Fifth of November

Jay emerged from his flat around 2:00 in the afternoon, when he finally noticed he hadn’t eaten anything yet. Bonfire Night had arrived faster than he expected; the days were flying by, not least because he was spending more than a few of them with Sebastian Moran.

His thoughts lingered on Moran as he placed his order at the noodle bar by the canal. From what Jay had heard, people who’d been in war zones tended not to enjoy fireworks all that much—especially when those fireworks were going off randomly in their neighbourhoods. Moran hadn’t said anything about it, but their relationship (for lack of a better word) wasn’t exactly at the trauma-sharing stage. Mostly it involved grabbing a drink together, or something to eat, and then a quick withdrawal to one of their flats so they could shag each others’ brains out.

Jay fiddled with his phone while he ate; he’d pulled up his text thread with Moran, fingers hovering over the screen. It felt … intrusive, somehow, to ask if he needed help getting through the evening. Maybe he didn’t—maybe he’d prefer to be alone, and Jay’s presence would hurt more than it would help.

Fuck it. Before he could talk himself out of it, Jay dashed off a quick text:

Plans tonight?

After a minute or two, his phone buzzed with Moran’s reply:

Not really

Want me to come over?

There. Vague enough to give Moran some plausible deniability; if he wanted to be alone, he’d say so.

Before Jay even had a chance to put the phone down, Moran’s reply came in:

God yes

Well. That settled that.

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