“Well, yeah,” Wes said. “You’ve been really frustrated for a while now that you don’t get to do as many projects on your own terms. Will that change now?”

  “This will be more of a supervisory role. More mentoring other people and reviewing their work.”

  “But you hate other people.”

  Adam snorted.

  “I like telling them what to do,” Zachary clarified. “This is a stepping stone. Junior partner means partner someday. And once I’m partner...”

  Adam and Wes were both watching him expectantly.

  “Well, then I’ll be in charge.”

  “But...will you get to do more of your own designs?” Wes asked again.

  “No, I just told you.” Zachary was getting exasperated.

  Adam put a hand on Wes’ arm, but Wes was looking at Zachary.

  “Z. This promotion is very impressive.”

  Finally! That was what he had been wanting to hear!

  So why didn’t Wes sound happy for him?

  “But it also sounds like it will mean doing less of the part of your job that you value, and doing more of the things that you have never enjoyed. It would also mean moving to Colorado, which you’ve never mentioned wanting to do. In fact, you worked hard to convince the firm to let you work remotely so you could stay in Garnet Run. So, even though it’s an impressive vote of confidence in your abilities, it sounds like...well, like it would suck for you.”

  Zachary’s head was spinning. The perfectly ordered plan that had previously been color-coded in his mind was swirling, the colors mixing to a muddy and unsatisfying brown.

  “But...but I got the promotion,” Zachary murmured, but it didn’t seem as uncomplicatedly positive as it had before.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bram

  He’d cried. Then he’d gotten on his motorcycle, driven into the skin-chafing wind, and let its punishing whip dry his tears. Then he’d pulled over and cried some more.

  His feelings for Zachary had snuck up on him. Snaked their way inside like delicate roots that thickened and became a tree—slow, thriving, ineluctable.

  Back home, he curled up in bed with a nest of blankets, patted the bed for Hem, and pulled her close.

  Although he was closest with Moon, there was one person he called when he truly didn’t know what to do.

  “Dad?” he croaked. “I’m... I’m all messed up again.”

  “Oh, my Bramble. Tell me.”

  He heard his dad murmur something and then the sounds of the door shutting behind him.

  He could picture it exactly. His dad had said “It’s Bram,” to his mom, in the voice that meant, I’ll go take care of this, and then walked outside, probably to sit on the stump next to the pumpkin bed.

  Bram told his father what had happened. The promotion. The move. The clumsy request that Bram drop everything and tag along behind him like a stuffed animal that would be left in an airport or a diner in a moment of carelessness or outgrowth.

  “If he’d asked you differently would you want to go?” his dad asked.

  Bram hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t know. I like it here, but...”

  “But Zachary is a big part of what you like.”

  What would Casper Road be like without its resident Zachary Glass?

  “Yeah.”

  But that wasn’t even the point.

  “I thought I could trust him,” Bram said. “Why do I keep falling for people who I can’t trust?”

  Hem responded to his distress by pawing at him and sticking her nose in his neck. He cuddled her closer. At least she would never let him down.

  “Oh, son. I know you’re hurting. You’ve always expected so much of people. It makes it even worse when they disappoint you.”

  He thought his boyfriend and his best friend having an affair behind his back was a little more than disappointing, but his dad went on.

  “But trust isn’t something that lives in other people. It is a choice that you make for yourself. And it’s a choice you have to make over and over.”

  The wind whistled on his dad’s end and Bram could picture him walking among the raised beds at the tree line, knew that it would smell like fresh moss and decomposing leaves and woodsmoke.

  He was stricken suddenly with a pang of longing so sharp he nearly gasped.

  “Trust is showing up and being vulnerable and honest with another person. It’s choosing to believe they have good or reasonable intentions. It’s standing up for yourself, so you teach them how to treat you. And all of that—all of it—comes from you.”

  Bram closed his eyes and listened hard.

  “My biggest worry for you,” his father went on, “has always been that you don’t trust yourself. You look to others for something that can only come from within. The most important trust is that you are enough as you are and always will be, no matter who you have or don’t have in your life.”

  A tear slid down Bram’s cheek.

  “You don’t need your siblings to tell you what you should do. You don’t need me, either. You need to look inside yourself and see what Bram wants. What Bram needs. Learn to trust yourself, or no demonstration of trustworthiness in anyone else will matter.”

  Later, after hanging up with his dad, Bram pulled the covers over his head and let himself drift inside his cocoon. Let himself drift in the ether of Bram-ness and all that it entailed.

  What did he want? What did he need? Why was it so hard for him to not call his siblings and see if he was right?

  * * *

  The two knocks that meant Zachary sounded on the door, pulling Bram out of a fitful sleep.

  He lay there for a moment, deciding whether or not he wanted to see Zachary. It had been four long days of nesting in his bed, reading old X-Men comics, and leaving the house only to take Hem out. It turned out that breaking up with someone who lived right across the street was hell on your mobility.

