Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Zachary absently separated pumpkin seeds from the wet guts. He was wearing gloves because he didn’t like the feel of the wet pumpkin innards.
“When you’re scared, you can’t pay attention. Being scared takes up your whole body and mind. But Sarah would point at the screen and say, ‘That’s a light on a film set,’ and ‘The actor is covered in corn syrup and food dye—I bet a shower feels good at the end of work.’ She’d point out that the music was getting more tense because the director wanted us to get scared. And after a few movies, I could see it too. It was like she’d shown me the code of how the whole genre worked and once I realized it was to make me feel a certain way, I could choose whether I wanted to feel that way or just think about it. It let me pay attention to more than just being scared. To the camera angles and the music, the lighting and the sound design.”
Zachary’s voice had gone slow and soft, like he was talking to himself.
“Do you want to know a secret?” he asked.
Bram had never wanted to know someone’s secrets more than he wanted to know Zachary’s.
“Yes.”
“For the first couple months after she disappeared, I thought maybe she was playing a joke on me. There was this one movie we loved, about a girl who fakes her own death to get away from her life but then ends up getting killed for real. Every morning when I woke up I thought for sure there would be a message from her letting me know that she was safe and had gotten away from Wyoming. I thought one day I’d go see a movie and the credits would start and it would say ‘directed by Sarah Glass,’ and I would know that she was okay. I even texted her to say that if she gave me a clue I wouldn’t tell our parents.”
Bram’s heart hurt. It was so clear that his sister’s disappearance had deeply traumatized Zachary.
“What are you going to do?”
“Huh?” Bram asked, deep in thoughts about Zachary’s sister.
“On your pumpkin. What are you going to carve?”
“Oh, I don’t know yet.”
He examined it, turning it to see all sides. Then he took his pocketknife and began to cut.
Zachary watched for a few minutes, then returned to contemplating his own pumpkin. Bram lost himself in the carving, the flesh of the pumpkin giving way much easier than the wood he was accustomed to.
Halloween when he was a kid was a blur of siblings and lost pieces of homemade costumes, running through the neighborhood, and at least one sibling (usually him) ending the night in tears. The next morning, they’d wake and find it November and the subtle slide into a Washington State winter would begin. Before you knew it, it was winter solstice, then Christmas, and Halloween was long forgotten.
His mind wandered to what it would have been like if one of them had disappeared. But it was like a toothache that his tongue shied away from. He didn’t even want to let himself linger on the thought.
“Hey, that’s...that’s my house.”
Bram looked down at the pumpkin he was carving.
“Yep.”
“But that’s not Halloween-y.”
Bram shrugged. “Does it have to be?”
“I assumed.”
Bram looked at Zachary’s pumpkin. Into it, he had carved...
“You carved a pumpkin in your pumpkin?”
“Well. Yes.”
Bram wanted to fold Zachary in his arms and kiss the hell out of him, but he was slimy with pumpkin guts and knew Zachary wouldn’t appreciate that.
“That’s just...so damn cute.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just is. You’re cute.”
Zachary accepted that answer with a shrug, but Bram thought he looked pleased.
They cleaned up the pumpkin guts and made sure the jack-o’-lanterns were out of Hemlock’s reach.
Zachary peeled his gloves off and sniffed at his hands with distaste.
“Do you want to take a shower?”
Zachary nodded with relief.
“Um. What would you think of me taking one with you?”
Zachary’s eyes got wide for a moment, then he smiled and nodded.
They watched each other undress and stepped beneath the hot water. Bram inclined his head and caught Zachary’s mouth in a kiss. He adored how Zachary kissed, hungry and sweet, passionate and gentle, all at the same time.
They kissed hot and wet as the water poured over them. Zachary looked vulnerable and gorgeous with his wet hair dripping in his eyes and his mouth swollen from kisses.
“You’re so beautiful,” Bram murmured.
Something shifted in Zachary’s face. A frown? No. Confusion. Then, maybe, delight?
Zachary plastered himself to Bram and kissed him all over again.
These kisses were hot and urgent, and Bram’s body responded. They got out of the shower touching everywhere and only dried off hastily before kissing their way to the bed.
Bram lay down and ran a hand from Zachary’s throat to his cock.
“What do you want, baby? Anything you want.”