“I don’t know how you do it. You aren’t even blond. I mean, maybe a little, but mostly you’re a brunette. I just don’t see guys going for that.”“Yeah, well, some people are into kinky stuff, I guess.”

“Carlos, are we in complete understanding with each other?”“Yeah,” I say. “As long as it’s not in your house and you don’t know about it, you’re okay with us messin’ around.”“I know you’re joking with me. You are joking with me, aren’t you?”“Maybe.”

“Does it bother you when you see Daddy kissing Josh?” he asked.Ty shook his head and made a funny face. “No, not really. I guess you really like him a lot.”“I do,” Rex agreed. “I love Josh.”“I love Josh too, and so I don’t care if you kiss him. But I thought boys only kissed girls.”Rex nodded. “Yeah, well, that’s how it is most of the time, but you know some boys kiss other boys and some girls kiss other girls.”“Well, I don’t wanna kiss no girls!” Ty said emphatically.Rex and Josh both laughed. “Maybe someday you will, though. If you do, that’s fine, and if you don’t, that’s fine too. For right now, you can just kiss Daddy.” He leaned in and kissed Ty on the forehead.”

“Aren’t you going to say, I told you so?” Hadrian whispered.“What would be the point in that?”“Oh, so you’re saying that you’re going to hang on to this and throw it at me at some future, more personally beneficial moment?”“I don’t see the point in wasting it now, do you?”

“I’m curious about things that people aren’t supposed to see—so, for example, I liked going to the British Museum, but I would like it better if I could go into all the offices and storage rooms, I want to look in all the drawers and—discover stuff. And I want to know about people. I mean, I know it’s probably kind of rude but I want to know why you have all these boxes and what’s in them and why all your windows are papered over and how long it’s been that way and how do you feel when you wash things and why don’t you do something about it?”

“This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken. The doctor says, Well, why don’t you turn him in? And the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. Well I guess that’s pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd but I guess we keep going through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs.”