Don Juan looked at him with a sudden intensity. He had lost the will to put up the pretense of apathy; he wanted to know what Hudson meant by that. The invitation. They had never established explicitly what that meant. Sex at first, but Hudson had turned him away last time without sleeping with him. Don Juan had come to think they shared more than just physicality; he'd come to think they were friends. But Hudson made that dismissive remark about his cigarettes, and it echoed something from the night they'd argued. So maybe that had never been part of it. But the invitation — not respect, not sex, whatever else was left — was open.

"I've got other coats," he said, vaguely defiant. "So no hurry."

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