Staas nodded, and swallowed his melting chocolate. "Dude, really. You can always ask. I don't mind. I mean, yeah, there's things I've done I'm not proud of, but I don't hide them. It's . . . It's my life, and it's brought me here, and that makes it okay." He shrugged and reached over for his tea. He gave it a stir, blew on it, and sipped.
"So, uh, where should I start? 'I was born in the year sixteen-thirty-four in the city of York?'" He laughed, unable to believe he'd been able to pull that up from his memory. He may have gotten the year wrong, but whatever.
He sobered then, holding his hands around the warmth of his mug. "See, the thing is, Beth--Theo's mom--she . . . She didn't exactly want to be a mom. Hell, she didn't even want to be my girlfriend. All she wanted was to get high and have sex. And when we started hooking up, that's, uh, that's all I wanted too." He flicked a glance up at Ira, then away again, back down to Lady. "Both of those things. And she got pregnant. I cleaned up. She tried. I know she did. But she never wanted the kid in the first place, and she only agreed to it because I swore she'd never have to see him again." He raised his gaze to Ira, and forced himself to keep it there, not looking down. "And I paid for her rent and shit while she was pregnant. All her bills, basically. So she slipped a couple times, which, you know. My genes aren't the only reason Theo's so small and tiny."
He took a deep breath and dropped his gaze into his mug, taking another sip.