Page 17 of Private Exhibit (Gentleman Hackers #4)

ANDY RESOLUTELY shoved his hands into his pockets. Gods . What had he been thinking? He shouldn't have gone to Devon's apartment in the first place. Certainly shouldn't have blurted out that request to join him for a walk. Every second spent with the boy was wreaking havoc on his nerves.

Because he wanted more. So much more that he couldn't have.

Devon was so achingly precious that Andy felt like he might explode.

The boy had completely lit up over a tree , for gods' sakes.

A tree! Something common and mundane and abundant, surrounding them on all sides at every moment of the day.

Trees lined every street in New Haven. Filled every park.

Andy never spared them any thought. He'd never had the time.

But Devon apparently took the time to admire and appreciate them.

Intentionally went through a process of picking out a favorite, then allowed space in his schedule so he could stop and admire it every day on his way to and from work.

Who did that? In a world full of advanced technology and myriad distractions, Devon managed to find pure joy in something utterly simple.

And it was beautiful.

Andy couldn't stop watching Devon as they strolled along, seeing the boy's eyes light up at every new plant they passed.

And there were a lot. New Haven wasn't known as the Silver Jungle for nothing.

Every building, every sidewalk, practically every window was graced with some kind of growth.

Trees. Trailing vines. Window boxes. Small lawns and gardens.

Andy almost stopped in his tracks, really noticing, for the first time, just how truly lush everything was.

How much all the plant life made the buildings themselves look alive.

“Holy shit,” he gasped.

“What?” Devon asked, whirling to face him.

Andy looked up and all around, bombarded with varying shades of green in every direction. “How do you pick just one?” he asked. “Gods, I never really realized there was so much.”

Devon smiled shyly and shrugged. “Sometimes, it's hard.

Sometimes, I literally pick a new favorite every day.

But there's also too much to take in, you know?

I could walk this same route every single day and still find something new that I didn't notice before because there was too much other sensory input overwhelming my brain.”

Andy started to wince, then paused and thought about that. “From A-G or from the spectrum?”

Devon stopped in his tracks and blinked up at him. “You remembered that?”

Andy shoved his hands into his pockets, hoping that he wasn't blushing. He didn't dare admit he remembered everything Devon had ever said. It all felt permanently etched on his mind.

“Or…” Devon went on. “Well, it's also like most people just dismiss that or don't believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Andy assured him. When Devon gave him a curious look, he said, “I had a patient in Diagnostics once.

A young boy on the spectrum. Nonverbal, so he couldn't tell us what he was experiencing, and even our scanners weren't picking up anything wrong.

He was in so much pain that he couldn't even point at pictures of what he wanted. But you exhibit a lot of the same behaviors that he did.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. You turn your shoulders so your body angles slightly away when someone walks by. You avoid eye-contact, your gaze almost in constant motion. Your hands kind of…flutter and dance while you're talking.”

Devon blushed.

“You rock a little while you're waiting for the light to change.”

Devon ducked his head.

“Hey.” Andy reached out, meaning to tilt the boy's chin up, but stopped himself, knowing that touching him would be devastating. “There's nothing wrong with any of that.”

Devon shyly glanced up. “Really?”

“Really.”

Devon was silent as they crossed the street again. “Did you help him?”

“Who?”

“The boy.”

“Oh.” Andy winced when he realized exactly which case that had been. “Yeah,” he answered slowly. “Yeah, I did.” That had been his last case before Junior died. Andy had even gotten a thank-you card from the boy, praising Andy for saving his life.

Except the card had arrived the day of Junior's funeral. A stark, contrast reminder of the one life he'd failed to save. The only life that had truly mattered.

“Andy?” Devon whispered.

Andy quickly shook his head, trying to cast away his dismal thoughts, and forced on a smile. “Tell me about your evening,” he blurted out, desperate to change the subject.

Devon grimaced. “You don't have to–”

“Tell me,” Andy insisted, wanting to think about anything but his own failures. He barely managed to stop himself from blurting out, Tell Daddy what's wrong .

Gods . Andy coughed and shook his head. He needed to shut down those kinds of thoughts right now.

“Well,” Devon began, saving Andy before temptation could spiral any further, “I got a letter. It was from the people who were supposed to have adopted me as a baby.”

“You were adopted?”

“No. I was supposed to be, but it never happened.” Devon paused.

“My mom put me up for adoption before I was born. It was all pre-arranged. This couple—the Rosses—flew down to Lonville to pick me up, but then the doctors told them about my condition.” Devon paused again, reaching out to touch a leaf on a clinging vine right beside him.

“They went to the hospital nursery, and when nobody was looking, they switched me with another random baby, so they took him home instead while I wound up in an orphanage.”

“Gods,” Andy whispered.

“But the Rosses tracked me down here recently,” Devon went on.

“I thought I was finally going to get to know them.

To finally have…well…not a family, exactly.

It's not like I have enough time to develop any kind of relationship like that. But I thought there would at least be something , you know?” He shook his head.

“They came here, and we met. But then they just up and went back home. They left me a letter, saying it was nice to meet me. A letter and a check.”

“A check?”

“Yeah. They wrote that they hoped it would make up for not adopting me.”

“Fucking hells,” Andy quietly swore. How could anybody think that money would make up for denying a child a home?

Then again, having gone through raising a child with Ashworth-Grahams, he could almost understand wanting to avoid that kind of pain.

“Was that why your mom gave you up? Because of the disease?”

“Oh. No. She just wasn't ready to be a single mother. She didn't even know she was a carrier for A-G. Didn't find out until two days before I was born.” He blushed. “I sort of hacked into hospital records to find all this out, by the way.”

