conversations about the FBI. My brothers are super interested, but Caro doesn't care. She switches the topic to our love lives twice.

Stéphane is single, but it's hard to date when you live in remote areas of national parks. Bastien is not interested in settling down any time soon, but he is playing the fields. I don't ask any further questions, because Cletus is wearing cowboy boots and he's from Texas, so his political beliefs are more likely one way than the other. I'm single too, which seems to bother Caro more than the others.

"You know, you aren't getting younger," Caro says.

"I'm aware," I say. "It's my birthday."

"Your biological clock is ticking," Cletus agrees.

I want to punch him in the face.

"Yeah, Cole, you're so old," Bastien jokes. "God, twenty-seven going on seventy. Soon you're going to be a sack of arthritis and dementia."

"You both are assholes," Caro crosses her arms over her chest.

"I want my birthday gift to be everyone getting along," Stéphane smiles.

"Your birthday isn't until tomorrow," Bastien points out, snickering to himself.

"We should do gifts!" Caro says.

She and Cletus run back to the car. Stéphane shrugs and then he and Bastien leave too. They all bring out their presents for me. I'm too old for them, but none of them seem to have cared at all.

I get a wine glass from Bastien that says IT'S CHEAPER THAN THERAPY which I suppose is just as kind as the gift I got from Dr. Reid. His apology mug is still at the office.

Stéphane got me a patch from Shenandoah and some thread. He's pretty forgetful, so we have a laugh about how he got me an almost identical patch last year which is already on my bag. Bastien goes to town on Stéphane for it.

Caro and Cletus got me two different books by David Rossi, one from each of them. The gifts are much more thoughtful than I thought they would be. I mentioned his work in passing last year since we were watching a hostage situation on television, and it seemed relevant. As much crap as I give Caro, she is kind. I actually hug her, and she seems surprised.

Then, we all make dinner together, and we continue to drink and mess around with each other. I try to avoid any pranks from Bastien. He has grown up physically over the last few years, but his brain hasn't caught up. Soon enough, we are asleep.

In the morning, Stéphane and I are up early. It's part of our routine, I guess. Bastien still sleeps like a college student even though he graduated in the spring, and Caro doesn't have to get up that early for work. She might even be hungover, to be honest.

Stéphane is making eggs.

"Happy actual birthday," I say.

He smiles, returning to cooking.

I bring out the gift I got him. I take over at the stove while he unwraps it. I got him three smaller gifts instead of one large thing. Inside the wrapping, I put a bag of chalk for rock climbing since he complains that he can never have enough. I also got him maple syrup that I imported from Québec because they don't make it properly anywhere but la Belle Province. Finally, he pulls out a calendar with pictures of him for every month.

"What is this?" he asks, holding it up.

"Just in case you don't make the firefighters' calendar," I joke.

He smiles to himself, "I wish I had gotten you a better gift."

"Nah, you're good," I offer.

We both know the real gift he always gives me is working here. He could have stayed closer to Caro and Bastien in New Hampshire. Bastien is hoping to be posted up there and Caro has no intentions of leaving. The three of them don't want to see the world in the same way that I do. Yet, as soon as I told them I was coming back to America, and I was living in D.C., he transferred permanently to the closest national park to my hometown.

"I could do better," he tells me.

"Sure," I shrug. "So could I. You bothering me by calling weekly is enough of a gift."

"I'd come to visit more often if I weren't so busy," he says.

"I'm fine," I tell him.

His voice hushes, "we're all worried, Cole. We all love you; you know? You can talk to us."

I walk back into the living room. He tends to the eggs while I pull out the gift from Bastien.

"Who needs to talk when you have wine?"