The next track was gentler and flutey-er. “Livingstone Road” I could annoyingly still remember.

“I’m sorry,” he said, after a moment, “it didn’t go better.”

“It was never going to.”

“And you aren’t…too hurt?”

If anyone else had asked me, or if Oliver had asked two weeks ago, I’d probably have said something like Jon Fleming stopped being able to hurt me a long time ago. “Not too hurt but…yeah.”

“It’s hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn’t want you in their life.”

I snorted. “Have you met me?”

“Please don’t laugh this off. I mean it.”

“I know. It’s just easier to push people away than watch them leave.” The words hung there, and I wished I could suck them back into my mouth. “Anyway,” I went on quickly, “you were still right. If I hadn’t tried, I’d have spent my whole life as the bastard who abandoned his dying father.”

“You wouldn’t have been. It might still have felt that way, but you wouldn’t have been.” A pause. “What will you do next?”

“Fuck knows. See what happens when he calls.”

“You’ve done all the right things, Lucien. It’s down to him now. Although, frankly, I don’t think he deserves you.”

Fuck. I really needed him to stop being nice to me. Well, stop or never stop.

I let Leviathan run to the end, and then Spotify decided I wanted to listen to Uriah Heep so we…listened to Uriah Heep. And a four-hour algorithmically guided journey through ’80s progressive rock later, most of which I spent not quite asleep but near enough to it that I didn’t have to think about anything, we got back to mine.

“Do…” I did my best to sound nonchalant. “Do you want to stay?”

He looked over at me, his expression unreadable in the shadows from the streetlamps. “Do you want me to?”

I was too tired to fight it and too washed out to pretend. “Yes.”

“I’ll find somewhere to park and meet you upstairs.”

Normally, this would have been my opportunity to try and contain the worst evidence of my god-awful lifestyle but, actually, I’d been super careful lately and had managed to keep my flat looking almost as nice as it had when my friends had left. Which meant now I had nothing to do except stand awkwardly in front of my sofa and wait for Oliver. And that was how he found me, still in my coat and plonked like a lemon on the rug Priya had given me to tie the room together.

“Um,” I said. “Surprise?”

He glanced from me to the lack of filth to me again. “You cleaned?”

“Yes. I mean, I had help.”

“You didn’t do this for me, did you?”

“For myself. And a bit for you.”

He looked genuinely overwhelmed. “Oh, Lucien.”

“It’s…it’s not a big de—”

He kissed me. And it was the most Oliver kiss, his hands cupping my face gently to draw me to him, and his lips covering mine with a deliberate care that was its own kind of passion. The way you’d eat a really expensive chocolate, savouring it because you knew you might never get another. He smelled of familiarity, of homecoming, and of the night I’d spent wrapped in his arms. And he made me feel so fucking precious I wasn’t sure I could bear it.

Except I also didn’t want it to end. This moment of finding something I’d long since given up looking for. Maybe even stopped believing in. The wild impossible sweetness of somebody kissing you for you—because of you—and everything outside the press of bodies, the ripple of breath, the stroke of tongues drifting away like old leaves in autumn.

It was a kiss to make you invincible: hot and slow and deep and perfect. And for a little while, for as long as Oliver was touching me, I forgot to need anything else. I clutched helplessly at the lapels of his coat. “W-what is even happening right now?”

“I rather hoped it was obvious.” The mouth that had moved on mine curled into its softest smile.

“Yes but. Yes but. You said you only kiss people you like.”

At this, he went very pink very quickly. “It’s true, but I’m sorry I said that to you. Because I do like you. As it happens, I’ve always liked you. I just thought you’d find me ridiculous if you knew how much.”

“Oh come on”—my head was reeling—“when have I needed your help to find you ridiculous?”

“You make a good point.”

“So kiss me again.”

I wasn’t used to Oliver doing what I told him, but I guess it was a special occasion. Or the tidying had gone to his head. In any case, he didn’t stay careful long: we ended up on the sofa, Oliver between my legs, his hands pinning mine against the cushions, everything a tangle of harsh breath and arching bodies and way, way too many clothes. And, God, his kisses. Deep, drowning, desperate kisses. Like he’d been told the world was ending and for some bizarre reason he’d decided I was the last thing he wanted to do.

“And here I thought,” I gasped, “you were supposed to be a good boy.”

He gazed down at me. With his hair mussed, and his mouth red, and his eyes dark with passion, he looked very bad indeed. “And here I thought you were far too socially conscious to entertain that sort of sex-negative stereotype.”

“I am. I’m socially conscious as balls. I just meant…this wasn’t a side of you I ever thought I’d see.”

“Well, you weren’t meant to.” His expression grew solemn again. “We agreed…that is…what we’re doing. It’s not supposed to be—”

I wasn’t sure what he was going to say next, but I knew I didn’t want to hear it. Tomorrow we could go back to acting like this was nothing. But tonight…I don’t know…I guess I was too tired for my own bullshit. “Oliver, please. Let’s stop pretending. You were amazing today. You’ve been amazing all along.”

He was blushing. “I’ve done what we agreed. That’s all.”

“Okay, then. But you’ve made me happier than, well, anybody. In a really long time. And I’m not trying to mess with what we’ve got or make you do anything you don’t want to do. Only I…I guess I wanted you to…to know?”

“Lucien…”

“Um,” I asked, after a very long pause, “were you intending to finish that sentence?”

He laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s just this isn’t a side of you I ever thought I’d see.”