Andy chuckled. “Alright. Go on.”

“Um.” Devon smiled shyly, but it quickly faded.

“Apparently, I had an attack while in the womb, and when they did a scan, they found me completely paralyzed.

Everyone assumed I was going to be born dead.

But they ran a bunch of tests and found the genetic markers for A-G in my mom's blood and in mine.

Of course, they couldn't explain how I apparently had the disease since I was born female–”

Andy stopped in his tracks. “ What ?” he gasped.

Devon froze. “Um.” He swallowed hard. “Shit,” he whispered, covering his face with both hands. “I…um…”

Andy stared at him. “Only men get Ashworth-Grahams,” he blurted out.

That was a fact he knew all too well. Women could be carriers of the disease, but they never displayed any of the symptoms whatsoever.

It only took one or the other parent to pass on the disease, and it always passed on without fail.

Of course, most A-G patients didn't live long enough to father any children.

The rare few who did, didn't live long enough to see their child grow up.

But women could carry the disease and pass it on from mother to daughter for generations, never knowing about it until a son came along.

Except when they did know and gave birth to a son anyway.

Andy clenched his jaw, but even that old, familiar anger couldn't overwhelm the sudden curiosity of Devon's admission.

Devon was a transsexual. Born female, yet he had the disease.

It was a complete anomaly. Something Andy hadn't encountered in his entire career, as far as this particular disease went.

Transsexuals were a tiny subset of the population—maybe one percent at best—and Ashworth-Grahams was even more rare, so for someone to have both?

It had to be something like a one-in-a-billion chance.

The revelation opened up a whole new potential avenue of investigation.

A whole new set of data. Studies of transsexuals had proven that the structure and chemistry of the brain matched that of the patient's identity, not the body.

In Devon's case, it meant being born with a female appearance, female hormones, and female reproductive organs while the brain and central nervous system were decidedly male.

It was a form of chimerism: two distinct sets of DNA, one making up the brain and the other making up the rest of the body.

For twenty years, Andy had operated under the assumption that the effects of Ashworth-Grahams had something to do with the natural, biological differences between men and women.

If it affected transmen, too, it only reinforced that fact, but in a different way.

A transman with Ashworth-Grahams was the exception that proved the rule.

It could be the key to unlocking the cure.

Or it could lead to nothing, as had everything else. Andy couldn't bear to go down that path again. Couldn't bear to chase yet another theory that might ultimately end in utter failure.

Devon turned away and broke into a run.

“Devon!” Andy started to chase after the boy.

They didn't make it far. Devon tripped and fell, landing hard on the sidewalk. Andy reached for him, his fingertips just touching the boy's shoulders before he snatched his hands back.

“Devon?” Andy asked. “Is it an attack?”

The boy shook his head and sniffed as tears collected on his eyelashes. “No. I wasn't watching where I was going.” He started to turn around. “Ouch!” he gasped.

“What's wrong?” Andy demanded. “Show–” He broke off with a curse, barely stopping himself from saying, Show Daddy where it hurts . Andy coughed and said, “Show me.”

“It's nothing–”

“Show me,” Andy repeated, dropping his voice to a murmur.

Devon trembled, but he held out both hands. His palms were red from where he'd broken his fall, but the skin wasn't torn. He shifted and winced, then reached for his right pant leg.

“Let me,” Andy blurted out, reaching for the boy before he could think better of it. He felt like he was watching from the outside, unable to move in and stop himself as he grabbed the hem of Devon's jeans and inched it slowly up to the boy's knee.

A bruise was forming there, and the skin looked rough from the fall, but nothing was bleeding. Andy brushed his thumb gently across it and shuddered. Oh fuck . He shouldn't be touching the boy. Shouldn't be this close.

But the gods themselves would have had to swoop in to stop him. He couldn't seem to do so himself.

Andy moved his hand to the back of Devon's knee, then muttered a curse.

Gods . He needed to focus. “Can you move it?” he asked.

“Gently, now.” He supported Devon's leg while the boy carefully tested it, straightening it out and then bending it again.

“We're not far from the hospital. We can go do a scan–”

“No,” Devon gasped. “Please, no. It doesn't hurt that bad. Really, I'm fine.”

Andy looked up, studying the boy's face. Devon almost managed eye-contact for about half a second before blushing and looking away again, but a familiar look was still there. The same look Andy had seen on Junior time and time again.

The one that said he couldn't bear to be a patient again. Not even for a second.

“Alright,” Andy murmured. He paused, watching Devon carefully ease his pant leg back down. “Are you up for walking a little more? Or would you rather I take you home?”

Devon paused in the midst of fussing with his pants, trying to get the fabric situated just right. “You still want to walk with me?”

Gods help me. “Yes.”

“Even though I'm–”

“Yes,” Andy repeated, his voice coming out in a husky growl. Damn it .

Devon looked down and was silent for a long moment, but a smile slowly began to form on his face. “Alright,” he whispered.

Andy's chest tightened and a wave of heat crashed through his entire body. He clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together, fighting the urge to grin, then got up and held out his hand.

Devon slowly took it, blushing as he rose to his feet and tested his legs.

Andy inwardly cursed, having to force himself to slowly release the boy. “Feel alright?”

Devon nodded.

“Good.” Andy clenched his hands into fists, released them, then shoved them into his pockets. “Which way?” he asked, then realized he already knew the answer. “Finish your route?”

Devon's eyes widened slightly, and he smiled. “Yeah.”

Andy couldn't stop his grin that time. “After you.”

Devon blushed as he turned, quickly glanced around, and continued in the direction of the hospital.

Andy let out a shuddering breath and followed.