Hudson wasn't getting up, which meant Don Juan wasn't either. Hudson was leaning on his lap and Don Juan had no inclination to disturb him. He shifted his hand down to the base of Dean's neck and toyed with the locks there. There was something here that could have been discussed, he felt. Another one of those neatly packed away little boxes. He could sense its presence, and could also sense that if he didn't ask, Hudson wasn't going to open it himself. It was the same thing they had been doing the past few days, with everything Don Juan owed it to him to say and wasn't working up the courage to talk about. He thought: we can only be happy together when we're pretending, and then he wondered whether it was true.

Did it matter? He was happy, letting his fingers trail through the small hairs at the nape of Hudson's neck. He thought it likely that Hudson could just keep unfurling here until he was entirely relaxed, and then fall asleep. Don Juan could listen while his breathing slowed. He would wake up in an hour and they would trip down the stairs to eat more cold cuts from the icebox, chased by whiskey. They could do that, tonight. Tomorrow, the day after, maybe the rest of the week. Eventually it would become unsustainable, wouldn't it? Like building a house of cards, higher and higher until the inevitable, colossal collapse.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Don Juan asked, tentative, still half-hoping the answer would be no.

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