Race is good at reading people.
Like when he’s playing poker and he knows without having to look up that Romeo just got a terrible hand because of the way he sighed.
Or when he’s playing around with the younger kids, wrestling or sword fighting or joining in a raucous game of tag and he knows without having to ask which kid he can’t tag or hit no matter how gently because today is a bad day full of bad memories and being roughed up, no matter how much fun the game might be, is just too much right now.
Like when he’s sitting in the lodging house doing nothing and he can tell that Jack needs to be followed to the rooftop and bothered because if he’s left alone whatever is making him feel so terrible will only bother him more, but he won’t talk about it so he needs to be distracted.
Or when he picks the person out of the crowd who will buy a pape from him because he can see she’s in a good mood and will be charmed by a smile or he’s in a terrible mood and wants to read some bad news so he can feel like at least somebody has it worse than he does.
Like when he sees the way Jack looks at Davey the very first day Davey shows up at the distribution yard and he knows Jack is already in love.
Or when he sees the look that Davey throws at Jack’s back when he thinks nobody is looking and knows Davey feels the same way.
Like when he sees the fear in Jack’s eyes when Davey marches both of them up towards the rooftop with a drawing folded and clenched tightly in Davey’s hand, a drawing that Race had most certainly not seen being drawn while he was trying to distract Jack earlier and most certainly not stolen to give to Davey so he could finally stop noticing that they were both too scared to do anything about the way they felt.
And he doesn’t follow them to the rooftop, they don’t need him tonight, but he sees how happy they both are when they reappear and he’s sure he read them right.
He always does.
Because Race is good at reading people.
