Nonverbal - Aria Grace Page 0,13

face him. “What do you mean you’ve tried this before? When?”

Mr. Brenner held up both hands, pleading with me to understand. “We didn’t know what to do. It’s one thing for a father to have a conversation with his son about the birds and the bees when he hits puberty and starts dating. But with Liam, it was different. I tried to have the regular conversations with him, and we even bought the changing body books that other people buy for their teenagers. But those didn’t work with Liam. He wouldn’t look at the books and got upset every time I tried to start the conversation about how his body was developing in strange ways.”

Mrs. Brenner placed her mug on the table with a clank so I turned to her. “Please don’t think we’re bad parents. This isn’t something we were equipped to handle. We were both raised in very strict Catholic families, and even the most basic conversations we had with Avery were awkward. But having to introduce Liam to pornography was just awful.” She covered her face with her hands and smiled. “He didn’t show any interest anyway.”

I tried to picture my mom or dad introducing me to porn, and I shuddered. “Yeah, I can imagine. But you mentioned a stranger.”

“Like I said, it was uncharted territory for us. Liam was starting to get aggressive, breaking things and hurting himself.” Mr. Brenner cleared his throat and looked at me. “He started punching his penis when it would get hard, and we didn’t want him to do any damage, so when he turned nineteen, we hired a woman. Well, a dancer who was willing to…teach him how to take care of himself.”

My chin dropped to my chest, and I closed my eyes in horror. I couldn’t imagine some random stripper touching sweet Liam. Then again, I couldn’t imagine anybody touching him…except me. “Did it work?”

Mr. Brenner closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not at all. He wasn’t interested. The woman said he seemed curious, but nothing more than that. That’s when Avery pointed out that he probably wasn’t interested in women.”

Mrs. Brenner barked out a soft chuckle. “Can you imagine all of our Catholic upbringing at that point?”

Mr. Brenner laughed softly too. “Yeah, everything pretty much went out the window when we realized we’d have to hire some kind of male prostitute for our adult son with a traumatic brain injury so he could learn how to masturbate. Thankfully, it never came to that.”

Thank fuck. “So, you didn’t hire a male stripper for him?”

Mr. Brenner just stared at me, waiting for me to realize what I guess I’d known subconsciously for a little while.

“Oh, you mean me? I’m your prostitute?”

Mrs. Brenner quickly jumped in, reaching for my hand to soothe my worries. “No, not at all. But when Avery mentioned you were gay, we thought maybe a friendship would develop and you could at least talk to him like a buddy. We didn’t expect anything more from you…” She looked at her husband and raised an eyebrow before turning back to me. “Although, if that’s something you’re comfortable with, we wouldn’t be opposed to a more…interactive friendship, I guess you could say.”

The poor woman looked like she wanted to curl into a ball and never face me again.

I felt the same way. “You want me to have sex with him?”

Mrs. Brenner’s eyes went wide and she pulled her hand back. “No, not that. I mean, we’re not asking you to do anything. But we’ve noticed how close you and Liam have become. So if you share his romantic interests, we’re…okay with that. He won’t do anything he doesn’t want to do. And we’re not asking you to do anything you don’t want to. At all.” Her words died off as if she didn’t know how to better explain what she was trying to tell me.

Thankfully, Mr. Brenner found his voice and was able to finish for her. “You have our blessing, Wyatt. Liam is an adult and can consent to what he wants. We trust you to not push him toward anything he isn’t comfortable with, and we also know that if he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t do it. We’ve learned that every time we try to get him in the car or to eat something he doesn’t like. No matter how much he loves or trusts you, he’ll let you know if he’s not on board with something.”

“You’re sure?” Part of me was relieved