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)
For the moment, Bram was happy to trail after him as he subjected the pumpkins to scrutiny.
It had been a long time since Bram had felt like this—at the beginning of something that he knew, deep inside, in the place that even the recent hit to his confidence couldn’t shake, was significant.
He and Drake had been a whirlwind at the beginning. Bram had been smitten and their chemistry had been undeniable. He’d thrown himself into the relationship with everything he was and planned their future.
He’d imagined the two of them having what his parents had: a partnership of love and support and mutual caring that could weather anything the world threw their way.
After the breakup, when Bram was at his lowest, staying in Moon’s guest room and crying into her oatmeal, he had realized something. He hadn’t been making plans for a future with Drake. He had been making plans for his future and he had cast Drake in the role of his partner.
He’d taken that epiphany to Moon, who had blinked at him slowly and said, “Yup.”
But although it had apparently been clear to her (and his parents, it was later revealed), Bram hadn’t seen it. And it made him wonder how much else of his relationship with Drake he hadn’t seen either.
Nothing with Zachary Glass had been a whirlwind. In fact, Bram had the sense that if a whirlwind tried to sweep Zachary up, he’d scowl at it and say, I do not have a whirlwind in my schedule for today, goodbye.
Bram snorted at the image.
“What?” the man in question asked.
“What are you looking for?”
“The perfect pumpkin,” Zachary said, as if that should have been apparent.
“What makes a pumpkin perfect?”
Zachary blinked at him. The question seemed to irritate him. Bram put up his hands and let Zachary go back to his search.
After a few more minutes, Zachary stood up and crossed his arms, hugging himself.
“Can’t find the perfect one?” Bram asked.
“There are too many to look at to definitively render a judgment,” Zachary said mournfully.
“What happens if you pick the wrong one?”
“Nothing happens, it’ll just irritate me.”
He sounded huffy and irritated already, and he scanned the offending field of thousands of pumpkins.
Bram stepped close and put his hands on Zachary’s shoulders.
“What if all the pumpkins are actually perfect and your criteria are what’s flawed?” Bram asked gently.
Zachary’s scowl deepened but he was listening.
“The shape and density of the flesh determine what you carve from them. It’s just like whittling. You get a piece of wood and it tells you what it can be. Sure, it might not be able to be anything, but part of the art is letting the natural form determine what you create from it.”
Zachary was listening intently.
“Like designing a structure on an uncleared plot of land.”
Bram nodded.
“Did you pick one?” Zachary asked.
Bram scanned the ground around them and saw a twisted, oblong pumpkin with one side flattened and scarred. He plucked it off the ground.
“Got it.”
Zachary narrowed his eyes. “Now you’re just showing off.”
Bram laughed. “Yup.”
* * *
“I can’t believe with all your Halloween decoration enthusiasm and unchallenged forty-eight-year winning streak or whatever it is that you never carve pumpkins!”
They were back at Bram’s house and had decided to carve pumpkins in the living room, since the floor was already covered for the shelter painting.
“They make bad decorations because they rot,” Zachary said, as if contributing to his decor vision was the only thing anything could be useful for.
“Do you even like Halloween?” Bram asked. “I assumed you did because of the decorations and how much you love horror movies, but would you have the same enthusiasm for this competition if we lived on, I dunno, Cupid Road and this were a Valentine’s Day decoration contest?”
Zachary contemplated this.
“I would still participate. I would still enjoy designing a decoration scheme, although I don’t think Valentine’s Day provides quite as wide a range of possibilities for decor. But I do like Halloween.”
He chewed at his lip, lost in thought.
“I used to love dressing up. When I was ten I went as a geodesic dome and Sarah went as Buckminster Fuller. No one knew what we were.”
He said it wistfully, so Bram did his best to swallow the bark of laughter at a ten-year-old Zachary dressed as a geodesic dome.
“Did your sister like Halloween too?”
“She loved it. And horror movies. Witches, vampires, anything supernatural or spooky. She’s the one who showed me my first horror movies. I was so freaked out. I was maybe eight or nine and she was twelve or thirteen. My parents were out for dinner and she was in charge. She put on this movie Blood Mansion that she really loved. And I was, like, hiding under the blanket, watching through a worn spot.”
Bram shuddered at the idea.
“How’d you get from there to liking them?”