Now Liam held up the bag, somewhat triumphant.“Hair dye, tourist T-shirts, and, uhm….”His cheeks, usually a pale backdrop for those amazing freckles, turned ruddy.“And socks,” he admitted.“I did not packnearlyenough socks.”
Josh laughed, delighted.“Felix and Julia sent me to Europe on a school trip once, the summer after Danny left.I think they were trying to make me feel better, but I remember Julia talking to my father after one of the parent meetings.”He straightened his posture and mildly cocked his head, assuming his best impersonation of his mother.“Felix, I don’t think he’ll fit in with the other boys.”
And now he raised his chin and puffed out his chest, like his father when he was owning a boardroom.“Well, why not, dearest?”
“One of the other mothers asked how many socks we should pack, and the counselors replied we should purchase a brand-new package of twelve socks, be prepared to never see a single one of them again, and be grateful for that.”
He gave his best Felix-trying-not-to-boggle impression.“I think maybe our Josh is a bit more mature than those other boys.Should we go ourselves and take Dylan Li with us?”
Liam had settled down next to him and was gasping with laughter at that point.“Oh my God,” he choked.“That was amazing.So did you?”
Josh shrugged.“Of course.They were my parents.”He smiled in reminiscence.“Grace and I were going on the London Eye for the second time.My folks were done with it, but Danny slid on, took a selfie with the two of us, and then slipped away when we disembarked.They didn’t have a clue until they were looking through the family photos at the end of the trip.”He sobered.“The expression on Felix’s face….God.I never want to feel loss like that.”
Liam captured his hand.“Me neither,” he said soberly.
Josh stared at their entwined fingers for a moment.“Maybe this was why I put us off for six months,” he murmured.“This thing in me, what I feel for you, it was enormous after those weeks on the ship.But now, now that we’ve…become, I guess, we just keepbecoming, more and more and more.I wasn’t strong enough then.I was, quite frankly, too scared for myself to be a good lover for you.I… I mean, I’m tired, not gonna lie, but I feel like my heart’s stronger, if that makes any sense.Strong enough to accept all that you are.”
Liam kissed his knuckles.“Lots and lots of pretty words, pretty boy,” he whispered, “for a very simple man.”
“It’s easier to be perfect when you’re simple,” Josh said, smiling at him.“And just because most of us have an IQ of buzzenteentwelve, that really doesn’t make our lives any easier.”
“Buzzenteentwelve?”Liam echoed, his mouth pulling in at the corners as he suppressed a smile.“Is that a Josh IQ, a Grace IQ, a Stirling IQ, or a Molly IQ?”
Josh couldn’t help the giggles.“I think you have to combine the four of us to get above buzzenteen,” he said.“The twelve is all Grace.”
Liam snorted.
“What?”Josh asked.“What was that noise for?”
“I do email your parents about you,” he said.
“That’s sneaky.”Josh had known that—he had—but as open as his family could be, he suddenly wondered what they said about him.“What’s it mean?”
“It means,” Liam said, grazing Josh’s knuckles with his lips, “that they’re pretty sure you fucked off on those tests you and Grace took so Grace would have the higher numbers.”
Josh groaned and hid his face against his shoulder.“No,” he said.“They told you that?”
Liam nodded soberly.“Danny said he’d never been prouder of you—it was one of the world’s greatest grifts.Kept you in the same classes, made sureyoudidn’t get transferred to a different school, and—” Liam regarded him with such profound admiration, Josh had to squirm.“—gave Grace something to cling to, something to make him feel better about himself when he needed it most.”
“Oh God, stop,” he muttered.
“No,” Liam said.“You opened your heart to me in a big way, Joshua Salinger.I want you to know I understandallof what you are.”
Josh gave him a shy smile and watched something complicated happen to Liam’s expression.
“Josh, do you have a middle name?”
Josh shrugged.“Daniel,” he said.
Liam let out a ragged laugh and pulled Josh against his chest.“Of course it is,” he whispered.
Josh sat there, feeling safe, and for a moment his restless, overpowered brain didn’t demand a damned thing from him, other than that he allow Liam to love him.
He would never understand people like Kadjic, he thought fuzzily, or any of the other people he and his family had waged quiet wars against.Why would you sell drugs or traffic humans or deal in weapons or anything else destructive and awful when you could sit and have a simple conversation with a good human, and he could make your world shine?
He allowed Liam to push him back to bed some more, and he woke up at six when Carl and Michael came over, amazing Bavarian takeout in bags hanging from their hands.
For an hour they ate schnitzel, wurst, potato dumplings, and apple strudel while Michael and Carl talked about Neuschwanstein Schloss, where they’d spent most of their day.
