"… Incidents like what?"

"Oh, I don't know – kids will be kids."

She seems to be smirking.

She glances at Anthony and raises an eyebrow before looking at his mother again. "Nothing we couldn't handle."

Anthony raises an eyebrow at his mom. "Do you have something to say?"

"I wouldn't want to embarrass you."

"I am physically incapable of being embarrassed. Did he tell you or did you guess, because if you guessed that's kinda bad."

"… Guess?"

"Mom, seriously?"

"You – I just figured he had met someone else, you two seemed like – I did not I think guess what had actually happened."

"Oh no he has totally met me."

"I – was mostly just making references to be embarrassing –"

"References to what, though."

She frowns at him. "Typical camp shenanigans? – Is it really that much of a problem, you seem upset –"

"Well you've met your son's new girlfriend, hi. Please don't mention this around my father."

Charys looks between the two of them. "Can I… have some explanation?"

"We started dating, my father's homophobic. Oh and I'm sometimes a boy—assigned male at birth, actually—so this is technically gay."

She pauses, digesting that. "I hate to sound…" She hesitates. "Callous, I guess it would be callous… but have you tried… talking to your father? About this all?"

"He's quite blatantly homophobic."

She actually laughs out loud. "He's the Westboro Baptist Church kind of homophobic."

Charys grimaces, a little. "That bad?"

"Nearly, yes. So since you're not and seem to be okay with the gayness involved I'd be very thankful if you helped us out with the whole 'sneak around my father' thing."

"– Was that in question?"

Anthony seems surprised by the jump in conversation. "I – didn't think it was? I guess?"

"Assuming you're sensible about things – that should be okay."

"I didn't think it was, either, I was just contrasting. Thank you. Your son is great, by the way."