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asked for hard-boiled eggs again,” Ned retorted.
    “It’s a useful thing to have around,” Julian said.
    “I knew you didn’t risk it.”
    Julian ignored him. “Especially with the hours I keep.”
    “My landlady’s very obliging,” Ned said, and his smile was faintly smug.
    “Yes, because you’re such a nice boy,” Julian mimicked, and Ned’s smile widened.
    “It has its uses.”
    Harry arrived with the pie, breathless and red-faced, and Julian gave him an extra sixpence before closing the door behind him. After a moment’s hesitation, he locked it, too. He should know better, but – he’d never had any sense where Ned was concerned.

    Julian woke from a fitful sleep into a purple twilight, wound around Ned like a vine around an oak. He hadn’t done that in a long time, fallen asleep against Ned’s shoulder, not since their first year at University, and even now that he was too old for it to be innocent comfort – and old enough, experienced enough, to know exactly what he did want – apparently in sleep he hadn’t forgotten old habits. He should disentangle himself, he knew, get up and dress and offer whiskey or coffee to ease the transition, but he lay still, his chin on Ned’s collarbones, breathing in sweat and sex and Ned’s cologne. The breeze was cool on his naked back, shiveringly erotic on the top of his hips where his clothes were still pushed down in disarray. He’d at least managed to get most of Ned’s clothes off him this time – he had discovered that nudity was one of the great luxuries, bared skin on skin – but then they’d been too far gone to wait.
    Ned shifted under him, stretching, and Julian loosened his hold. Ned reached for his watch, glamored so that it spilled light over the tumbled sheets, and grimaced at the time.
    “Have a drink before you go,” Julian said, and rolled over to begin putting himself to rights.
    He turned up the gaslights in the parlor, poured them each a whiskey and soda while Ned washed hands and face, and came out of the tiny closet knotting his tie. The air from the street was almost cold, and a carriage rattled past, wheels loud on the cobblestones. Ned was by no means beautiful, Julian thought, striving for objectivity; he was too large, too well-built for that, and his features were merely handsome enough, regular and attractive but not extraordinary. Amiable , Giles had said at University, with an expressive curl of the lip that relegated Ned to the rest of the hearties, and it was true that Ned was generally good-natured, easy-going and obliging, but there was an inner man possessed of unexpected steel. One meddled with that at one’s peril.
    They chatted while they drank, curses and silver and automata, but when Ned seemed inclined to linger, Julian pretended not to notice, and the other man soon took his leave. Julian closed the door behind him, leaning his weight against the heavy oak. The room seemed very quiet with him gone, and that was beyond unreasonable. Ned had made his feelings clear at University: don’t you think we’re a little old for this? he’d asked, even as they lay sprawled on Julian’s bed, sweating in spite of the November wind whistling through the gaps in the window frame, and had gone on to prove it by becoming a much sought-after escort for any number of young ladies. Julian took a long swallow of his whiskey. He had no idea why Ned had chosen to resume their friendship, or to allow his advances, or, indeed, make advances of his own, but – it needed to stop. Next time – next time he wouldn’t succumb.
    He had told himself that before, but he put that knowledge resolutely aside, poured a splash more whiskey. He didn’t envy Ned his latest job. Any dealing with the Nevetts was too much – Victor had been the worst, but neither Reggie nor Frederick had been any prize. Nevett Senior sounded as though he was what one would expect in Victor’s father – Julian shook himself, and reached resolutely for the