In the bathroom, Neil runs the water hot and leans against the cool tile until Harry joins him. He smiles at him. Neil has been trying, in these past months, to remind himself that romance tends to go disastrously for him. Charlie, then Todd (such as it was), and then Gabriel in Darrow. Each time, he makes a mess of it, one way or another. So he’s given it up—or so he tells himself.

There’s something about Harry, how he looks at him, that makes him consider. It isn’t the smitten, fawning look that Ellie or Benji give him, nor the strict hunger that some men have eaten him up with. No, Neil just feels...wanted.

How very silly of him, to want to be wanted.