Drew, through all of this, had said nothing.
He was still watching Lake with the expression I'd been trying to read since we'd arrived—the neutral that wasn't bad or anything concerning. I crouched down to be at his level, which was something I'd learned with Nick, that getting down to the actual height of a small person changed the texture of the interaction.
Drew looked at me.
"Is this okay?" I asked. "Me sitting here?"
He considered this with the seriousness of a four-year-old for whom the question was a real one. Then he shifted slightly—the smallest possible movement, just enough to indicate that the available floor space beside him was okay for me to sit.
I sat.
We looked at Lake together for a moment, who had now found something on the shelf that required his full assessment a
