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deal more than he could give to any one woman just now. So Seth thought little of it when Harold asked him to come on holiday to Amsterdam. He thought he deserved a holiday, and Harold would pay for everything, just like a proper manager. Seth had never been to Amsterdam, but Harold knew it well.
    â€œYou can get marijuana everywhere. They're even talking about legalizing it,” Peyton said when Seth told him of the trip. They'd been turned on to pot ages ago, even before they'd moved to London; now they were famous, somebody was always hovering on the sidelines ready to show them a new kick. “Be careful of Harold, though."
    â€œWhatever do you mean?"
    â€œWhat do you think? He's queer, you know."
    â€œSo?"
    â€œWell, nothing, but why's he taking you on holiday and not all four of us? You're his favorite, that's why. You're the butch one."
    â€œHe thinks of me as the group's leader."
    â€œHe wants you to lead him , most likely."
    â€œPerhaps I will then,” said Seth, just to see the look on Peyton's face.

    * * * *

    Their hotel rooms looked out over a canal in the Red Light District. At night, the arches of the canal bridges were lit with red bulbs like half-open lipsticked mouths. They walked through the narrow streets looking slantwise at the girls behind the windows. “If you want to, you know, if you're thinking of having one, I'll just nip off for a bit,” said Harold. There was a girl that had caught Seth's eye, Asian and bird-boned, but Harold sounded so miserable at the prospect that Seth just laughed it off. Instead they drank beer in a cafe stained with four hundred years’ worth of nicotine, giving it a many-layered brown warmth such as Seth imagined the inside of a cocoon might have.
    It was after two when they got back to the hotel. Seth climbed the winding staircase first, aware of Harold's eyes on him from below. At the landing, they turned to go to their separate rooms.
    â€œSeth?"
    â€œYeah?"
    A somehow strangled pause.
    â€œYeah, Harold?"
    â€œNothing."
    Seth couldn't leave him like this. “Come in for a smoke. I've got some great weed."
    â€œI've never had it..."
    â€œCome on."
    The smoke eased things, made Seth feel less like a high-priced rent boy and seemed to turn Harold into a less self-conscious version of himself. For half an hour or so, as they talked and laughed, sex was not even in the room. Then it was there again, in the set of Harold's shoulders and the way he could not stop looking at Seth.
    â€œI'd better go,” Harold said.
    â€œWhat, back to your room? Why?"
    â€œBecause I want—something—”
    â€œDidn't it ever occur to you that I might want something too?"
    The expression on Harold's face would have been comical were his relief not so real. Seth sat on the edge of the bed. He couldn't pretend that, given his choice of men, he would have picked Harold Loomis. But Harold was smart and kind, even rather handsome in the right light, and Seth had always enjoyed bullying him. If Harold cooperated, which Seth felt sure he would, this could be quite fun.
    Curiosity, after all, was what had always moved him forward in the world. And it hadn't done him a wrong turn yet.

    * * * *

    Peyton didn't exactly disapprove of the relationship between Seth and Harold, but he worried about it. He knew he shouldn't worry, because there was nothing he could do about it, but that was exactly what he didn't like: a situation to do with the band that he couldn't control.
    Mark and Dennis didn't care; Peyton had the idea that before meeting Harold they'd barely known what a homosexual was. Who Seth slept with was clearly none of their concern. Peyton was pretty sure no one knew about the affair but the other Kydds, Harold, and himself. Still he could not stop worrying.
    When he asked Seth about it, Seth said it was a lot of fun but emotionally it meant nothing to either of them. Peyton knew that wasn't true for Harold, and he believed