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***
Gray doesn’t let go of him for days.
Mom and Dad don’t notice, because they’re so busy hugging them and being relieved. It’s been less than 72 hours since they’ve been back, but Zach still feels like his cells were rearranged in that lab, like he was put back together, sure, but like they did it wrong.
They never shared a room.
Even when Gray was a baby, and Zach was four—when they were living in that apartment over a bakery downtown. Mom was doing their finances so they could barter about the rent, and Dad hadn’t gotten the promotion at the bank yet—even then, they’d never shared. Gray slept in the bassinette in their parents’ room, and Zach had his own space, a tiny room in the back of the house, the one closest to the door and the stairs that led down to what passed for a back yard.
“A room that used to be a closet, and for that, they want to charge us an extra grand a month,” Dad used to say, and that’s one of Zach’s first memories; Dad with the corners of his mouth pinched down and Mom with her hair curly and tightly bunched around her face, laughing at him and winding close.
Their fights weren’t nearly as bad, back then. They always ended up smiling at the end, at least they had before Gray was born, before Dad got the promotion, and Mom quit working at the bakery, so she could go back to school at night.
Looking back it, Zach knows it wasn’t Gray’s fault that everything changed. That didn’t stop him from hating the kid, though. Sometimes, he just couldn’t help it.
They’ve never shared a room, so it doesn’t make sense that Gray would follow him down the hall, instead of sliding into his own space, but when he asks, he feels Gray’s fingers tighten against his back, and he says, “I don’t want to see the...”
His voice trails off, and maybe Zach’s imagining it, but it sounds like Gray’s voice is still scratchy from all that screaming. It's probably his imagination, but Zach hasn’t closed his eyes in days, it feels like. He's not exactly looking forward to what he’ll see when he does.
“I just don’t want to see all my stuff,” Gray says, which is probably the first time in his life that he hasn’t babbled on about all their different classifications. Zach knows why. He knows why, but his brain can’t catch up with the rest of him. They stare at each other for a minute; tight, full and quiet, and then Gray says, “Please, Zach.”
Zach’s an asshole. He can admit that about himself. He’s learned from his dad; he learned from the best. He still doesn’t say no.
“Yeah, fine,” he says, his own voice harsher than he’d expected. “Fuck, c’mon. Let’s get some sleep.”
Gray shrugs, hoodie still a little damp from the unexpected rain outside. Even his curls are sagging.
“Don’t think I'll be doing much of that,” he says quietly, but he goes when Zach tugs at him, kicks his sneakers off neatly into the corner by the closet and burrows onto the mattress, facing the wall.
When Zach sits on the mattress, the ache in his bones feels magnified. His hands are tingling. The tendons in the knee he busted in soccer last fall make his leg ache with heat.
They’ll probably have to go checked out by a real doctor sometime soon. Maybe tomorrow or next week. He thinks he might have a concussion from when—from when the—from what happened with the pod in the Gyrosphere.
“Go to sleep,” Gray mumbles, but he’s still looking at Zach, his too huge eyes too big for his face. They’ve never shared a room, so he’s not familiar with this part.
Gray doesn’t turn over, so Zach doesn’t either. His knuckles bump against Zach’s side, their skin scraping together with a rough callous of noise. His shirt is rucked up, the skin exposed, but he’s too tired to pull it back down again.
“Go to sleep,” Gray repeats, smashing his face into his pillow, and Zach doesn’t think he can. He doesn’t want to, but the way Gray’s breaths even out lulls him into something soft and tinged with relief.
***
The sky is black when Zach wakes up, and he nearly falls off the bed with a start. His heart is racing. The Indominus was right there, its teeth sinking into his skin, tearing Gray’s body limb from limb, the dark blood glinting off its teeth.
He’s alone in bed and there’s a glass of water on his nightstand, three Advil next to it.
The house is never quiet, not even in the middle of the night—both his parents like the sound of noise, like the TV playing, or the radio, DVD menus, or some new Pandora station his mom has fallen in love featuring Mongolian Throat singing—and it’s not now.
Zach downs the Advil, draining his water glass, and takes it down to the kitchen for a refill. The three of them are in the den; Gray tucked between their parents on the couch. His head is on Mom’s lap, but Dad’s not too far away, his hands sunk into the soft, dark curls at the back of Gray’s neck.
Dad’s eyes slit open. Zach must have made a noise, and he’s stuck there, frozen for a while.
