Good Bones (20 page)

Dylan looked up through the broken green canopy, weighed his own heart, and concluded that he liked that mixture, that just-right combination of controlled chaos and undisciplined order: mundane and exotic, safe and risky, domesticated and wild. He didn’t have to choose one or another extreme. He could choose balance for his home: overgrown farm and carefully remodeled house. And he could choose it for himself. He could be a good architect, a caring brother, a tender lover, a man who planned for the future and saved for a rainy day. But he could also be a wolf who ran and hunted in the dark forest, a guy who took risks and gave things a shot, even when he knew they probably wouldn’t work out.

He was nearly stunned by the force of his epiphany. But even as he stood there, fingers absently stroking the tree’s rough bark, an image of a house came into his head. The image was so detailed that it was as if someone had been working on it for weeks, carefully including every feature until a curtain was finally torn away to reveal the finished product. It was a strange house, different from anything he had ever seen.

Dylan whooped with joy and began to run back to the house. It was time to make some plans.

D
YLAN
could never be certain of the exact moment when the agony of transformation became the elation of power. Tonight he nosed open the back door that he’d earlier left ajar, and he aimed a canine grin at the clear sky. The moon smiled back, seemingly complicit in his joy.

The forest was beckoning him, but first he trotted through the poplar trees. The flickering light of the television was visible through a window, and he could hear sirens and screeching tires from one of the cop shows Chris liked to watch. As a man, Dylan might still feel ambivalent about his relationship with Chris, but a wolf never questions his loyalties. Dylan jogged around the edges of the little house, keeping to the shadows. He sniffed at everything and, when he was satisfied that no threats had been near, pissed at strategic points. Only when he was satisfied that he’d fully announced his presence did he lope back under the trees, heading down the path and around the edge of the pond.

He knew the ducks were there—he could smell them, even many yards away—but he was after different prey tonight. He ran until he was deep in the forest and then paused to sort the diverse scents. The woods were the olfactory equivalent of a complex tapestry, layered and nuanced. He could tell so much more than which creatures had passed this way and when. He also knew their age and gender and state of health, whether they had recently chased or been chased by something else, what they had eaten, and whether they were in season to mate.

One particular odor caught his full attention: blood. He licked his jowls and hurried farther west, down a small gully and then up a steep rise, into a clearing where the smell was very strong. He pricked his ears forward and caught a quiet rustle in a clump of leaves. Creeping carefully, one paw at a time, he inched forward.

He had almost reached his target when saw the animal, frozen in fear. It was a young fawn, much too young to be on its own. It must have become separated from its mother, or perhaps its mother had died. One of the fawn’s stick-like legs appeared badly injured. Dylan could have leapt forward and caught it immediately, but he stalked closer instead. It watched him, narrow chest heaving.

The fawn would die soon, of starvation or disease or infection or from falling to a predator. In a way, what Dylan had to offer was the kindest ending possible, and perhaps somehow the small deer sensed that because its breathing slowed, and its soft eyes seemed to almost welcome the wolf.

Dylan pounced. He broke the deer’s neck cleanly and quickly, so that the animal only twitched a few times and then died. And then Dylan feasted, filling his belly with the fresh hot meat.

It wasn’t a big kill—a lone wolf could manage only so much—but it was a good one, and when he was done licking the blood from his face and paws, Dylan threw back his head and howled in victory.

Chapter 17

I
T
WAS
two weeks since the full moon, and Dylan woke alone. Chris usually stayed only every third or fourth night—whether because he was afraid of wearing out his welcome or for other reasons, Dylan didn’t know. When his eyes fluttered open he realized he’d been sniffing the air, happily inhaling the delicious scents of frying bacon and percolating coffee. He smiled and gathered a set of clothing before heading downstairs in the buff.

Chris was standing at the stove, his back to Dylan, humming to himself as he fussed with pots and pans.

“Expecting an army for breakfast?” Dylan asked.

Chris turned, and his eyes widened as he saw that Dylan was nude. “Now that’s the way to start the mornin’,” he said with a leer.

Dylan padded into the room, planted a sloppy kiss on Chris’s cheek, and then dodged the groping hand that reached for his ass. “Gotta shower.”

“Raincheck, then. We’ll save it for when you make your triumphant return.”

With a snort, Dylan made his way to the bathroom. He and Chris had begun the master bath remodel just after the full moon, but they were waiting on tile that Dylan had special ordered. In the meantime, Dylan was showering and shaving downstairs. At least the journey wasn’t as bad now that the temperatures had warmed a little. But he was really looking forward to completing the master bath—and its shower stall big enough for two.

He didn’t dawdle through his morning routine, but he did take special care to shave and trim his soul patch and to make sure he looked presentable in general. From the smile he received from Chris when he emerged, Dylan assumed he’d been successful on that front. “Too bad you’re wasting all that hotness on lesbians,” Chris said, piling bacon slices on a plate already overflowing with fluffy scrambled eggs. “You pitch a project to a pair of gay guys lookin’ like that, and they’ll sign up even if you’re gonna make ’em live in a doghouse.”

Dylan took the plate. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I think.”

They sat opposite one another at the oak table Dylan had bought. Chris ate his bacon with his fingers and then licked off the grease, which was enormously distracting. Dylan opted to use silverware. When the meal was over, Dylan put the dishes in the dishwasher while Chris filled a big insulated cup with coffee and several spoonfuls of sugar. “Break a leg,” he said as he handed over the cup.

“I think that’s just for acting.”

Chris lifted an eyebrow. “So what’re you supposed to say for architecture?”

“Um… I think for architecture you’re supposed to give the architect a huge kiss.”

