Page 3 of A Flowering of Ink


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But the passion and the invitation tempted him like rich port wine anyway: intoxicating, indulgent, perilous, sensual.

Burne Cameron had touched this letter. Had put pen to paper and written, leaving indents, marks, the press of fingers. Right where Devon’s fingertips were now.

The kettle whistled, a sharp demand.

Devon jumped, half-fell off his kitchen counter, caught his letter and his flower but hit his hand hard on the countertop, and swore at himself for being clumsy. He was fine, though; the impact hadn’t broken skin, but he’d have a bruise. His heart had sped up, which was more of a problem, though not too badly so this time.

He was more concerned about his flower-gift. Which proved to be uncrushed. Uninjured. Protected.

He breathed in and out, slowly, counting in his head. Meditation techniques. Practice. Routine.

And then he rescued the kettle and finished with his tea. Blueberry elderflower, soothing, no caffeine. In his neat dark grey mug with the dark blue flower-pattern just along the handle, matching the others in the set.

The mugs also matched his kitchen: neat and polished, full of cool storm colors, slate and blue and ink and flecks of lightning-violet in the backsplash, in accent colors here and there. He’d designed the kitchen, though not the mugs. He’d just liked those.

He couldn’t recall the last time someone’d sent him a gift, at least not without wanting something in return.

Burne Cameron appeared to only want answers to teasing questions about art and unicorns. Burne had asked that art question, in fact, which meant he did not know who Devon was, which was interesting. Not everyone would, of course—Devon was absolutely notthatarrogant—but he was surprised a professor, a researcher, wouldn’t’ve looked up the name of an unexpected correspondent. Devon himself had, on that side.

He left the letter and the flower on the kitchen island in a tiny act of colorful rebellion—yellow, in his kitchen; oh, if any of his clients could see that—and took his tea out to the house’s balcony amid the familiar rhythms of waves, cool ocean-crisp breezes, the distant sounds of a sleepy coastal resort town waking up.

The morning nibbled his bare arms under shoved-up sleeves. The air bit at his toes. He’d stepped into simple flip-flops for going outside, but he kicked them off and curled up in a bundle of oversized blankets on the large teardrop swinging chair and tucked his legs under himself.

He let the tea warm up his hands. He watched the sun try to escape the mist, leaving streaks and swirls of optimism in every attempt.

He’d written to Burne because…

He wasn’t sure why. An impulse. A whim. A startlement of curiosity.

He truly did not get much physical mail—most of his work was either digital or in person—and the card had been stuck to a different envelope, sparkly stickers connecting it to a plea for money from his university alumni association; he’d been thinking about metal and stained glass and open archways for a new modern art museum in Los Angeles. He’d absentmindedly opened the envelope, and then stared in astonishment at a waterfall of glitter and children’s art and familial scribblings. He’d read the card in the grip of helpless fascination.

So different, so unexpected, so sweet: a niece’s birthday card for a beloved uncle. And such an unusual address, that research station.

He’d thought that Burne Cameron, whoever that was, might be wanting the card, the family. Might be lonely, out on an island of science and starlight and long nights. When it was the man’s birthday. And perhaps he did not, on his birthday, want to feel alone.

Devon, tempted by a glimpse of another world—waving sea grasses, nature, tide pools—and answering the small aching nameless emotion in his chest, had set aside building plans and commissions and proposals. Had spent the afternoon and part of the evening doing a few sketches, pure art, not an architectural drawing or set of tidy plans. An apology for having opened the man’s mail. A birthday present. A tiny joke or two about unicorns, given the birthday card in question. He’d hoped it might make Burne smile.

He had a sip of tea. Heat slid all through his bones. More light shimmered out on the water.

And then he’d had to go down into town and sort out postage and properly mail an oversized envelope that shouldn’t be folded, and he’d even managed to stop by the small local bookshop and also an excellent fish taco spot down by the pier, and he’d picked up bread and peppers and eggs because he’d needed those, and he’d been fine. He’d chatted about mystery novels with the woman who ran the bookshop, and he’d been very patient while the man in front of him in the post-office line shouted about not being allowed to ship an antique mercury-filled thermometer, and he’d taken a deep breath and let it out and enjoyed a very leisurely walk back up the hill, sunshine at his back, feeling accomplished.

He had another sip of tea, tasting blueberry herbal sweetness. He hugged a knee, bundled in blankets.

Heshouldget some work done. The new museum wasn’t going to design itself. Devon Lilian, award-winning architect, designer of the Waterfall House and the Cherry Institute, the mind behind the folklore-inspired fantasia of the Rainbow Library, four years previously both the Best Young Designer of the Yearandnumber three on the list of Thirty Architects Under Thirty, had a reputation to maintain.

He extracted a foot and poked the support of the chair-swing until the chair swung.

He wondered whether Professor Cameron liked houses that looked like storm clouds, curved edges, deep smoky colors, plush rugs, and glorious floor-to-ceiling views of sea and sky. Or maybe flowers. Devon had never designed a house that looked like a buttercup, though he’d put a children’s garden into the central dome of the library, and echoed some organic shapes, lines, curves. His own house had the roses, of course, outside.

Sea grass, he thought, and oceans. Color. Yellow. Gold. Greens and blues and whites. A research station out of a fairytale, some sort of elemental scientist-magician’s home.

Heshouldwrite back. If only to thank Burne for the flower. And to answer the question about art. That would be polite.

This did not have to go anywhere, it did not have to mean anything, and of course it wouldn’t; they barely knew each other. Letters in passing. Silly and old-fashioned.

But nevertheless his heart did a ridiculous hop and bounce when he considered picking up a pen.

He touched his wrist, the beat under the skin. He did own a watch that did all sorts of intelligent monitoring as far as those irregularities, though he wasn’t wearing it just now. But that was a precaution, mainly; he had been well for so long, and the surgeries had been successful, decades ago. He could do just about anything—designs and consultations, opening new buildings, shopping, swimming workouts, sex—as long as he was generally careful.

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