ASTRID stared at the screen, watching his parents and grandfather. After his father's initial question, none of them spoke again. The silence stretched longer than he expected, and a small knot of awkwardness began to form in his chest. He had known they would be surprised, but he had not expected them to go completely still like this. As if frozen. He shifted in his seat, glancing between their faces, waiting for someone to break the silence. He wondered if he should just say it again to snap them out of it.
But unexpectedly, or maybe it should have been expected, Wulfric was the one who broke the silence. He answered the question Gage had asked earlier in a steady voice, as if he had not just dropped a bomb on all of them.
"No, I'm not in the capital with Aster right now, Father-in-law." Wulfric paused, then added, "What I meant was that we're together now. In a relationship. The romantic kind. Should I say we're boyfriends just to make it clearer?"
