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)
“Hug?”
“Er. Okay.” Zachary approached her as one would a particularly enthusiastic puppy that might cuddle you or might pee in your arms.
It wasn’t an inappropriate response.
* * *
They settled in the living room that looked out over the garden. As always, his parents took the pink love seat by the fire, Thistle sat in the broken (by him) gray-and-blue houndstooth armchair by the kitchen, Birch and her kids sat on the beanbags by the window, and Moon and Vega threw themselves onto the large couch facing outside. Usually, Bram joined them, one on each side. But he wasn’t sure if Zachary was up for snuggling with people he’d never met.
“Shove over a little,” he told Moon and Vega. A pout flickered on Moon’s lips but quickly disappeared. Bram sat next to them, and gestured Zachary to his other side. His boyfriend edged toward him warily, then sat down, sank deeper than he anticipated, and grabbed at Bram’s shoulder.
Bram was very glad he’d asked for their first get-together to be siblings only. If significant others had come too, he could only imagine how overwhelmed Zachary would be.
“You doing okay?” he whispered, though with all the different conversations going on, he could’ve spoken at normal volume and not have been heard.
Zachary nodded slowly. “There are...quite a lot of you. And you’re all very large.”
Bram grinned.
He looked around at his family, in the place he’d always considered home, as the sun set outside over the garden he’d watched for his whole life, and had the strangest feeling.
This wasn’t where he belonged anymore. At first it came on a wave of melancholy, but that was quickly replaced by a calm, quiet satisfaction. He didn’t belong here anymore because he had finally found another place he belonged. He would always love his family, always return here, always remain close. But he had learned that he could thrive on his own, and it had given him a sense of cool distance that just made him appreciate even more that this place would always be here for him to visit when he wanted to.
He squeezed Zachary’s hand and Zachary squeezed back. Bram couldn’t wait to see what kind of home Zachary would design for them.
The thought had dropped into his head as naturally as if it were guaranteed, but Bram knew it would happen. Zachary would consider every angle and measurement, every sconce and countertop. There would be vision and dream and future and...love. There would be love because Zachary loved him. His heart soared at the thought.
Something hit him in the face.
“Oy!” Thistle had thrown a hunk of bread at him.
“Sorry, did you say something?”
“That was made with my own two hands, ya lug,” Moon scolded. Then she threw a hunk of bread at him.
Bram picked up the bread that had hit him and munched on it.
“Children, what will our guest think of us?” his mom said drolly. “Also, someone throw me a piece of bread. Or, you know, cut it up and get some butter and honey.”
Thistle grumbled, but rose. If you started the bread fight you got the butter. Those were the rules.
A piece of bread sailed across the room and landed in his mom’s lap.
“Nice throw,” Bram told Birch. She winked.
“So, how is the grand transition going?” his dad asked Zachary.
“Excellent,” Zachary said. “Well, I think so. It’s not very quantifiable.”
Since River was in charge of the social media for the Dirt Road Cat Shelter, they had taken it upon themselves to give Zachary a crash course. Simon, who did freelance graphic design, worked with Zachary on some branding.
“Tell them the name,” Bram prompted.
“Glass Houses.”
“That’s great,” Moon said. Everyone agreed.
“Actually, it’s been very gratifying to look outside the official world of architecture—what’s featured in the professional publications and lauded internally—and get a taste for what’s being created by people who aren’t working within the confines of budgets and client demands. It’s like being back in school again. It’s...” He looked self-conscious and Bram squeezed his knee. “I feel as though I’ve fallen in love with architecture again.”
His face was lit with a smile that made Bram’s stomach fizz.
Zachary had spent the last several months on an odyssey of realizing what he’d lost by stifling his creativity for the sake of his firm’s requirements. The first few weeks he’d begun exploring others’ work, he’d come to Bram every half hour or so, eyes wide and finger on his computer screen to show him something amazing that someone had designed.
“She designed it with no walls!” he’d say, then explain how the designer had done it. Or, “The entire house has trees planted inside it!” The innovations seemed to matter less in their particularities than the fact that people were doing things Zachary hadn’t thought possible. At first, Bram had thought he felt competitive, as he so often had—annoyed or dispirited that these people had thought of things he hadn’t. But it quickly became clear that he was delighted. Invigorated.