It was a restless night and the following morning was probably as awkward as it might have been if I had actually slept with Theodore. He was grumpy and aloof towards me, clearly pouting because he didn't get any last night. And then Harry woke up in a pissy mood. I had never seen him that way before. I wondered if it had to do with the timing of his medications the previous day but he hadn't acted like this when we accidentally skipped a whole day of his medication.

It felt like an alternate dimension as we packed up to head home. It was the polar opposite of the past three days when we had enjoyed ourselves and each others' company immensely.

Harry wouldn't look at me or talk to me, even when I tried to give him a hug and ask what was wrong. Like anyone else who's in a bad mood, I decided to just give him his space. Theodore gave him another sedative on the plane. He sat up in one of the captain's chairs and looked out the window until sleep overtook him, and then he rested with his head cocked at an uncomfortable looking angle until we touched down in Vancouver.

When we were finally back home in the suite, he went to his room and shut the door. He didn't come out for the rest of the day and I didn't bother him until dinner time.

I knocked on his door and heard a mumbled answer. I slowly pushed the door open to announce my presence.

"Hey," I said, taking a seat on the bed across from where he was sitting, propped against the headboard. A smattering of books lay around him, but he didn't appear to be actively reading one. "Are you hungry?"

"No," he grumbled, not looking at me.

"Harry, honey, what's wrong? You're not yourself at all today. Are you feeling okay?"

He continued his pout, staring down at his lap. "No," he admitted.

"Are you sick? Can I get you something to help you?"

"No," he grumbled again.

"Does something hurt?" I asked, trying to get to the bottom of the problem.

He nodded and I scooted closer. "What is it? I want to help you. You know I'll always take care of you."

"It hurts in here," he said, putting his hand over his chest. I recoiled slightly, wondering what had hurt him that way.

"Please talk to me," I said. "What happened that made you hurt in here?" I touched his chest where his hand had been a moment earlier and he gasped in surprise.

"Is Theodore your match?" He asked sadly.

"What?!" I said loudly.

Oh shit.

"Did you see us last night?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "You kissed him."

I looked up at the ceiling and tried to gather my thoughts. How could I explain this?

Finally I said, "Yes, we kissed. But we had a lot of wine, and sometimes when you drink a lot of alcohol, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside and it makes everything seem better than it is in real life. We were having a nice conversation and he kissed me. I kissed him back, I admit, but then I was the one who stopped because I don't want to be with Theodore like that."

"Really?" He asked, a bit of hopefulness in his voice.

"Really." I was happy that he took me at my word because I absolutely meant it. "I made a mistake. I shouldn't have even let him kiss me. I'm sorry if that hurt your feelings, but I promise that I don't want Theodore to be anything like that to me. He's not my match or my boyfriend. He's just your dad and my employer. That's it. I promise."

I moved forward on the bed and held out my hands to Harry, wanting to hold him. He closed the space between us and melted into my arms and we were both content to let our hearts beat together for a long while.

He finally pushed against me and said, "I want to...um...give you something." He got off his bed and dug into the wastepaper basket. He pulled out the small burlap sack he had gotten in Calgary. I felt a stab to my own heart, realizing he must have thrown it away after we returned home, feeling heartbroken and dejected. He came and presented it to me.

"Harry," I said in surprise. "You didn't have to get anything for me." 

He shrugged, a small but proud smile sprouting on his face.

I was expecting something similar in taste and maturity to the bear hat that he purchased but I was shocked to find a dainty rose gold bracelet with a small heart pendant with a J engraved on it. My jaw dropped open as tears pricked my eyes. "Harry, this is so beautiful."

"Then why are you crying?" He asked.

"I'm touched. It's just so thoughtful." I leaned over to him and hugged him once again, lingering long enough to show him how grateful I was for such a gift.

"Jules?" He said shyly.

"Yes?"

"What ex..ex...exactly happens, um, when you have sex?"

Oh, dear, that was a sudden shift in atmosphere. We had avoided the nitty gritty in our last discussion, hadn't we? But it was time to expand this boy's knowledge, and somehow, I didn't think Theodore would be up for educating his son at the moment.

I cued up a longer, much more in-depth documentary called "Life's Greatest Miracle," which shows what happens before, during and after sex, as well as how a baby develops. The show culminates in a woman giving birth.

Harry gave the show his unwavering attention. I could imagine his brain absorbing all of this new knowledge about how his body functions and how a baby is created. He looked a little pale at the end, during the childbirth scene and he kind of glanced away, apparently not comfortable looking at an actual woman's vagina, especially in that particularly grotesque circumstance.

