Leo had no answer to that. He lay back down, facing Charlie this time, and Charlie mirrored his pose. “I missed you.”
Charlie smiled, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “I missed you too.”
“Yeah? Even though I’m a nutter?”
“Don’t say that. It’s not true. You’d be more crazy if you’d survived all you have without being affected by it.”
A nurse in the hospital had said that to Leo. He’d vaguely recognised her, and in a brief moment of coherent thought had wondered if she’d treated him before. After all, it had been far from the first time he’d found himself in Swindon Hospital. “Do you think I’ll get better?”
“I think you can . . . if you try really hard. You’ll have to have loads of counselling and stuff, but Kate and Reg are good with things like that. Fliss used to go to a therapist.”
“Fliss did? What was it? Anger management?”
Charlie snorted. “You’d think. I’m not sure what it was for, just that she went, and after a while, she stopped crying in the night . . . like you do.”
Leo didn’t have the strength to look away. He held Charlie’s gaze and pushed aside the shame that came with knowing his messed-up dreams had disturbed Charlie too.
Charlie’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, his thumb pressed into his pulse point. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“I need to talk to you about something . . .”
The stricken look on Leo’s face was more than Charlie could take. He wrapped his arms around Leo and held him as tight as he dared. “It’s nothing bad—at least, I don’t think it is. If it all works out, nothing has to change.”
Leo spoke.
Charlie realised he was muffling him and reluctantly loosened his hold. “Sorry.”
Leo blinked, his hair a riot that would’ve been funny if the stampeding tattoo of Charlie’s heart wasn’t so distracting. Leo rubbed his eyes and fumbled for Charlie’s hands, squeezing them in a death grip. “I hate it when someone tells me shit that they don’t think is bad. They’re always wrong.”
“I might be wrong.” Charlie bit his lip. “But it’s something that has to happen even if I am, so—”
“Charlie, what is it? You’re killing me here.”
Leo rarely interrupted anyone unless he was angry—and lost. But he didn’t seem to be either now. His eyes were as bright as Charlie had ever seen them, his skin warm against Charlie’s.
His strong fingers wrapped around Charlie’s own gave Charlie courage. “We need to tell Mum and Dad about—uh—about you and me.”
“Me and you?”
“Yes. Fliss knows, and if we don’t tell them, she will.”
“Why would she do that?”
That Leo hadn’t scoffed at the idea that Fliss had anything to tell stirred an odd heat in Charlie’s veins. He absorbed it, welcomed it, and squeezed Leo’s even tighter. “She said Mum and Dad will get in trouble if social services find out, especially as our rooms are so close together, and I think she’s right.”
“But—” Leo stopped and shook his head slightly. “But we haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I know, but there’s rules and stuff. Fliss said that if we don’t come clean now and let Mum and Dad handle it properly, social services might find out and remove one of us.”
“Remove me, you mean. I’m the troublemaker, and they can’t touch you regardless. You’re adopted, remember?” Leo fell back on his pillows and stared at the ceiling, his expression unreadable. “Kate and Reg will probably get rid of me anyway when they find out about this.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Obvious, ain’t it? I’ve messed everything up—for you, for them, for Lila. Do you all good if I fucked off somewhere else.”
Anger flared in Charlie before he could check it. He moved fast and covered Leo’s body with his own, pressing their foreheads together hard enough to make his skull throb. “Don’t say that.”
“But—”
