“That’s sweet of you.” He couldn’t help but feel a little flurry of affection in his chest. Gere’s eyes darted to Henry’s foot, and by now Henry knew his face well enough to understand that he was worried. “I know, yeah, it hurts a bit, but it’s not so bad. We’ll wrap it up; I’ve got some bandages in the bathroom.”
It was strangely comfortable, talking at Gere without a verbal response. By now, Henry was convinced Gere understood every word he said. Not every concept; he was a free-range cryptid and definitely hadn’t seen a living space from the inside before, but he understood Henry—not just verbally; he seemed to know a lot more than Henry was telling him, and a lot more than he could have learned from watching him.
At this point, Henry was convinced that his first instinct had been ri