Everybody has different processing times. The thought comes out of nowhere, but he’s pretty sure he’s heard that before somewhere. Probably in that college prep psych course Angie made him take last semester. Each person deals differently with grief, he remembers the pamphlet saying. Pushing a client when they aren’t ready to let go or communicate may only make the healing process longer and harder.
Zach remembers snickering, remembers leaning across the nearly-empty lecture hall and whispering, “Long and hard,” against her ear.
“I’m just,” he says in the present, and his dad’s eyes are tired. He doesn’t try to smile, so Zach doesn’t either.
“Come sit down,” Dad says. He doesn’t pat the cushion next to him, and he doesn’t move to make space, but Zach closes in anyway, leaving his empty water glass on the bannister and sliding into a spot by their feet.
He doesn’t cry, but he can feel the slight shake of the couch behind him, feels the way his dad swallows and shifts and stills in a repeating pattern, like if he stays perfectly immobile, he won’t be hunted. Zach closes his eyes, tipping his head back against the couch cushions, and tries to mirror his breathing.
“Your mom and I,” he starts.
Zach remembers Gray bringing it up in the park; his face snotty, wet and red, saying the words, divorce and I don’t want two of everything. I don’t want it. Zach remembers promising to never leave, to always come back, and he has to close his eyes, because even though the room is dark, it’s still spinning.
“I’m moving out,” Dad says, and there it is, out in the open. Zach expects to feel worse about it than he does, but mostly he doesn’t feel anything.
“Okay,” he says, because he has to say something.
After a while, Dad says, “Do you,” abortively, but Zach doesn’t open his eyes. “You can talk about it. Would you like to talk about it? I’m not.” He sounds so uncertain, and Zach wants to laugh, maybe. His dad has never had an uncertain day in his life, so this is definitely new and scary. “What do you say to your son after he survives a dinosaur attack?”
If Gray were awake, he’d jump in with a correction. He’d say, “She's actually called the Indominus, Dad,” or at least the old Gray would have. Zach has no experience with this new version of his little brother who’d rather spend the night on the couch than in his own bed.
“Nothing, I guess,” Zach answers, after a minute. “Or maybe, ‘Hi, son. I’m glad you’re not dead.'"
He thinks maybe the words are a mistake the second they’re out, but instead of getting mad, his dad just curls his hand against his shoulder, and says, voice thick and wet, “Hi, son. I’m glad you’re not dead."
***
Zach’s not used to spending this much time at home, but he can also barely stand to be outside. Their house wouldn’t be much better protection than that old Jeep on the island, or even the truck that Aunt Claire drove away after the raptor attack, but at least here there are four walls and a roof. They can lock themselves in the basement, if worst comes to worst. Maybe dinosaurs don’t like the damp.
He and Gray are sitting on the couch in week-old sweatpants, watching the new season of Daredevil on Netflix when Mom comes in and says, “Zach!” Her voice is forced cheerful and way too peppy. The way it’s been since they got home; like if she just keeps on smiling, everything will be just fine. “Angie’s here,” she adds.
Mom’s never really liked Angie, but then again, she’s never really liked any of his girlfriends. Angie’s just stuck around the longest, so Mom’s dislike of her has had more time to simmer and become obvious.
“Oh,” he says, even though he should’ve expected her. Dad brought them both brand new phones a few days after they got back, and she’s been texting him non-stop. “I’ll, um. Cool.”
“Cool,” Mom echoes, and she tries smiling again, but the longer she looks at him, the more tense she gets, like she might break apart if she lets him out of her sight for too long.
“You want me to go upstairs so you can make out on the couch?” Gray asks. Zach doesn’t know why he winces, but he can’t help it. It’s nothing he hasn’t yelled out before, but thinking it makes him uncomfortable now, the back of his neck prickling with itchy unease.
“Nah,” he says, reaching over to ruffle Gray’s hair. “This won’t take long.”
Angie’s waiting on the porch, and when she sees him through the screen door, she screams, pushing it open and launching herself at him. Her arms wind vice-like around his neck, and she’s dotting lip gloss-sticky kisses up and down his cheeks before he even has the chance to speak.
“I thought you were dead,” she says, serious and dramatic, even though he’s not sure how that’s possible. There were reports of attacks at the park, yeah, but the electricity had cut by the time the aviary had been broken into. He’s not sure who would’ve gotten the news out. By the time anything accurate had been reported on, they were already halfway home.
