“Is there a difference?”
I didn’t answer him.
He let it be. “What are you going to say if you find him?”
“What do you mean?”
“The first thing. Say you actually catch up to him. He’s standing in front of you, demanding to know what the hell you’re doing and why you didn’t listen to him.”
“He’ll be scowling,” I whispered.
Kelly snorted. “Well, yeah. He’s a Livingstone. It’s their default setting. Speaking of, you sure you want to get involved with that?”
I turned over in his lap, looking up at him. “Seemed to work out for Mark okay.”
He smiled down at me. “It did. But it also came with a lot of baggage. I can’t imagine it’ll be any easier with him.” He paused, considering. “That and the fact that he has a penis, which you have no idea what to do with.”
“Yeah, I’ll be honest. I haven’t really thought about that part yet. Baby steps.”
He traced my eyebrows with the tip of a finger. “There could be others. It doesn’t just have to be him.”
“You could say the same about Robbie. But you didn’t let that stop you.”
“At least Robbie doesn’t come with a psychotic extended family.” He grimaced. “Michelle Hughes doesn’t count.”
“Why Robbie?”
“What do you mean?”
“There could be others. It doesn’t just have to be him.”
“But it was.”
“How did you know?”
He pressed his finger against my chin. “It wasn’t like that. At first.”
“I know. I was there.”
He said, “I think it was…. You know how in winter, the days are short and the nights are long?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s how it was for me. It was a long winter night, and then one day it was like the sun rose for the first time since I could remember. I saw him and I felt… warm. Alive. I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything about it.”
“But you did, even though you were scared.”
“It’s a scary thing.”
“I’m scared too,” I whispered to him even though he was Not-Kelly. “And I don’t know how not to be.”
“That’s okay. Tell me. You find him. You’re standing before him. You see his face, and he’s scowling at you. What’s the first thing you say?”
I thought for a long moment. “Years.”
“Years?”
I nodded. “I would say to him… you were there for years. You wouldn’t leave me alone. You stayed by my side, and I didn’t understand why. I didn’t like it at first. I hated it at first, if I’m being honest. I had this shadow, this great, hulking shadow that didn’t know what privacy meant. I mean, have you ever tried to jerk off when a wolf is scratching at the door trying to get in? It’s fucking terrible and—”