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)
She was, he was pretty sure, the only person who ever had.
Zachary had been thinking about her a lot recently. He wasn’t sure if it was the call from his mom or telling the story to Bram. Both. Neither. But he’d been remembering more of the before, lately. More of what he’d lost when he’d lost her.
His mother acted like she was the only one who had lost. His father had gone away somewhere inside his head and Zachary didn’t know what it was like in there. If it contained his sister or not. But seeing Bram’s family, he realized something he’d never considered before.
His mother had never asked him if he knew anything about her disappearance. The police had. Strangers had. But his mother hadn’t even considered that he might know anything. She’d never considered that Sarah might confide in him or that he might have insight into her actions.
She hadn’t ever told him how sorry she was that he had lost his sister. She hadn’t really realized they were close.
“Are you okay, baby?”
Bram, come to check on him.
Zachary opened the door and Bram’s expression was instantly worried.
“What’s wrong?” He pulled Zachary into his arms. “Is my family too much? I know they’re a lot. We can hang up if you want?”
Zachary shook his head.
“I don’t want to hang up. I was just thinking.”
“Oh yeah? About what?”
Laughter and indistinct chatter floated in from the other room. Bram was totally focused on him.
“About togetherness.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Bram
Bram fell in love with Zachary Glass standing in a bathroom.
He didn’t ask what Zachary meant when he said he was thinking of togetherness, because he already knew. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a clearer expression of longing than he’d seen on Zachary’s face, the laughter of the Larkspurs a distant soundtrack to his desire. So Bram just pulled Zachary to him and cupped the back of his neck. He didn’t say I love you, but when he said “I’ve got you,” it was what he meant. And Zachary had sighed and pushed closer against him as if it was all he’d wanted to hear.
That night, after finishing the chaotic and rousing game of Pictionary with his family, Zachary fell asleep in Bram’s arms and had nightmares all night. He woke up gasping and reached for Bram. Bram held him as he shuddered and fell back asleep.
Zachary didn’t offer up the contents of the dreams, but in his sleep he pushed at something or someone. He mumbled, “Leave me alone.” He pulled the covers over his head.
Bram wasn’t foolish enough to think that pain was the same thing as depth, but goddamn if Zachary didn’t have layers, and Bram wanted to learn every one of them.
Not slough them off, or peel them away, but honor them—every one of them—because they were all part of the man he loved.
“It’s too soon,” he said to Hemlock on a long walk the next morning, after Zachary had gone to work and the morning rain had given way to glorious autumn sun. “But he’s so...lovely.”
Maybe lovely wasn’t a word that most people would use to describe Zachary, but Bram knew it was the right one.
Hem yipped in agreement, so there was that.
Was it too soon? You couldn’t control how fast you fell for someone, could you? Maybe not. But you could try and control whether you made the same mistakes again and again. Mistakes like slotting someone into a future you were creating for yourself instead of actually falling for them.
But with Zachary he knew he wasn’t repeating what had happened with Drake. Mostly because it was hard to slot Zachary into any kind of future he’d imagined for himself. Zachary wasn’t very slottable. No, Bram had no doubt that his feelings were for Zachary himself.
What he was really trying to figure out was whether it was too soon to tell Zachary he’d fallen for him.
In that moment, Bram pulled out his phone to call Naveen, forgetting that Naveen wasn’t his best friend anymore. He winced as the pain rushed in.
He and Hem turned off the path and hiked up a rocky hillside to another path through the woods.
“I got my heart crushed, but that’s not a reason to never love someone again,” Bram was explaining to Hemlock.
They walked in silence for a while, Bram breathing deep of the fresh, piney air. Then they turned onto a small path that cut into the trees and up ahead, something very strange appeared.
“Is something...glowing?” Bram asked.
Hemlock tugged at her leash, pulling him toward it.
The path opened up to a small clearing and in it, trees glowed like something from another world.
“Oh my god,” Bram breathed. They were beautiful and strange, giving off a dim but luminous brilliance, and seemed somehow like a sign from the universe that he was right to love the beautiful, strange, luminous, and brilliant Zachary Glass.