“I’m not,” he says, and it’s a testament to how serious she is that she doesn’t even roll her eyes at him. “I’m fine, Ang. Just a little banged up.”
He doesn’t mention the concussion idea to her, because he hasn’t brought it up to anybody. They have appointments to see their family doctor at the end of the week, and he’ll bring it up then, maybe. If the headaches and the nightmares keep up.
“I think I might have PTSD,” he says, offhand, but Angie jumps on it, sinking down onto the steps and holding onto his hands so tightly that he has to sink down with her.
She tucks her hair behind her ear and says, “That makes sense. You were basically in a war zone. Have you had nightmares? Are you even sleeping? You look tired.”
He thinks of telling her that he’s tired because he and Gray have been watching TV for 9 hours straight. Instead he says, “Yeah,” and suddenly, he has a girlfriend again.
Still.
Whatever.
***
He was supposed to get a job this summer, though Mom says he doesn’t have to. “Because—listen,” she tries with a smile, some more forced pep and jokes that fall flat. “When are you ever going to have the excuse of having lived through a dinosaur attack ever again? You should use this. Milk it. Take it for all that it’s worth.”
“Maybe they’ll throw us a parade,” Gray suggests, slurping up his cereal milk. He doesn’t correct her incorrect identifier. After a minute, he says, “Hey, that’s a good idea, though. Mom, can we call Aunt Claire and see if we can get the names of all the people who died? Maybe we can throw a parade for them. Or. Something.”
His mom bites her lip so hard that her teeth leave perfect, white indents in it, and her eyes are wet when she says, “Gray,” and, “Now that is a really lovely idea.”
To Zach, she says, “If you really want to earn some cash, you can help me out around the house, okay? The garage really needs a good cleaning. Don’t even get me started on the basement.”
Zach wants to argue. He’s never liked being home that much. Instead, he says, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” and pretends to ignore them both when he texts back Angie and says, No go on the lifeguarding :( :( :( Mom wants me 2 stay close 2 home.
“It’s not like Angie isn’t over all the time anyway,” Gray says, finishing the last of his milk. When his eyes meet Zach’s, they’re surprisingly clear. “She’ll just be over all the time, but at night.”
“Right, yeah,” Zach says, because it’s true.
Mom’s voice isn’t sharp when she says, “Zach, you aren’t leading that girl on, are you?” but she sounds measured, like she isn’t quite sure how to reprimand him yet, so soon after nearly being permanently childless.
Zach shrugs. “Angie knows what’s going on,” he says.
She still says, “I love you,” when they fuck. She leaves new welts on his shoulders with her fingers. There are hickeys on his neck, bruises on his legs, but she stops looking at him after she does it, like maybe this is just a temporary standoff instead of just how he’s wired.
“Just be careful,” Mom says, but her back is turned. She’s giving him breathing room, but Gray isn’t. Gray’s staring at him head-on again. “You’ve lived through a traumatic event,” she continues, even though she’s stirring now, the pasta sauce bubbling hot on the stovetop. “It’s not fair to take it out on the people who care about you.”
“I’m not,” Zach says, even though he probably is. That sounds like him.
“You’re not,” Gray agrees, smiling at him. He reaches out, knocking their knuckles together.
***
They break up three weeks later, and he’s surprised by it, even though he shouldn’t be. They’re on the porch again, even though it’s late enough that everyone is probably asleep. Mom prefers it, even though she hasn’t said anything specific. Considering how she found them in his room last week; his hand slid down the front of Angie’s white shorts, her head tipped forward on his shoulder, eyes closed, she doesn’t really have to.
“I just,” Angie’s saying. Her eyes are puffy and red like she’s been crying, and fuck, she’s been crying. “You’re never here.” She chews on her bottom lip like it’s giving her courage. She says, “Even when we’re—even when we’re in bed, it’s like you’re never there with me until the end, and that’s just. Zach, we’ve been together almost a year. That’s not fair.”
Here’s what else isn’t fair: dinosaur attack. The sickening noise of bones crunching. Blood doesn’t actually look red when it’s spread wide like that. It’s dark, viscous and ugly. Nothing at all like the movies. Life isn’t fucking fair.
“Babe,” he says, but he’s not even sure why he’s trying. “I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m, fucking, like. I’m so out of it. It’s really not you.”
