That was an unexpected answer. Hudson said it with so little fanfare that it couldn't have been a joke or a lie. Don Juan felt a bit disappointed on his behalf that he was spending his birthday doing something as mundane as a ball and a parlor full of half-drunk strangers. Half a dozen things occurred to him that might have been a more interesting use of the night, and he nearly suggested one of them before he stopped himself. He wasn't going to make the same mistakes this time around; last time he'd been too sentimental, too comfortable, and he wasn't going to do it again.

But he had been planning to proposition Hudson, and now it felt rather cheap to offer him no-strings-attached sex on his birthday. Don Juan hesitated, trying not to show his uncertainty but worried it was coming across in his posture all the same.

"Well," he said, at something of a loss. "Happy birthday." He sipped his own drink — just wine, and not the expensive kind either — and tried to plot out his next move. "That doesn't really answer the question, though," he pointed out.

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