Claude sighs. "No, we didn't. But Felix doesn't make himself easy to ask things like that. Half the time he doesn't know for himself how he's feeling exactly, or how to explain it, and we have to guess or work it out for ourselves anyway. And pretty much all the time, he doesn't want to talk about it at all. And he was pricklier than ever after Sylvain left. I guess I can't really argue we did the right thing when it backfired, obviously...but we definitely did the thing that made the most sense. The thing we thought would upset Felix the least. Trying to figure out how he felt for ourselves, without having to hassle him for more information in talks he didn't want to have, and trying to accommodate for that."

He combs fingers through Grant's hair. "Do you ever sometimes feel like every possible option with Felix is wrong somehow?"