She drops her hands, staring at him incredulously. Staring at him like she can’t even believe: it’s not you, it’s me is the best he can come up with.
“Being around you hurts,” she says quietly, and that’s what gets at him, that’s what makes him feel the worst.
His stomach tightens up. This is stupid. Expecting him to want to lay out in the sun, and go to DAR mixers, and watch creature-features in darkened movie theaters after everything that’s happened is crazy. He had a panic attack the one time he and Gray decided to soak in some air conditioning and saw Age of Ultron, and he already knew everything that happened, because they’d seen it twice before.
“That sucks,” he says. “That sucks, and I'm sorry, but I didn’t—I think there’s something wrong with me,” he confides, and when she pushes off the steps, she’s already stopped crying.
“There is something wrong with you,” she says, “but I think it was there way before you came back from that stupid theme park.”
***
Gray hasn’t stopped sleeping in his bed. Maybe Zach should’ve thought it was weird after the first week, but he didn’t. He couldn’t really think of a reason to kick him out after the second, and now it’s the fifth week of their being home, and Gray being in his bed feels way more normal than Gray being out of it.
“I wasn’t listening in,” he says when Zach comes in. He’s already under the covers, shoved up into Zach’s old favorite spot, pressed right against the wall. He has a Stephen King novel open in his lap, and his huge-ass headphones around his neck, but he’s not reading, and he’s not listening to music, either. “But if I had been, I’d say you let her go too easy. She was practically begging you to get her to stay. All you had to say was—”
“—shut up,” Zach yells, and the anger coursing through him feels good. It feels right. It feels safe. Being pissed at his kid brother feels as normal as breathing.
“I’m just saying,” Gray says. His eyes are huge and blue, and Zach hates him so much sometimes, because he never knows when to fucking stop. “You didn’t have to let her go. She clearly still wants into your, like, pants.”
He doesn’t mean to laugh. Laughing defeats the whole purpose of being pissed in the first place, but Zach can’t help it.
He thumps back onto the bed with his forearm pressed against his eyes and says, “What the fuck do you know about getting into anybody’s pants, Squirt?”
Gray makes a face. Zach doesn’t even need to see him to know what he’s doing, and he drops his arm to mirror it back at him, his features drooping into an exaggerated scowl.
“Hey, I’m almost thirteen,” Gray says. “Jen Hadley from down the street showed me her tits last summer.”
Zach blinks, the thought slamming into him like a freighter.
"What,” he says, and his voice is way too creaky. It sounds like he can’t get any air in his lungs. The feeling of drowning isn’t too far off.
“Jen Hadley,” Gray says, like Zach is dumb. Compared to Gray, Zach has always been the dumb one, so that’s right on target. “Last summer. At the pool. She was tanning without her top on, and she,” he pauses, meeting Zach’s eyes again. “She saw me coming, and she just sat up.”
If it were anybody else, they’d be blushing. They’d be embarrassed or excited or maybe even proud. Gray isn’t any of those things. Gray just sounds matter of fact. Jen Hadley showed me her tits last summer. You could’ve stopped your girlfriend from breaking up with you. Everything is okay. It’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine.
“I mean, you are a stud,” Zach says, and now he’s the one that’s blushing, but Gray lets him get away with it, laughing softly into the quiet night.
***
Gray’s turning thirteen at the end of August, and Aunt Claire is coming, even though she’s never seen their Santa Barbara house. She’s bringing Owen with her, even though he’s never seen their Santa Barbara house either.
Mom is nervous, and Dad is moving out, and Gray—Gray is still sleeping in Zach’s bed. That’s not going to change, apparently, because Aunt Claire and Owen are taking over Gray’s room. His old room? They’ve been home almost two months, and Zach hasn’t seen him go in there even once.
“Gray, honey,” Mom says at breakfast. She has her hand pressed to Gray’s shoulder softly, like he’s a skittish rabbit that she doesn’t want to scare off. "I’m just going to—is it okay with you if I clear out your room a little bit? I just don’t want Claire to be. It’s just. I don’t want to be surrounded with memories. If I can help it.”
Zach wants to say, “You can’t help it. You weren’t there. You have no fucking idea what it was like,” but he’s not at the point where he can swear in front of his mom, and even if he could, he’s not sure he’d want to. He definitely doesn’t want her to live through what they did.