"I know, it's a little bit hard to watch, isn't it?" I asked. "I'm a woman and it's kind of hard for me to watch."

After the show was finished, he asked me a clarifying question, one that I realized hadn't been addressed entirely in either show we had watched.

"So, how does the ba...baby get inside her?" His neck was twitching a bit more now that he was asking deeper questions, the subject matter clearly making him a bit uncomfortable. But he wanted to know, dammit and I was going to tell him!

"Well, we saw at the beginning that there were two tiny cells - cells are tiny pieces of us that you can't see without a microscope - that joined together and a baby started to grow. One came from the man, and one came from the woman."

"Yeah, but how did they get together? In her tummy?"

"Technically, the baby grows in her uterus, which is low inside her abdomen." I patted low on my belly to show him. Then I gulped. Here goes. "A man and woman who love each other, like a husband and wife, will have sexual intercourse - or sex - to show how much they love each other. When they do that, he puts his penis into her vagina and that's how his cells get into her body." Whew! That wasn't so bad.

"Does it hurt?" He asked.

"Having a baby hurts a lot," I told him. "But women do it willingly because they want to bring new life into the world. And if they have their babies at the hospital, they can get medication to take some of the pain away."

He nodded, understanding exactly what I was saying, but I could see that the wheels were still turning in his mind. "I mean...does...sex hurt?"

Oh.

"Um, no, actually. It feels very good. When you were masturbating, it felt good, right?" He nodded and again, a little pink tinged the top of his cheeks. "Sex feels good for both the man and the woman. It's something powerful that they share with each other. So when the man ejaculates, that's what stays with the woman and can join with her cells to possibly make a baby."

"Ejaculate?"

"That's what happens at the end of sex, when sperm comes out. You kind of saw that part in the video. That's the part that feels the best," I said and now my cheeks were turning a bit red. No matter how "normal" this topic was supposed to be, it became rather tricky trying to get through it without embarrassment.

"Ohhhh," he said, finally catching on. "So you said that a man and a woman who love each other do this with each other, right?" He asked. I nodded with a little hum of agreement. "So, Jules, can I...um..can we try it?"

Oh. My. God.

I tried not to laugh and cry at the same time. "Remember when we were talking about finding your match? Finding the person you want to be with forever?"

"Mhmm."

"Sex is for that kind of relationship. A very special relationship between a man and a woman, like a boyfriend and girlfriend or a husband and wife. Two people who love each other very much."

"But we love each other," he reasoned.

"Not that way," I said gently. "We're not boyfriend and girlfriend OR husband and wife."

"Right," he said as if I'd just given him a revelation. "That would be pretty funny if I married my nanny." As he began to laugh, so did I, both of us relieved to have that enlightening, albeit awkward, discussion behind us. Except Harry still had more to tell me.

"But Jules? I want to kiss you like that. Like you were kissing Theodore."

I closed my eyes as my heart broke into a million tiny pieces. I hugged him more tightly and kissed his cheek before sitting back. "Oh, Harry. We can't be like that either. I'm a lot older than you and you're still learning so much."

"Maria was a lot younger than Captain VonTrapp. Isn't that okay?" This kid didn't miss anything, did he?

"It is in some cases. But I love you more like a mother loves her child, or like really good friends love each other. You're one of my best friends, Harry."

Despite his dejected appearance, a small smile shone through. "Really?"

"Yeah. You're very important to me and I'm so happy we met."

I put on the bracelet and pulled out my phone. "I think we need to dance while we make dinner." I turned on my 80's playlist and Harry followed me to the kitchen. He was starting to recognize some of the songs we'd been listening to, so he sang along to Take On Me and Don't You Forget About Me.

"You have a nice voice," I told him and he grinned.

If You Leave came on and he said, "This one is sad."

"Yeah, it is kind of sad since they might not see each other again. But I really like the music and the ooo-ooo-ooo part at the end." I tried singing it but I couldn't carry a tune nearly as well as him.

"I like it, too," he announced. "But it's still sad."

"Music makes us have strong feelings, doesn't it?" I mused. "For example, what if you just heard someone reading those lyrics? If you leave, don't leave now, Please don't take my heart away. Promise me just one more night, Then we'll go our separate ways. It would still sound sad but music kind of takes you into the emotion of it, what the guy is feeling behind those words."

"Yeah," he agreed emphatically. "Music makes you feel all kinds of things, doesn't it?"

"Music is a wonderful gift," I agreed.

"Is it still okay for me to say I love you?" He asked softly.

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Of course it is. I love you, too."

* * * * *

I'm so obsessed with this story! I hope you are too! <3