Page 80 of Hearts of Fairlake

Again, I felt my stomach twist, but Felix smiled knowingly and nodded. “Right, none of that. And I know that probably sounds strange, and you’ve probably heard it before, but give us time to prove it to you. Do you think you can do that?”

“Sure,” he said, not sounding completely doubtful but not enthusiastic. Still, I wasn’t going to complain because, at least with the agreement, there was room for us to work. “Are you going to touch me?”

Okay, so much for making progress.

“What?” I let out a choking noise.

Felix flashed a warning at me, making a motion to calm me before leveling his gaze at Gray. “No. We won’t hug you unless you want to, and we’ll never touch you…where you shouldn’t be touched.”

“Oh.”

Felix took a breath. “Do you want to tell me who touched you before?”

Gray’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head vehemently. “No, it’s…it’s fine.”

“It’s not,” I snapped, unable to help my anger.

“It’s not okay that someone touched you like…that,” Felix corrected, and I was amazed at how calm he was.

“They…didn’t. Just the other boys. Sometimes, they touched each other. Like…you two touch each other.”

As if we didn’t know what he’d meant, but Felix cocked his head. “We don’t touch each other that much.”

“No, like…you did earlier.”

My eyes went wide. “How do you know about that?”

He shrugged. “I could hear stuff. The…other guys did stuff like that too. They were…louder. I mean, I know what sex is. They didn’t have sex with me.”

“Just touched you,” I said, raising a brow.

“Not me,” he said quickly, and then I watched his eyes widen. “Wait, no, I?—”

“It’s okay,” Felix said, and I marveled at his ability to sound so calm despite what we were being told. We knew from Gray’s file that he’d come from a few other homes, including another same-sex couple. Nothing was in the file about the couple themselves, only that they labeled Gray not a good fit for their house. And I couldn’t help but wonder if the reason he wasn’t a good fit was?—

“You wouldn’t let them,” Felix said slowly, clearly thinking the same thing I had.

Gray looked away. “Look, I just?—”

“We’re not going to pry,” I said, taking the lead from Felix. It was the most we’d gotten out of Gray, and it didn’t involve a third party helping us along. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, and I wasn’t going to go off the script. “You tell us what you want to tell us, and only that, alright?”

“I don’t…want to talk about that.”

“That’s fine.”

“But…I mean, if you guys aren’t going to?—”

“We aren’t. Never.”

“Okay. Maybe…I could try to believe you.”

Felix smiled, and as warm as it was, I could feel the reliefpouring off him. “That’s all we can ask of you. Let’s just say that this is kind of new for us…having a kid around.”

Gray peered up at him. “You were…like me?”

“The shitty parents or being in the foster care system?”

“Umm.”

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