Chapter 43

Jude turned his eyes to the bedroom. “Can we go to bed and talk there?”

Harris agreed and led Jude to his room. Inside, he turned down the bed and shut the ceiling light off, keeping the nightstand lamp on. They stripped to their underwear and crawled into bed together, but Jude wouldn’t cuddle with him. He lay on his back, a little stiffly, with his arm thrown over his forehead, staring up at the ceiling. Harris waited patiently.

“Oh, man, where do I start?” Jude said after a long time.

“Keep it simple. Just tell it the way it is.”

Jude looked over at him. “Okay…I’ll start with this. I’m an only child. Wait—you’re an only child, too, right?”

“Yes, I am. But we’ll talk about me another time. Go on, please, Jude. I’m starved for it.”

“It’s not a very happy story, Harris.”

“Tellme.”

“All right…Um, well, my parents were teenagers when they had me. Completely unprepared for parenthood, so I was basically raised by my grandfather—my mother’s dad.”