  The Zachary Glass he opened the door to was a shadow. Already slim, he looked like he’d lost weight, his usually olive complexion was sallow, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His hair looked dirty. But his eyes were wild and awake.

  When he spoke it came out in a rush.

  “I know you’re mad and sad at me and I know you asked for space, but I really need my friend right now. Is there any way you could forget that we were...whatever and just be my friend for a minute? If you say no, I promise I’ll leave, and I’m sorry if I’m butting in, but I just... I really need to talk to my best friend right now,” he concluded, with a break in his voice.

  Best friend. He’d missed having one these last few months. It tore at Bram’s defenses and he opened the door, too curious and ever hopeful for the self-preservation of distance.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Zachary sighed. He settled on the bench at the kitchen table and Bram made tea automatically.

  “So, there’s this guy,” Zachary began. “And I really, really like him. At first we were just friends, but then things got, um, romantic? And I have the best time with him. I kept expecting that he’d get sick of me or annoyed, because everyone else seems to. And then they leave. But he didn’t. And now I got this promotion, but it would mean moving away from him. At first I was definitely going to take it. Because getting promoted is a good thing. But now...now I don’t know. Wes pointed out that the part I like most about my current job is the part I won’t get to do anymore in my new position. And that even now I don’t get to do it the way I want. But maybe later, after I’m junior partner and then full partner, when I’m in charge even more, I’ll probably get to do more of what I want. I think. I guess I’m not sure.”

  He was looking very intently at his own hands.

  “So now I don’t know what to do. I never meant to hurt the guy I like. I even asked him to maybe come with me, but I think I did it wrong. And I could just really, really use your help untangling it.” After a beat, he said, “The end.”

  Bram blew out a breath and set the mugs of tea down in front of them.

  “Well,” he said, keeping his voice even. “It sounds like you had something really great going with this guy. Sounds like he really likes you and maybe he was just nervous about that because he’s been burned before. It also sounds like you have two realities going on. Reality number one is that you love designing your unique creative buildings, and this promotion will not let you do that and will force you to do work you hate. In that reality, the answer is clear. Don’t take the promotion.”

  Zachary frowned and opened his mouth, but Bram went on.

  “In reality number two, you clearly value external approval like promotions and praise. And in that reality, just getting the promotion is a reward in and of itself.”

  Zachary shut his mouth, brown furrowed.

  “As your friend, here’s what I would say. Whether or not you take the promotion, you still got it. You got the acclaim and approval. Turning it down doesn’t take that away. But the thing about external approval is that it doesn’t do anything for the day-by-day living of your life. Like, knowing you achieved a promotion doesn’t help you out if for the next ten years you hate having it. You’re the one who needs to approve of yourself.”

  Pieces clicked into place and Bram realized that this was precisely what his father had been trying to tell him.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Zachary nodded. “How do you feel when you design something, and you know it’s really good?”

  A slow smile crept across Zachary’s mouth. “Proud of myself. Triumphant. Satisfied.”

  “You don’t need anyone to tell you those designs are good because you know it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve been realizing lately,” Bram said slowly, “that mostly we need approval and esteem about the things we’re not confident about. I don’t need to know what anyone thinks about how I walk the dog, because I know I do it just fine. But I do ask for other people to advise me about my relationships because I worry I don’t do them right. Do you know why you need so much external approval?”

  He asked it gently, and then fell silent, sipping the chamomile tea and waiting for Zachary to answer.

  Zachary’s brow furrowed and he frowned into his tea like he could menace the answer forth from the depths of his cup.

  “I was never someone that people liked,” he said. It wasn’t a bid for disagreement, just a fact as Zachary saw it, so Bram stayed silent. “I was always different and whatever I did seemed to announce that to everyone. It made it...easy, I guess, for people to cut me down. Children don’t have a shred of mercy in them. At least they didn’t for me. Every day, all day, I was different and wrong and weird and...” He shook his head. “It went on until Sarah disappeared. Then they were all too awkward to mess with me because now I was more pathetic than they could ever tease me for. In a way...” He chewed his lip. “In a way, her disappearance was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Bram could tell that the guilt over this reality weighed heavily on Zachary.

  “I was never the one anyone liked. Never the one anyone rooted for. But I was smart. And when teachers praised me it felt good.” He shrugged. “It was the other students I wanted to think I was smart or cool or attractive, but they didn’t, so at least I could get the highest grade or finish the test first. It was...there was no space for me in any of those other competitions, but in this one, I could win.”

  Bram’s heart broke at the thought of young Zachary desperately wanting the love and approval of his classmates and being denied it at every turn. No wonder he needed people to know he was successful, that he was valued.

  He looked up finally and met Bram’s eyes. “I couldn’t believe you liked me.”

  “I did,” Bram said definitively.

  Zachary’s eyelashes fluttered and he swallowed. “Past tense?”

  “I do,” Bram clarified. “I do like you, Zachary. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  A tear landed in Zachary’s tea and he drank it down, draining his cup.

