Picking Up The Pieces (Working Title)

Oh Maxxie

About a month passed since Danny and Lewis’ little experiment, and as far as I knew, they hadn’t done it again since. Since it was coming up to the kids’ birthdays, and we’d made plans for the actual day, I agreed they could have a sleepover. Lily wanted to invite more people than we could fit in the house, of course, and was eventually talked down to having just three people over; Beau, her friend Tammy from school, and a quiet girl a few years her junior from riding school called Enneka.

Danny, on the other hand, had only invited Lewis. I couldn’t help but wonder what’d happened to his other couple of friends, but just put it down to him not wanting to swamp Lewis or something. Since Lily and her friends had taken the upper half of the house hostage, Danny and Lewis had resorted to sleeping in sleeping bags in the living room. I’d taken the day off from work, but I was still exhausted, and had ended up falling asleep on the couch by the time the kids had had dinner.

I woke up a couple hours later, seeing Danny and Lewis had zipped their sleeping bags together. Lewis was all snuggled up with Danny, kissing Danny’s cheek as he nuzzled him a little. Danny smiled, and neither of them seemed to have noticed I was awake.

"Can I... can I kiss you again?" Lewis asked quietly.

"If you want to" Danny said, still smiling.

Lewis leant over, pecking him on the lips, snuggling back up to him when Danny kissed back. He curled up against Danny, the both of them falling asleep.

Lewis spent the next day hiding from everyone for some reason. I tracked him down when it was nearing lunch time, finding him in a tree in the garden.

"What're you doing out here by yourself?" I chuckled and he shrugged. “You okay?”

"Yeah"

"Sure?" I asked and he nodded.

"I keep wanting to kiss Danny. That's not normal, is it?" he said after a while.

"Sure it is"

"But it'll make it awkward if I keep doing it"

"Well, does he want to kiss you too?"

"I don't know"

"Maybe you should ask him, then"

"But what if that makes him not like me?"

"I'm sure it won't, kiddo"

"I don't want him to not like me"

"He thinks the world of you, he'll always like you" I smiled.

"Does he?" he asked, looking vaguely hopeful and I nodded. “Why?”

"You'd have to ask him that" I laughed slightly.

He didn’t say anything to that, staying in his tree.

"I'm making lunch soon, sport. Why don't you come back inside?"

"M'not hungry"

"You have to eat something, sport"

I sighed as he moved to a higher branch. I headed back inside, making lunch for the others, and Lewis only left his tree to get something to drink and pee. I could tell Danny was worried he’d upset Lewis, and when I finally coaxed Lewis down for dinner, Danny stuck to Beau like glue. Which probably didn’t help the situation with Lewis. I got the kids a pizza, not up to cooking and kind of wanting to treat Lewis. Lewis nibbled at his slice of pizza, leaning on me when I planted a kiss on top of his head. The others finished their dinner, going off to watch something on TV and Lewis picked at the rest of his. I asked him if he was done, asking him to come upstairs with me when he said he was.