Page 74 of Fitch

I pulled him against me, wrapping him up tight.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I was trying to be encouraging.”

He sighed. “Don’t apologise.”

“And someone like you,” I added with a kiss to the top of his head. “Deserves the world. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different.”

He looked up at me and gave me a smile. “When I’m with you, I kinda forget everything. You make this little bubble for me and it’s perfect. It’s everything I never thought I would have.”

“It’s yours any time you need it.” I kissed his forehead. “Whatever I can do to help, Fitch. It’s yours.”

“Things with Fitchare going well, I see,” Nolan said.

We were standing in his kitchen while the three boys were on sun chairs on the balcony.

We’d just got back from giving their statements at the police station and the three of them needed to spend some time together. Benji needed his two best friends, sure. But Fitch needed them too, and from the way Ky chose to share a sunbed with Benji, I’d say he needed it as well.

They shared a strong bond, one I probably couldn’t begin to fathom.

And if I were being honest with myself, I needed to talk as well. If there was anyone I could trust to understand, it was Nolan.

“Yes,” I answered. “Probably too well,” I allowed.

“How so?”

“Is there such a thing as too perfect?”

Nolan laughed at that. “Yes, there is.” He was staring at the glass sliding door to the balcony, to where his Benji was. “That you’re too well-suited for each other and are exactly what the other needs?”

Yeah, he understood.

I nodded, then rolled my eyes at myself. “Fitch is...”

“A brat?” His eyes met mine and his smile told me it was all in good faith. “I mean, the shirt he’s wearing. Which he wore to the police interview.”

I snorted. “You should have seen the shorts he wanted to wear with it.” The very shorts I had bought for him, nonetheless. But only for private use, not to wear in public, much less to a police station. “The jeans took some bribery.”

Nolan smirked at that. “I bet they did.”

We were both quiet for a moment before I relented to being completely honest with a long sigh.

“I get it now,” I began. “I mean, I accepted why you said you’d choose Benji over everything else the other week. I could see you had feelings for him, that there was something between you, so it was a logical conclusion. It was fine and reasonable...”

He watched me for a moment. “And now you get it.”

It wasn’t a question.

I gave a nod. “Yeah. I get it. I understand.” I let out a laugh and shook my head at myself. “I am forty-six years old, and I am only just understanding what all the fuss is about. Why poets write odes to the sunrise, what drives an artist to paint, why there are so many songs about love. It’s ridiculous, right?” Icould feel my face burn and I could feel Nolan’s eyes on me, but I refused to look at him. “I mean, there’ve been wars fought for love.”

“Would you start a war for him?” Nolan asked quietly.

I looked at him then. “I would burn the world down for him.”

He grinned at me, took a deep breath, and let it out with a sigh. “You love him.”

That wasn’t a question either, but I conceded a nod anyway. “I haven’t told him that, not directly anyway.”

“Think it will scare him?”

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