“Well, I wouldn’t wanna break tradition,” said Chris. He drew Dylan into his arms and pressed their lips together. Chris tasted good, and for a moment Dylan was sorely tempted to just forget the whole thing, to stay home and have a really good shag. But then Chris was pushing him away and patting his butt proprietarily. “Knock ’em dead, dude.”

As he made the long drive into the city, Dylan listened to NPR. He was feeling almost preternaturally calm, maybe because he’d already decided what he was going to do: When the clients shot him down, he was going to resign. He would drive home and fuck Chris through the mattress, and then he’d find another way to get by. He would think of something. He could assist Chris on his intermittent odd jobs. He could raise Christmas trees or free-range organic chickens. He could grow barley and hops and learn to make microbrews. He could learn to bake, charm Kay out of her pie recipe, and make the entire state fat from blackberry pastries. He could open Columbia County’s first gay strip club and headline himself and Chris as dancers. He could grow his hair long and wear animal skins and live off deer and the fish from his pond.

He’d fucking figure something out.

The traffic and bustle of the city already seemed a little alien to him. So many people, caught up in their own lives, rushing here and there. As he waited at stoplights he’d look at pedestrians and fellow motorists and wonder what secrets they had. Maybe some of them were werewolves too.

He couldn’t help but glance around nervously when he parked in the garage, but there was no sign of Andy. The most sinister thing he saw was a Buick with a Sarah Palin bumper sticker.

Matty smiled worriedly at him as he walked into the office. “It’s almost time, Dylan! Quick, let me see the plans.”

He clutched the laptop protectively to his chest. “You’ll see when everyone else does, Matt.” She frowned, and he patted her shoulder. “Nobody’s seen yet, okay? Nobody but me. I want to just do the reveal all at once and—” And then run like hell. “—and then see how people react.”

She didn’t appear especially mollified, but he wasn’t going to budge. He hadn’t even shown Chris the plans, not even when Chris begged and pleaded and promised the best blow job ever. Dylan waited as she scowled some more, but eventually she shrugged. “Whatever. This better be good.”

He was still calm. And he was rather amazed at that.

He was the first one in the conference room, and he just sat there with his laptop closed in front of him. Then Matty came in and shot him a glare before sitting next to him. They didn’t speak. She stared at her blue-painted fingernails, and he thought about how nice it felt when Chris nibbled on his earlobes.

Stender and the clients were chatting about an art museum exhibit as they entered the room. Dylan stood and shook hands with Pomegranate and Cassidy. Stender was smiling serenely, as if he had all the confidence in the world in Dylan. Everyone sat, there was a minute or two of meaningless small talk about traffic and weather, and then everyone was looking expectantly at Dylan.

He smiled and opened his laptop.

“This is something… a little different,” he said.

The clients smiled broadly in anticipation. “Perfect!” Cassidy exclaimed. “That’s exactly what we’re hoping for.”

Dylan opened the file and swung the screen around. There was a gasp in three-part harmony—even Stender gasped—and Matty made an irritated click in her throat and scurried around the table so she could see as well. “What’s that?” she blurted.

Without losing his cool, Dylan smiled. “Something that probably would’ve got me kicked out of architecture school.” He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers in his lap. “But I think it’s just what’s needed here.”

It took a few moments, but eventually Stender regained his equilibrium. “Why don’t you explain what we’re looking at, Dylan?”

“Of course. This is a synthesis. See, I was thinking about suburbs like Beaverton and what they mean. What the street where this house will be built means. And it’s sort of a transition, a neither here nor there. I guess at one point it was probably forested and then it was farmland and now it’s fairly densely populated by people who mostly work in the city. And even the people themselves—a lot of them are from somewhere else, and after a few years they move on because they have kids and they need a bigger place, or the kids grow up and they want something smaller, or someone gets a job transfer or something. Even when they stay put, people who live in the ’burbs spend their days driving around, going to work, running errands, taking the kids to soccer practice and dentist appointments. Like I said, a place in transition, a place
of
transition.”

Everyone was nodding as Dylan spoke. Hopefully that meant they were following him so far, but it didn’t mean they’d like the house plans. But he truly didn’t care. He felt more confident and more powerful than he ever had—except when he was a wolf. The wolf tracked and hunted. The man designed iconoclastic houses that were commentaries on modern life. Well, one iconoclastic house, anyway.

“This house reflects the influences of history and space and lifestyle on the suburb. I think if you look at some of the individual parts you might recognize them, but I’ve put them together in a way nobody else has.”

Stender leaned forward to squint at the screen. His head was slightly tilted, as if he were trying very hard to understand but hadn’t quite grasped it. “I think I see… parts of a mountain lodge,” he finally said, not sounding very sure of himself.

Dylan smiled. “Yep. You can see the logs, the chunks of granite. The wood’s not real, though—it’s formed and stained concrete, just like the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. We could probably do faux granite from concrete too, if you wanted.”

“But this sure doesn’t look like Yosemite,” Cassidy said, pointing at a tower that protruded from the house’s west wing.

“That’s metal and glass. I’ve adapted elements from functionalist and neomodern urban buildings there and throughout the house. A little Mies van der Rohe, a little Renzo Piano.”

“It sort of reminds me of those skyscrapers you see all over Vancouver,” observed Pomegranate.

Dylan grinned at her. “A little of that too.”

“I love Vancouver,” she replied, smiling back.

“And this wide porch, these little bits of scrollwork you see here and there? I stole those straight from my own farmhouse. I’m not going for a Frankenstein here—I think you can see that different components are interspersed throughout the façade, producing a new and, I hope, harmonious whole.”