Carter felt a little raw after sharing so much with Brandon, but it felt healing at the same time. And above all, he wanted to be open with Brandon. Carter wanted Brandon to trust him, and the only way to do that was to trust first.

"Can I help with anything?" Brandon asked.

"Do you like wine?"

"I'm no connoisseur, but I enjoy a glass or two."

"Well I don't have a large collection, but you can help me pick out which one to open."

Carter had, in fact, three bottles, two reds and a white: a Malbec, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Pinot Grigio.

"I haven't ever had Malbec," Brandon said.

"Let's go with that, then. It's probably my favorite of the bunch. I'm more of a red guy, but Aaron taught me to have at least one white on hand at all times."

"I used to go strictly for the whites, occasionally a rosé, but Ty and my sister have forced me to expand my horizons this last year."

Jax came into the room as Carter set the wine glasses on the table. For a few minutes, conversation stilled as they busied themselves with the niceties of serving and passing dishes.

"Do you just have one sister?" Carter asked Brand, once they were all settled.

"Three," Brand said. "I'm the youngest."

"I wish I had brothers or sisters," Jax said wistfully.

Carter ruffled his hair, his face echoing Jax's emotion. "I know, bud."

Jax would have made an amazing big brother. Carter was grateful Brandon didn't ask why he and Aaron hadn't gone on to have more children, and then he felt stupid as he realized Brandon didn't need to. He'd been Aaron's OB/GYN ever since Jax was born. Carter and Aaron had both wanted more children, and at Brandon's referral, after two years of trying after Jax with no success, they'd gone to see a fertility specialist who was a member of one of the neighboring packs, but all their tests came back normal. Neither of them had been particularly interested in pursuing the expensive fertility regimes, and because of the relatively small population of wolf shifters compared to humans, there wasn't even that much information on how effective it would be for them. The specialist said she'd only had a handful of wolf couples as clients, and just two of them had ended up bearing children after trying.

Carter realized he'd been caught in his head too long, but thankfully Jax had carried on the conversation without him, telling Brandon about a boy in his class who had a twin brother in the same grade but they didn't look anything alike.

"I think it would be cool to have a twin," he said. "But an identical twin. So you could switch around and surprise people."

"I bet your dad would be able to tell even if you did," Brandon said.

Jax looked at Carter critically, as if he doubted Brandon's assessment. "Maybe," he finally conceded.

Carter wasn't sure how to segue into a discussion about the water park, but Brandon saved him.

"So, what's going on in school?"

"We got to make volcanoes in class," Jax said. "We took baking soda and vinegar and food coloring to make it look like lava and it went whoosh!" He made an erupting gesture with his arms.

"Wow!" Brandon said. "I don't think I ever got to do that when I was in school. What about field trips? Do you go on those?"

Jax stared at his plate, his enthusiasm drastically dimmed. "Sometimes."

"What's the next field trip you're going on? I bet you're excited."

"Not really," Jax said, pushing his food across his plate.

"No? Is it to something boring like a McDonald's?"

Jax looked up in surprise. "You had a field trip to a McDonald's?"

"Yeah. The walk-in freezer was cool, and we got to eat Happy Meals for lunch. But the rest of it was super boring."

"I like Happy Meals," Jax said.

"Who doesn't? So what's boring about this trip?"

Jax sighed. "It's not boring."

"Oh? Why don't you want to go, then?"

Jax shot an imploring look at Carter who shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "You're on your own."

"I'll have to wear shorts. And the other kids will make fun of my legs."

"I've seen your legs," Brandon said. "What's wrong with them?"

"They're too skinny and pale and kinda twisted," Jax explained, glaring at Brandon, almost as if he was daring Brandon to contradict him.

"Mine too," Brandon admitted. "Wanna see?"

Jax's eyes widened. "Really?"

Brandon started rolling up his pant leg. Jax tried looking over the table, and then started to drop down to peak under, but Carter grabbed his arm. "Come around the table, Jax." He couldn't help from looking as well. He hadn't noticed Brandon walking particularly strangely. But he hadn't been looking for it.

Brandon rolled his pants all the way up over his knee. Carter didn't think his legs looked too skinny at first, but just before he got to his knee, his leg seemed to shrink, and then bulged back out for the knee cap. And his knee looked rough. It was clearly healed, at least as far as the skin went, but there were long, spider web scars covering it, reaching up his thigh and under the cloth. A large patch of skin on the outside was completely smooth, and Carter wondered why.

"Whoa," Jax said. "Can I touch it?"

Carter started to reprimand him, but held back as Brandon caught his eye and shook his head minutely.

"Sure," Brandon said.

Jax grazed his fingers over the scars, over the smooth skin. "That's so cool."

"Yours is just as cool," Brandon said, and Jax pulled back with a disbelieving slant to his mouth.

"I bet kids didn't make fun of your legs."

"Want to bet?" Brandon said with a lift of his eyebrow. "They did, at first. But my best friend, Dr. Tyler, kept telling everyone about everything they had to do to fix me up. Like how my knee cap was shattered into so many pieces, they had to give me a fake one. And how many stitches I had. And that I had to have a skin graft." He touched the smooth section of skin. "This skin was originally from my butt."

"What? Gross!" Jax laughed though.

Brandon nodded. "True story. The more everyone knew about why I looked the way I did, the less they cared."

Jax thought about that for a moment, then his face fell. "I don't have a best friend."

Carter's heart broke into a million pieces. This is what he'd meant when he told Brandon he'd give up every drop of Jax's musical talent to have avoided this for his boy. He'd never wanted him to feel this sense of utter loneliness. He wanted him to be carefree and childish while he was an actual child. But he'd grown up so fast. Too fast.

Brandon seemed at a loss as well, but once again, Jax jumped in.

"Would you come on my field trip with me, Dr. Delaney? You could be my best friend."