Gray says, “You can do whatever you want, Mom,” and then, even more quietly, “But I doubt that’s going to get the memories to go away. We probably all need therapy.”
Zach had said the same thing a few weeks back, but he’d laughed like it was a joke. Family therapy, he’d said. Bet we can get a group rate.
Gray doesn’t say it like it's a joke. Gray turns his head and meets Zach’s eyes directly and doesn’t say anything else at all.
“Oh, Gray,” Mom says, and then she’s drawing Gray up, and pulling him tightly into her arms, dragging Zach in next, the three of them crunched together, taking up as little space as possible. It’s a wonder they can tell each other apart. “Is that what you want to do?” she asks, when they’ve separated, when they’re their own people again.
Zach’s skin feels itchy with all the things he wants to say, and all the things he doesn’t. He thinks, if I hadn’t pushed to drive the pod out of the gyrosphere, we would’ve been so much safer, and, maybe I was messed up before we got to the park, but how can I fucking know that?
Gray shrugs. “If Zach wants to, I’ll go,” he says quietly. He hasn’t dropped his gaze. Zach’s skin feels like it’s on fire.
“Zach?” Mom asks. She’s looking at him like he’s the frightened rabbit now. “You don’t have to decide now, but if this is something you want to do, your dad and I will absolutely explore it with you.”
Zach doesn’t say anything, but Gray says, “Yeah,” like that’s all the argument he needs to make.
“How ‘bout I think about it?” Zach asks. He’s almost positive he’ll explode if he doesn’t get out of this kitchen in the next 30 seconds.
“Hey Mom,” Gray says, sliding off his stool. “D’you think me and Zach could come pick up Aunt Claire and Owen from the airport?”
***
It’s weird, having two other people in the house, especially when it was just the four of them for so long, and now they’ve dwindled down to three. Zach was just starting to get used to the quiet, and now it’s all gone again.
Claire isn’t a morning person, but Owen is. He seems to be an “all the time” person. He makes coffee with chicory root that he grew on the island, and the scent is familiar, and scary, and overwhelming, even if the coffee itself is delicious.
“Can I try some?” Gray asks, the morning before his birthday. Owen looks at Claire before he answers, and Claire looks at Mom.
“Just a little bit,” Mom agrees, and she’s smiling when she looks over at Zach, flipping pancakes on the griddle. “We can’t have you growing up too fast, huh? Thirteen is still young enough for you to be my baby.”
“Mom!” Zach whines, but Gray just laughs it off, taking one single sip of Owen’s coffee and handing it back to him. “He’s thirteen. If you called me a baby in front of strangers at thirteen, I would’ve thrown a shit fit.”
Mom rolls her eyes and says, “You did throw a shit fit.”
Zach’s heart is jackhammering in his chest. The smell of the coffee is overwhelming. Zach’s never had this much trouble turning his brain off before, but having Claire and Owen in his kitchen isn’t helping. Maybe Dad feels it too, because he’s spiking his orange juice and using the fridge door as a cover. Zach takes a breath, but it comes out shallow. He closes his eyes for a second, trying to calm the tingle in his palms, and Gray slides their ankles together, hooking his foot around Zach’s under the breakfast table.
“I did not,” Zach mutters, and it’s probably way too late, but it doesn’t matter.
Ignoring him, Claire says, “Gray, have you thought about what you want to do for your birthday?”
Plans have all been vague. Gray’s never really had a ton of friends hanging around, but even still, nothing’s been in the works except for Claire and Owen’s visit.
“I don’t want a party,” Gray says. “Can we just go out to dinner or something? Just the six of us?” He asks the last part with wide eyes and a barely-wobbling bottom lip.
It’s convincing. Gray doesn’t usually play their parents, but he’d be a fucking amazing conman if he ever bothered to put the effort in.
“He’s only saying that because he doesn’t have any friends,” Zach cuts in, because he has to, even though the last thing he wants is more people in his space.
Gray turns the big eyes and the wobbling lip in his direction, but Zach can make out the smile in his eyes.
“I have you,” he says, just loud enough for Claire and Owen to hear too. Mom coos. She’s probably three seconds away from pulling out her iPhone to commemorate the occasion. “Besides,” Gray says. “Zach doesn’t have any friends right now, either. His girlfriend dumped him for being a scaredy cat.”