  “Okay,” Bram said. “Here’s what I think—as your friend. I think your firm sucks.”

  Zachary’s chin jerked up.

  “I know, I know, they’re the most prestigious firm in the Middle West. Whatever that means. But who cares about their prestige if they don’t value the work that is unique to you?”

  Again, Zachary opened his mouth, but Bram was on a roll.

  “They don’t, Zachary! They value your skill, because it means you’re never the squeaky wheel. They value your work ethic, because you probably get more done in a day than most people do in a week. They value your loyalty to the company, because that means you’ll put up with anything. But none of that is the same thing. They don’t like the work that is the most you. That you like the best. So, as your friend, I am telling you. Don’t take their promotion. And don’t settle for a firm that only wants your rote ability, not the creative genius that makes you you.”

  Zachary’s eyes were wide. “Quit? You think I should quit my job?”

  “Hell yeah! Find a firm that loves your weird horror alien designs.”

  “They’re not alien—”

  “Find a firm that values Zachary Glass. Or go freelance. Just don’t waste one more brilliant design on people who make you shave off everything about it that makes it unique. Don’t spend your life designing boxes when you could be doing so much more.”

  He hadn’t even realized how impassioned he was coming across until he was standing up and concluding with a booming voice.

  And as his words rang out in the silence of the house he’d just begun to think of as home, Bram Larkspur realized that he was addressing himself just as much as he was Zachary.

  “Wow,” Zachary murmured. “Does that advice apply to other areas of my life too?”

  “Hmm?” Bram asked, but he was distracted because Zachary was rounding the table and coming to stand right in front of him.

  “Because did I mention there’s this guy...?”

  Bram was exhausted and hungry and dirty, and his hair was sticking up on one side from the pillows in his nest, but all he wanted in the entire world was to kiss Zachary Glass.

  “I think my breath is bad,” Bram said.

  “I don’t care.”

  “I kinda haven’t showered in a few days on account of being in a blanket nest.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I’m all—”

  “Shut up unless you don’t want me to kiss you.”

  Bram shut his mouth on a comically loud “meep.”

  Zachary put his hands on Bram’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry I went about telling you about the promotion all wrong,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more clearly how I felt.”

  “How do you feel?” Bram let himself murmur.

  “I really, really, really like you,” he said, eyes intent on Bram’s mouth.

  “I would like to take those three reallys and trade them in for a hotel,” Bram said.

  Zachary stopped. “Uh. What?”

  “I was...um, sorry. Monopoly reference. Well, we didn’t play Monopoly as kids; we had this noncapitalist version where you worked together to distribute wealth, but the point is when you get three houses in Monopoly you could trade them in for hotels and you said you really, really, really, and I. Or was it four houses? Hmm. Anyway, please kiss me and put us both out of my misery now.”

  Zachary smiled and kissed Bram passionately.

  Bram groaned, arms coming around Zachary’s back to hold him close. They kissed deeply, pulling back every so often to look at each other and smile.

  “I missed you so much,” Bram said.

  “The idea of Colorado was shit without you, anyway,” Zachary said. “Also, Monopoly was invented to demonstrate that capitalistic monopolies were a bad thing.”

  “You don’t say,” Bram muttered, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him down the hallway.

  They entered the bedroom to find Hemlock tucked into the blanket nest, looking like the pearl in an oyster. One of her ears was inside the blankets and one was sticking out. Bram grabbed his phone off the bedside table and snapped a picture. He spared a moment to press a gentle kiss to Hem’s ears. His constant companion. His darling.

  Then he dragged Zachary into the bathroom and started the shower.

  “We need to be clean for all the things I wanna do to you,” Bram muttered between kisses.

  “I am clean,” Zachary managed before Bram kissed him again.

  The shower was quick and dirty—well, quick and clean—and Bram tried to psychically send Hemlock a message to be out of the bed when they got there.

  Bram had always been pretty sure that telepathy was possible and was delighted to be proven right. He stripped the blankets off the bed and lay down on it, arms out for Zachary.

  “I missed having you in my bed,” he murmured, and Zachary shivered. “I missed the feel of your skin,” he went on. He could see the effect his words were having, and he spared a moment of devastation that Zachary had heard so little praise that he valued it so highly, but whatever the reason, Bram was happy to give it to him.

  “You taste so good,” he said as they kissed. Zachary moaned. “You feel perfect in my arms.” Zachary’s breaths were shallow and fast, and Bram pressed him into the sheets and dropped a trail of kisses from his mouth to his throat and down over his ribs. Zachary writhed under his questing touch.

  When he nuzzled between Zachary’s thighs, Zachary spread for him. He kissed the soft skin, up one thigh to his groin, and down the other side. Zachary moaned.

  “This okay?” he asked, flicking his tongue back between Zachary’s ass cheeks.

  He was answered with an even more enthusiastic moan.

 

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