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)
“Maybe. You really like Bram or are you just glad he hasn’t lost interest?”
Zachary pictured Bram’s happy blue eyes, the way he smiled at people and meant it, how much he loved his family, the single-minded attention he paid to the swick of his knife through wood or to a kiss. He thought of the way they fell over each other laughing when Mr. Purcell saw the Christmas lights on his lawn and how Bram reached for his hand when he got scared. He thought of the warm comfort that sank into his very bones when he and Bram lay tangled in bed together.
“I really, really, really like him.”
Wes nodded somberly. “Have you told him that?”
Zachary blinked. “I...don’t know. No.”
“Step one is tell him how you feel about him.”
“But,” Adam interjected, “if you know you’re going to take this promotion and move, and you know he doesn’t want to go... Just, don’t give him hope that you might stay if you know you aren’t.”
“If I take it?”
Of course he was taking it. He was the youngest junior partner ever! How, oh how, were people not getting this?
“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.”