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Again.

“Good boy.”

His eyes close.

His eyes close for one second and open again, and in the one second his face does something I have not seen on it yet, which is relief. A small, sharp relief. A horse getting a hand on its neck after a loud noise. A kid told, by a voice that is not his father's,you are doing a thing right.

His throat works.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay.”

I look at him.

He looks at me.

He is in my room. He is twenty years old. He is Paul Laurent's son. He is the kid I told the bar I was going to fuck and I am now in a rented room with him, and he is looking at me like a deer ata hunter who has not raised the gun yet, and I am looking at him like I do not need to raise it.

I run a hand through my hair. It is still damp at the roots from the gym sink.

“One question,” I say.

“Yes.”

I make myself keep my hand at my side.

“Ask you a question first, sweetheart.”

“Yes.”

His hands settle at his sides.

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

The lamp on the table clicks once as a bulb filament settles.

“What Magnus said on the ice. What your dad probably told Phoenix. What I have been telling myself in every mirror for a week is the reason I cannot let this alone. Have you been with anyone before?”

He looks at the floor a long time.

He is not stalling. He is choosing the version of the answer he is going to give. I watch him choose. I watch his mouth decide that the truth is shorter than the lie.

“No,” he says.

“No what?”

“No, I haven't been with anyone.”

His hands tighten at his sides.

“At all?”

“At all.”

His throat works.