Mr. Dias: “Change into those and then I can wash the clothes that you have on, for tomorrow.” 

Ethan leaves to change, now also noticing his only pair of clothes is his school uniform. He quickly changes into Mr. Dias’ clothes, tightening the joggers as his clothes are big on him. Ethan hands his uniform to Mr. Dias. He places them into the washing machine, turning it on. Wow I knew he was skinny, but not that bad. I’ll make sure to feed him a lot. 

Mr. Dias: “I was thinking of ordering something to eat, anything in particular you would like ?” 

Ethan: “I don’t know.”

Mr. Dias: “Well which would you prefer, pizza, burger, noodles, chicken. Or maybe sausages or chips. There’s loads, I can’t mention everything.” 

Ethan looks to the ground “Sorry, I really don’t know which I like.” 

Mr. Dias: “Don’t apologise. Have you never had takeout ?” 

Ethan shakes his head. “I’ve seen my mum order food before, but I wasn’t allowed any” 

Mr. Dias keeps feeling more and more guilty the more he learns about Ethan. He knows it’s not his fault but he still feels extremely bad, no one should have to experience abuse in the first place. Mr. Dias and Ethan sit down, Mr. Dias showing Ethan a bunch of different cuisines and they choose one. 

Food arrives, they eat. Ethan feels full for the first time in years, not being able to finish his food. Mr. Dias reassured him that it’s okay to leave some food, he shouldn’t force himself to eat it all. After dinner Mr. Dias cleans up but tells Ethan not to help. He points Ethan towards where he can get the wifi password. Ethan enters the password and the first thing he does is search for part time jobs. 

Since he had never done job searching before, or even had wifi, he didn’t know what to do. Mr. Dias sits back down next to him, offering help as Ethan looks extremely confused and deep in thought. “Mr. Dias, it’s okay, I can do it.” 

Mr. Dias: “I can see how confused you are Ethan.”

Ethan: “Is it that obvious ?” 

Mr. Dias chuckles. “Also, my first name is Jack. So please call me by Jack outside of school.” “Okay, Jack.” Ethan says in a teasing tone, grinning. Jack ruffles his hair, smiling at him. Cute he thought. Ethan goes back to job searching, Jack helping him. They apply for a few jobs, waiting for responses but that might take a few days. 

They sit in silence for a while, the air growing thicker by the second and the awkwardness becoming hard to bear. Jack breaks the silence “Would you like to watch a movie ?” 

Ethan: “I’m allowed to do that ?” 

Mr. Dias: “Of course you are. You can watch as many movies as you want, as long as you’ve done other things that you need to do first. We’ll search through movies and see if anything interests us okay ?”