***
They go out to dinner, but it’s nowhere loud or flashy. Someplace on the beach that Dad says a client recommended. Fairy lights are strung everywhere, like the owners never met an overhead light they liked, and Zach likes it okay, likes that Gray and his parents and Aunt Claire are happy, but mostly he just wants to go home.
“You can take a walk down the beach if you want,” Mom says, when they’re digesting dessert and waiting for the bill. “If you’re careful,” she specifies.
“Sounds great to me,” Zach says, without bothering to look anybody in the eye. He pushes his chair back so fast it almost topples over, and Dad says something under his breath, but just a shade too loud. Everybody laughs, even people at tables nearby, but Zach doesn’t even care.
“Hey!” Gray yells, when the restaurant is already a small speck on the beach. “Hey! Wait up! It’s my birthday! You’re not disappearing without me.”
“Tomorrow’s your birthday,” Zach says, but he slows down. He wasn’t really going anywhere in particular.
Gray looks down at his watch, teeth sunk into his bottom lip. “Technically, it’s been my birthday on the east coast for over an hour and twenty minutes. Technically, my birthday is almost over in Europe.”
Zach doesn’t even mean for it to happen, but he’s shoving Gray back, the two of them falling heavy onto the sand, getting it everywhere.
“Hey!” Gray protests, but he’s laughing, and the sound is such a relief that Zach does it again, tickling Gray’s sides, his throat, tucking his hands up under Gray’s striped black polo, brushing right up against the dip of his hips and the back of his shorts. “This isn’t fair,” Gray’s shouting, but he’s giggling, too, high pitched and barely audible.
Zach has his face tucked in the curve of Gray’s neck, and they’re both breathing hard, but he’s breathing harder. At least the saltwater smell is different here than it was on the island. At least the feel of sand under his fingers is familiar, but it’s been familiar for years. No one’s ever tried to attack them here. There haven’t been dinosaurs on these shores for billions of years.
“You deserve it,” Zach says, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “Every almost-thirteen year old deserves a birthday noogie. I think it’s in the rules.”
Gray rolls his eyes and says, “I think you’re in the rules,” and then he bites his lip again, drawing Zach’s attention to it like a beacon.
Saying he’s surprised when Gray’s mouth bumps against his is an understatement. Saying he’s surprised when he groans into it and kisses back is the understatement of the fucking century. Gray’s fingers are cold, like always, and sandy, like never, and he kisses hard, like he’s been waiting for it all his life. The idea makes Zach dizzy. Dizzier.
“What,” he says, when he pulls back. His chest is heaving. He collapses against the sand, staring up at the empty sky, and doesn’t even flinch when Gray settles next to him. “What,” he repeats. His mouth is tingling like it’s on fire, but at least his hands have stopped.
“You wanted to, right?” Gray asks, casual. The same way he’d ask if Zach wanted some coffee, or maybe help with his history homework. “I mean. Because I wanted to.”
Zach swallows hard, and then has to do it again, because he starts coughing.
“You wanted to?” he asks. This is news to him. Good to know that he’s not the only fucking crazy in this family. “You wanted to?”
Gray leans up on one shoulder. He meets Zach’s eyes directly, because he’s never done anything else. “Yeah,” he says, and he shrugs, like this is at all natural. “I did.”
Zach takes one breath, and when that works, he tries another, like he’s tricking his lungs into breathing. “Is this some sort of, like, delayed dino-attack based PTSD shit?” he asks.
Gray blinks at him, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“I don’t think so,” he says quietly. He lets out a messy breath, like he has to re-teach himself how to do it too. “I think I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”
Zach doesn’t want to ask too many questions, doesn’t want Gray to do something crazy and kiss him again, but he has to know.
He stares up at the inky blackness of the sky and says, “How long?”
Gray shrugs. “You’re not, like,” he says. He’s looking at Zach again, all that intense energy centered straight on him. “You’re not my first kiss, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That’s not what Zach had been worried about, but now it’s near the top of the list. “What the hell?” he asks. “You’re twelve. Who the fuck have you been kissing, Squirt?”
“Is this really what you want to talk about?” Gray asks, and Zach squeezes his eyes shut, because no, it’s not. He doesn’t open them again when Gray moves in closer, doesn’t open them when Gray’s lips nudge his cheek, the lip of his chin and then his mouth, again.
He kisses back, but doesn’t move his hands up to Gray’s face or hair, doesn’t tug him closer, and they lay like that for a while, connected by nothing but their mouths, with the soft sound of the ocean as their soundtrack.
