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Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zachary
Six months later
The road stretched before them and behind them, a ribbon of black cutting through a world blushing green with spring.
Zachary had never taken a road trip before, to Bram’s shock, so when they planned this trip to Olympia to visit Bram’s family, they’d chosen to drive rather than fly.
As Bram pointed out, it was better for the environment anyway.
Bram seemed content to drive forever, which suited Zachary just fine, since he was enjoying staring out the window. The landscape itself was such an inspiration, with all its insights into form, structure, balance, and color.
As the sun set before them at the end of their first day on the road, it painted the land in red and orange, then slipped out of sight with a suddenness that surprised Zachary.
It was beautiful, but it also signaled the imminence of another thing Zachary had never done: camping.
They lugged their—well, Bram’s—gear from the trunk to the campsite. Bram had a headlamp, which made things easier for him, but kept blinding Zachary when he swung around to look at him.
“You want to learn how to set up a tent?” Bram asked.
He seemed utterly at ease in this setting. In fact, one of the things Zachary appreciated more and more about Bram as he got to know him was that he seemed at ease everywhere.
Zachary sniffed. “I’m a trained architect, Bram. I’m sure I can figure out how to pitch a tent.”
Bram grinned. “By all means, Mr. Architect.”
Well, now Zachary had to do it. He examined the vinyl tube, the limp segments that he assumed supported it, and the stakes that must attach it to the ground.
Twenty minutes later, Zachary had put together his first tent and felt extremely pleased with himself.
“Ha!” he crowed at the tent.
Bram nodded seriously and stroked his chin. “Well, I’m very impressed with what you’ve invented here. Maybe it’ll catch on. But, um. Not as a shelter.”
Zachary examined what he’d created. It was rather low to the ground, sure, but wasn’t that what camping was supposed to be all about—communing with nature or whatever?
“What’s wrong with it?” he demanded.
“Well, aside from the extreme claustrophobia it would induce, nothing.”
Fine, it was very low to the ground.
“These snap together,” Bram was saying. In minutes, he’d turned the pleasingly geometric shelter that Zachary had constructed into something tall enough to stand in (if you were Zachary).
“Ah. Right. Okay.”
“Now you know for next time,” Bram said, and kissed him.
This was another thing he loved about Bram. He never made not knowing something feel bad.
They brought the rest of the supplies from the car and Bram started a fire. They’d stopped at a diner for dinner at Zachary’s insistence because he said stopping at diners was in all the best road trip movies.
“Ready to make some s’mores?” Bram asked.
Zachary was very ready. Bram built a fire and they sat in the cool night air and watched it dance itself up into the sky.
Fire was something that had always fascinated Zachary. He wished he could figure out a way to make a structure that looked like fire.
Except, no. The most wonderful thing about fire was its wild unpredictability. To freeze that permanently in the form of a building and thus make it predictable, knowable, would violate everything he loved about it.
Now that Zachary was looking down the barrel of quitting his job, he found himself more inspired than ever. Inspired by everything, really, because the future was nothing but possibilities. He hadn’t realized how habitual it had become for him to edit his ideas as he was having them, cutting them down to size from the beginning. Now he let them grow all the weird tentacles and beaks and claws they wanted.
He’d be giving his two-week notice when they got home from the Larkspurs’.
“S’mores are so good,” Bram moaned, leaning into Zachary.
He had scorched his marshmallow black on the outside and left it gooey inside, and flecks of marshmallow char clung to his beard.
Zachary smiled and wiped them away.
“I was saving that for later,” Bram said.
“You’re such a dad,” Zachary teased.
Bram grinned and winked. “You know it.”
Zachary’s own dad didn’t make jokes. He didn’t make much of anything.
Zachary had received several more calls from his mother over the last month, a sure sign she had another empty lead to dangle in front of him and another mission she wanted to send him on. He hadn’t returned the calls.
“I’m worried they aren’t going to like me,” Zachary said.
“Aw, no way. They’re gonna love you. I love you.”
He said it as if it were truly that simple.
“I hope so,” Zachary said, gnawing on a thumbnail.
“Have a s’more. They fix everything.”
Zachary had a s’more.
He fell asleep to the sounds of crickets and the low crackle of the flames, with the sweet marshmallow and chocolate taste of Bram’s tongue in his mouth.
