“Aha. Good to know.” He followed Staas back to the living room, a faint expression of amusement on his face.
While Staas carefully replaced the photo of Carey on the shelf, Ira sat on the couch, legs crossed and hot mug of tea cradled in his hands on his lap. The older man joined him on the other side and Ira wasn’t entirely surprised when he was asked about his own past. It made sense that Staas might want to distract himself from his old traumas, and it was this more than anything else that loosened Ira’s tongue.
It wasn’t so much that he disliked being asked about himself, because it was kind of nice to know that someone might actually care. But he didn’t think his personal experiences made for super exciting anecdotes – the other people in his life and their stories were much more compelling than his own. Though his answers to “how are you?” were generally involved and animated, he was vague, going on about any interesting recent discoveries, information or antiques or people he’d met before moving onto talking about family or friends. When that was exhausted, he’d usually turn the questions back on whoever he was speaking with, and gloss over in-depth discussion about his individual self.
But Staas had specifically asked, and Ira didn’t want to refuse him after so direct a request. So he shook his head at the apprehensive expression flickering through Staas’ eyes. “No, I don’t mind.”
And he nodded, rubbing his thumbs along the warm, damp rim of his mug. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s terribly important. I don’t really think about it all the time, or anything.” A sheepish shrug and chuckle. “Especially since I’m not exactly getting a lot of action right now. Contrary to what Ori says.”
Then Ira frowned, worrying at a pinky. “And yes, Ori and Papa know. Ori’s cool, of course. Papa says… he’s okay with it, and I trust that, I do. I’m his son. But I think that the idea’s still hard for him to grasp. I only had one boyfriend, Damian Katz, we went to college together. It was during my last two years at Sweetwater, and I was living on campus. My family didn’t see much of him, though of course Ori had to know everything.”
He smiled wryly. His sister was not fond of Damian at all, but she hadn’t known him like Ira had.