Spiral Bound Journal

In the Garden of Concrete and Serenity

An hour had passed since the eclipse had finished. Still, many people who had converged on the space to watch the astronomical phenomenon lingered to check out the various iterations of concrete and water in the Fort Worth Water Gardens. Dana, Quinn, and Morgan ended up waiting some time before retreating from the top of the Mountain portion of the gardens and embarking on further exploration. Well, they were part exploring and part trying to find the rest of Morgan's friend group. The three of them ended up ambling down a flight of stairs leading to the Quiet Pool, a concrete valley with a still, shallow pond framed by pine trees. Water flowed in an almost invisible sheet on top of the walls surrounding the valley. Morgan glanced around in awe, while Dana and Quinn hung out by some steps leading into the pool itself.

"This is amazing," Morgan half whispered. "I can barely hear anyone down here."

"I'm surprised there's no one else here," Dana remarked. "Then again, this part is a bit hidden."

"Maybe they didn't want to walk down all the steps," Quinn chimed in.

"Okay, fair point. Not my fault people are lazy."

Quinn snorted.

For a moment, the three of them said nothing and soaked in the relative silence of the Quiet Pool. Morgan walked around, yelping in surprise when he ran a finger along the wall only to find the water flowing over the pebbled concrete. Dana chuckled at his reaction, prompting Quinn to look over at her.

"You're right," he said in a low tone. "He is more expressive off camera."

"At least nowadays," Dana remarked. "In some of his older videos you get to hear him laugh. There was the time he shaved his head at the end of the year. That was a textbook example of giggling in horror."

"I cannot imagine Morgan with a bald head."

"The initial regrowth was honestly weirder, at least the first couple months. I'm half convinced he took time off so he wouldn't have a bunch of video evidence of his lack of hair."

"Yeah, I can see how you might think that."

Dana smirked. "In the end, I'm just glad there hasn't been a repeat. That would have been too weird even for me."

"Speaking of weird, what do you make of this afternoon so far?"

"What do you make of it?"

Quinn beckoned Dana to lean closer as he lowered his head closer to her eye level. "I think you have another Ray to add to the collection?"

"What makes you say that?" Dana whispered.

"He stopped talking once I said something when we first came down here. Plus he has not hesitated to toe the line of your personal space."

"Okay, I did notice that last one a bit."

"You did, huh? I'm surprised given that you made no mood to back away from his advances."

Dana ducked her head. "Well, what can I say? He's a pretty Ray, like Ham Say only not as standoffish."

"Not that it takes much to be less seemingly aloof as Ham Say, but Morgan is way more lively."

"Given how open he is about his heritage, it's easy to see how this is the case."

At that, Morgan stopped at a spot along the edge of the pool and turned to face Dana and Quinn.

"What are you two talking about over there?"

"Couple stuff," Dana replied with a half grin.

Morgan's smile faltered only a little. "I guess you have lots of couple stuff to discuss with how long you've been together."

"Oh, we do."

The sound of footsteps on the stairs interrupted their conversation. Dana and Quinn turned their heads to find a small group of young-ish men ambling into the Quiet Pool area. One stood out a bit due to both his height and skin tone. The other four were all somewhat similar in height and dress. A guy sporting a charcoal gray beanie nodded at the couple before looking past them a bit.

"Morgan!" he shouted.

Morgan lowered his hand to get the other guy to pipe down before waving them over. "Hey."

The group headed over to Morgan, although Dana noticed that the tallest in the group lagged behind. He stopped when he was next to Dana and Quinn.

"Has Morgan been down here long?"

Dana shook her head. "We've been here for a few minutes tops."

"Wait, we?"

"Yeah. The three of us hung out together on the Mountain to watch the eclipse and then have been kind of hanging around the park here waiting for the crowds to dissipate."

"Did anyone approach you or Morgan?"

Quinn gave Dana an apprehensive look. "Do you want to tell him?"

"I can," Dana said, "but I think before I say anything we should at least all make some introductions so we know who we're talking to."

The tall man nodded. "Totally fair. I'm Mukhtar, better known as ConsoleCross on YouTube. You can call me HarHar, though."

"HarHar, huh? I'm Dana, and this is my husband Quinn."

"Nice to meet you both."

"Now that that's out of the way, the really short version is Morgan found us, well me, while being chased by a bunch of rabid fangirls about an hour or so before the eclipse."

"I wasn't actually around for it," Quinn jumped in. "I was waiting to use the bathroom when this all happened. When I came back, Dana was standing and paying more attention to the ground surrounding the Mountain than the sky."

"The Mountain? Is that all those concrete steps away from all the water?"

"It is," Dana said. "Morgan scaled all of them to get to the very top, where Quinn and I had already staked out a spot. I heard the ruckus before I saw him start to head up, but I didn't realize the fangirls were after him until almost tripped over my camera bag. I barely moved it in time."

"What happened after that? Did the fangirls try to follow him up?"

"A couple did," Quinn told HarHar. "I happened to be walking back up and passed them as they headed back down. They complained the steps were really hard to navigate."

"Considering Morgan's brother is a break dancer, I wonder if he taught him some parkour-like moves to get up there. Those steps do look kind of nasty."

"Maybe. Dana, do you recall anything?"

Dana shook her head. "I think I was taking pictures of the partial eclipse when he started scaling the Mountain. When he stumbled upon me (almost literally), I ended up photographing the fangirls, and that seemed to scare some of them off, as far as I could tell. I damn near broke my lens trying to yank the solar filter off so my pictures wouldn't be ridiculously underexposed."

"That makes sense."

"Why are you wondering about anyone approaching?" Quinn asked.

HarHar sighed. "Technically, this isn't public, but given that you both kind of accidently protected Morgan, I trust you two to keep this quiet."

"Absolutely."

"I'm not saying a word," Dana added.

"Morgan and his wife are separated," HarHar said. "They haven't decided yet if they are going to divorce, but their relationship has really fallen apart. I don't know the details, but I do know that Morgan is the one who initiated the separation. Some people online seem to have figured it out, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them put the idea in the fangirls' heads."

Quinn arched his eyebrows. "This sounds messy."

"Yeah, and there's a lot I don't know."

"Given what I know about Morgan's supporters (seeing as I was one even before today) if word got out about his separation, he'd be extremely popular, a prize catch, if you will."

HarHar and Quinn both smirked at Dana's remark.

"You are completely right about that," HarHar told her, "and I get the feeling that you're probably one of the more chill members of his fanbase."

"Considering how unsettled I get at all the comments on his videos being that he needs to be protected at all costs and wonder if his fans are volunteering to be bodyguards, I probably am among the more laidback fans. That worries me."

"It should."

The rest of the group wandered over, Morgan in the thick of them.

"Dana and Quinn?" the beanie wearer asked.

Dana and Quinn nodded in unison.

"Morgan told us about you and how you kept him company. We were wondering if you'd like to join us for drinks or something."

Quinn's stomach chose that time to rumble. "We ended up skipping lunch, as the line at Salsa Limon was really long."

"And I wasn't in the mood to try to haul the food up here," Dana jumped in.

"Fair point," the beanie wearer said. "We can find a place with snacks or maybe a pizza place, if that works."

"As Dana says, my favorite food group is edible," Quinn replied.

The whole group burst into laughter. Even Morgan grinned as he looked over at Dana.

"I like that attitude," HarHar said. "On that note, let's go!"

The group shuffled over to the stairs to begin the quest to find a good watering hole with snacks that was open in the midafternoon dead period.



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