Jason's POV
Dust danced in the golden light filtering through the tall, arched windows of the long-forgotten art studio. The wooden floors creaked beneath Jason's boots as he opened the old shutters and let the morning in. Everything was just as he'd left it—half-finished sketches, easels draped in canvas cloth, a scent of turpentine and oil paint lingering like a ghost from another life.
And now, here he was again. Not alone.
Charles ran ahead, laughing, his small feet echoing across the room. "It's like a secret castle!"
Jason smiled softly as he watched the boy take it all in.
It hurt.
It shouldn't, but it did. Every smile, every glimmer in the boy's bright blue eyes—Adele's eyes—felt like a cut and a balm all at once. Charles was a gift, full of curiosity and kindness. He spoke gently. He held his pencil like he'd done it a hundred times. He loved art, too.
He looked nothing like Henry.
"Do you miss painting?" Charles asked as Jason set up a new sheet of paper for him on a low table.
Jason hesitated. "Yes," he said quietly. "I used to paint every day."
"Why'd you stop?"
Jason paused again, meeting Charles's innocent gaze. "Because… some things were too painful to see."
Charles didn't understand, of course. But he nodded, in that knowing way children do when they feel the weight of something unsaid.
They painted together for hours—finger smudges and watercolors, graphite and charcoal. Jason taught him how to shade light on an apple, how to draw a rose in three strokes. Charles laughed when he messed up, and Jason found himself laughing too.
"Was my mama good at drawing when she was little?" Charles asked suddenly, head tilted in thought.
Jason's heart skipped.
"She was… excellent," he said. "She had the most delicate hands. She once painted a whole garden on her closet door. Your grandfather was furious."
Charles giggled. "She still paints flowers on the walls when nobody's looking."
Jason chuckled softly. "Still the same Adele."
They were sitting side by side now, smudged with color, the sun slipping lower outside. Jason felt peace for the first time in years. Watching Charles, something grew inside him. Not just affection.
Love.
A kind of love he had no right to feel.
"Charly," Jason said gently, "Can I ask you something?"
The boy nodded, carefully holding his sketch of a fox.
"What's your father like… to you?"
Charles looked down, fidgeting with the corner of the paper. "He's… big. People listen to him. Mama always says he's important."
Jason's brows furrowed at the hesitation.
"But?" he prompted.
Charles's voice dropped to a whisper. "Sometimes… I'm scared of him. When he drinks, he's loud. Mama hides it, but… I know. She gets quiet. She smiles like she's not really smiling."
Jason's hands clenched in his lap.
"He says he loves us," Charles added quickly, as if defending something he didn't believe. "But mama cries sometimes. I hear her."
Jason closed his eyes.
He wanted to break something. Or run. Or scream.
Instead, he just placed a hand gently on the boy's shoulder.
"You're very brave, Charly," he said. "You see more than most grown men."
The boy looked up at him with admiration. "You're not like them."
Jason blinked. "Like who?"
"The other grown-ups. You don't pretend."
Jason almost laughed—but it was a hollow sound. Pretending was all he had ever done.
And still, Charles leaned into him, safe and content, as if Jason had always belonged here—beside him, beside Adele, in this forgotten part of the manor. A fantasy of a life that could never be.
But for now… he'd give the boy this day.
Just this one.