Before I even had a chance to react, he flashed me another one of those smiles and totally changed the subject. “Did you talk to Ari today?” he asked, brows furrowed, obviously worried about the answer. I found that I wanted to tell him everything Ari and I had talked about, the things I’d been thinking about, but I needed more time to figure myself out.

“I did talk to Ari. He’s doing okay, and there are actually a couple of things I want to ask you about, but we were talking about you.” I ran my hand over his bare calf and he shivered from my touch. “Tell me about your dad. Did he give you a hard time?”

He gave me a doubtful look, then put his own bowl down. He brought his legs up onto the couch and hugged his knees as he looked at me. “I just don’t know if I have a right to complain when my ‘family issues’ seem so minimal in the grand scheme of things.” He placed his chin on his knees. The need to close the space between us and engulf him in my arms was powerful, but I held back, because I wanted to hear him, and he was right about things getting derailed whenever we were touching. “I mean, sure, my parents are not very warm, but my life has been very easy.”

“It’s not all black and white, Easton.” I laughed at his astonished expression.

I probably was the last person he’d expect to hear this from. “The things that hurt you still hurt you. Just because you were born into wealth doesn’t mean that you can’t be hurt by your dad’s shitty behavior.” I shook my head, not wanting to launch into a rant.

“Privilege doesn’t mean that you can’t be sad, or that you don’t have the right to complain about it. You also deserve people in your life who can see that pain and tell you that you didn’t deserve to be hurt like that. The people in your life, me included, need to do better at showing you how dope you are.” He busted up at that while I reached out for him, deciding enough was enough. If we were going to go into our feelings like this, then I wanted to be fucking holding him.

“I’m glad you approve of my person.”

We maneuvered around until he was lying between my legs, his back pressed tight to my chest. “You know I do,” I said with feigned annoyance as I ran my hands over his arms. I pressed my nose into his hair which always smelled like the beach for some reason. But I stopped before pressing a kiss to his ear, which with our track record would most likely fully derail the heart to heart.