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)
Bram buried his face in Zachary’s neck.
That was pretty much what his parents had said. But from them, generous had felt synonymous with clueless or naive. When Zachary said it, though—pragmatic, prickly Zachary—it simply felt like generous.
“That a compliment?” Bram ventured.
“Not really. Just a statement of fact.”
And that was the biggest compliment.
“I guess I don’t want to be suspicious,” he told Zachary.
“‘Course you don’t,” Zachary said on a yawn. “You’d rather expect the best of someone and be disappointed. You can handle it.”
Zachary’s breathing deepened as he drifted off to sleep, but Bram lay awake for a long time.
You can handle it.
He’d never thought about it that way, but Zachary had seen to the heart of him. He could handle the disappointment of being wrong about someone. He didn’t like it. Didn’t welcome it. But he could take it.
What he could not handle? Was moving through the world only having relationships based on suspicion and mistrust. That would fundamentally change who he was as a person.
When he’d first met Zachary, he’d found him a bit prickly and off-putting. But apparently he’d been seeing Bram quite clearly. It was humbling and flattering in equal measure.
Bram smiled and closed his eyes. He pulled Zachary even closer and wrapped them up together, luxuriating in the warm press of flesh and hair and the tickle of Zachary’s breath against his neck.
Chapter Fourteen
Zachary
“The position is in Denver, and would involve more responsibility and oversight with regard to others’ projects,” Zachary’s boss concluded. “Are you interested?”
“Yes,” Zachary said immediately. “Yes, thank you.”
They discussed the details and Zachary wrote them down, but all he could think was, This is what I’ve been working toward. Recognition from the bosses, finally.
“Yes sir, thank you for the opportunity I’ll see you on Friday.”
It was the brass ring and Zachary had been chasing it for his tenure at Moray and Fisk. He’d be the youngest junior partner in the company if he got the promotion.
Here it was: every time they’d told him his designs were too complicated, too expensive, too odd, this was what they were preparing him for—being able to make decisions that would benefit the company, having a big-picture sense of all elements of the project.
Zachary looked in the mirror and spoke to himself.
“This is what success looks like. This is what you’ve been working toward. Do not mess it up.”
* * *
Decorations were starting to appear up and down Casper Road.
Bram and Zachary looped around the cul-de-sac, Hemlock sniffing the air was they went. Zachary took stock of the competition and sniffed as well.
Nonexistent.
Bram pointed at a die-cut ghost sitting on Mrs. Montmorency’s porch and grinned, delighted. He was delighted by snowfall, though, so.
No, there was no competition here. Except Bram. But Zachary didn’t really think of Bram as competition anymore. In fact, he was having more fun with their prank war than he was with his own decorations. And he’d never thought anything could be more fun than that.
Well, maybe one thing. Zachary shivered as he remembered the exquisite pleasure of Bram’s body against his. He supposed maybe you weren’t supposed to keep pranking someone once you were sleeping with them... He would text Wes and ask his opinion. Wes was always good for that kind of thing.
The Purcells, the family who owned the house just past the bend in Casper Road, had decorated their entire yard in orange fairy lights. Well, they were supposed to be black and orange, but since black lights just looked like non-lights, it was a sea of orange lights. Despite this extremely underwhelming effect, Mr. Purcell looked proud. He gestured at the lights around him as they walked past and grinned, as if to say, Great, right?! Go, Casper Road!
Zachary set his face in neutral to stop himself sneering, but Bram smiled widely and gave Mr. Purcell the thumbs-up.
“Looks great!” he called.
Mr. Purcell beamed.
Zachary questioned how he and Bram were...whatever they were. He bit his lip, about to ask Bram what they actually were. But the moment they were out of earshot, Bram pulled him close and said, conspiratorially, “Okay, I have an idea.”
* * *
They crept around in the dark, giggling like schoolboys. Well, like Zachary imagined schoolboys giggled, anyway. He’d always been mostly alone so he supposed he really didn’t know.
Solitude was a habit and Zachary had been living it for a long time. But like so many habits, it was one born more of circumstance than choice. And in the weeks since he and Bram had begun spending time together, Zachary’s sense of it as a default had melted away.
Before, there had been only a Zachary, so life was one way. Now, there was also a Bram, and so life was another way. Now, in the mornings, part of his routine was setting two alarms—the one that woke him as usual, and the one that made him stop kissing Bram (who had turned out to be a major morning snuggler) and get out of bed.