Page 21 of Friends to WHAT?!

He’s just.

Dad.

But not like Wolfe is Dad. Wolfe is a protector. Wolfe has never been mellow a day in his life.

I eye the pros list. I should addZero percent mellowto it.

Wolfe’s fingertips tighten against me, sliding on the gauzy fabric of my shirt as his shoulders slump. “Please do not write down another one of my sins today,” he groans. “I don’t think I can take any more until tomorrow at the earliest.”

I tsk. “That’s not very growth mindset of you.”

“My growth mindset needs a rest. It’s had quite a beating recently.”

What a sad, pitiful creature.

What a strong, steady man.

I suppose I will give him a break. But only because he asked for it, and asking for what he wants should be given positive reinforcement. I say as much to him.

“Thanks,” he replies wryly. “I do wonder if the positive reinforcement should be saved for when I ask for things I want that are hard to ask for, though. Requesting we save any future flaying of my person for later isn’t particularly difficult for me to do.”

“Everything is hard to ask for when you aren’t used to asking for things for yourself,” I retort. “Also, that’s not how positive reinforcement works. You give it foreveryinstance of the desired behavior. That’s how the behavior spreads to the more difficult instances. It’s science.”

“Science,” he repeats in a whisper. “I am a science project.”

Well… yeah. “Or a social one,” I suggest. “If that designation makes you feel better about the situation?”

He shrugs, shifting both of us with the movement. When his shoulders drop, we’re closer. The change is only millimeters worth of distance, but those millimeters are the difference between what could maybe be described as a friendly hug—albeit alongfriendly hug—or a hug of a different sort altogether.

It occurs to me quite suddenly that we are alone again, and my brain is steadily exiting NEW PROJECT YAY! mode for the day, and all that’s left when it’s gone is… me. Just me, Leora, without a fixation to hide behind.

This isnotgood news.

I create more distance between myself and Wolfe, who has become rather hard to make eye contact with, and grasp for something worthwhile to say. When nothing worth anyone’s time presents itself, my mouth starts spouting the things that aren’t worthwhile instead. “You’re taller than I thought you would be. And also shorter. Both things. Taller and shorter. You’re kind of just tall enough to be considered tall, but just short enough to not be consideredtall.”

Leora, shutup.

I press my lips together, the better to stop myself. It works, but only because Wolfe speaks where I might. “You want to keep adding to the lists, then?” he asks, a measure of desolation threading through his low voice, making it rough.

My eyes shoot to his, bemused. “What? No. I said I wouldn’t, and your height wouldn’t go on either side of the list. It’s a physical trait you have no control over and cannot change. We don’t put physical traits you have no control over and cannot change on the pro-con list. That would be awful. The list is for recognizing the parts of yourself that you’ve already done well with and finding the bits and bobs that can be adjusted. Height doesn’t have anything to do with either of those things.”

His head tilts, and a lock of alabaster hair falls over a dark slash of eyebrow, cutting it in half. “Then…?”

Ah. I have messed up. I should have thrown his height on the board somewhere. Now, I have to admit that I was just saying things to say things, because the air felt thick and the room felt small and I was worried my skin had turned translucent so thathe could see my heart, begging him to keep holding me for the rest of forever.

I clear my throat.

“I was just saying,” I offer with a shrug. “Your height is a height.”

He blinks away his confusion, and his lip twitches. “Ah,” he says.

I nod. “Very height.”

“Your height is not very height,” he notes.

I sniff. “I’ll have you know, my height is perfectly average.”

“Poem says the same thing,” he tells me, referencing hisseveral inches shorter than mefuture sister-in-law.