***
The car ride home is hell. Zach’s been through actual hell, so he knows. He’s seen things, but being nearly eaten by a T-Rex hybrid has basically nothing on sitting cramped in the backseat of a car with Gray’s leg pressed all along his, and Owen’s elbow digging into his middle.
“Can you, um,” Owen says, trying to be as polite as possible in the confined space. He was fine through dinner, and he’s been fine through the last two breakfasts, too, but Zach’s betting that he and Claire will clear out by morning. If not from the area, then to a hotel, at least. Family is one thing, but togetherness on this level is something completely different.
“Right,” Zach says, shifting over so that he’s practically in Gray’s lap. “Sorry, man.”
Thankfully, the ride home doesn’t take that long. Mom and Aunt Claire don’t seem to notice the awkwardness, but then again, they’re discussing Dad, and the fact that he's staying at the hotel again.
“I just think,” Mom says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I think it’s all been a little too much for the both of us.” Zach leans back against his seat, ducking his head so that he can fit it against Gray’s shoulder, pretending to be asleep. “It’s not a divorce,” Mom adds, dropping her voice low, like she’s keeping a secret. “It’s just something we’re trying right now. We want to see what works.”
Aunt Claire hums something under her breath, something Zach can’t quite make out, because Owen is actually asleep on the seat next to him, and he’s snoring, head lolling against the window.
“Don’t mind him,” Claire says, but she sounds like she’s smiling. “He could pass out just about anywhere.”
This time, Zach doesn’t miss Mom’s expression in the rearview. “Zach is the same,” she says. “Drop him in the middle of nowhere, and he’ll manage to make something comfortable enough to sleep on.”
When they pull up to the house, Zach has to pretend to be groggy. Gray’s hand is pressed to his back, and he smiles at Mom and Aunt Claire and Owen and says, “See you in the morning!” with a grin.
“Happy birthday, sweet boy,” Mom calls back to him, and Gray stops moving Zach for as long as it takes to go into the kitchen and kiss her cheek. He’s still short enough that he fits against her chest, and Zach closes his eyes, leaning his head against the wall and trying to remember how to breathe right again.
Everybody has different processing times, but he feels like there’s no barometer for something like this.
“Night, guys,” Claire says, and then Gray is back in his space, moving with Zach up the stairs and closing the door to his bedroom with a sharp snick.
He busies himself with getting out of his clothes, and instead of looking at him—specifically so that he won’t look—Zach throws himself down on the bed.
The mattress dips, and Zach flinches, even though he doesn’t mean to.
“We don’t have to do it again,” Gray says, his voice quiet. He still doesn’t sound nervous, but maybe squaring off against his favorite childhood playmates has made him a stronger man than Zach is.
“We shouldn’t have done it the first time. Times.” Zach flinches again, and then a third time when Gray’s hand touches his arm.
Gray is quiet, breaths coming out easily enough that Zach thinks he might actually be asleep. He lifts up his head eventually, and Gray isn’t looking at him, but he’s not dozing, either. He’s reading the Stephen King novel, with his pen light grasped between his teeth.
“You could’ve just turned the lamp on,” Zach says, his voice dipping toward a whine. None of this is going the way he would have expected, if he’d’ve known this was something he could ever possibly anticipate.
“I didn’t want to bug you,” Gray says, the shrug in his voice matching the tilt of his shoulders. “Bug you more. Than I already did. Tonight.” The sentences are short and fragmented, but the breath that Zach lets out isn’t.
Zach squeezes his eyes shut again, the afterimage of the pen light bright against his eyelids.
“You didn’t fucking,” he heaves in a heavy breath, rolling to his side and looking Gray square in the eyes. “You didn’t fucking bug me, man. You couldn’t fucking bug me. Even when you’re being annoying, you’re not bugging me, because I can’t stop thinking about the fact that you might have been dead a couple months ago and that scares the shit out of me.”
“I didn’t know,” Gray says quietly, like somehow, it hasn’t been obvious.
“Surprise,” Zach says. “I’m scared all the time.” It’s true, so monumentally and colossally true that it makes his stomach hurt. “You have no idea.”
Gray shifts closer, so that they’re actually snuggling, instead of all the nights before, when they’ve just been sharing a mattress. “So tell me about it,” he says. “Tell me why you’re scared.”
“I.” Zach doesn’t even know where to start. “Yeah, okay.”