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"See what?"

"Tomorrow."

Jan is beside me. After approximately thirty seconds I reach over and take his hand. He looks at our hands and then out of the window at Cape Town going past in the dark.

He tears his eyes away from the dark window. Looks at me with the careful expression he has when something has settled in him and he has decided to examine it.

"At the airport," he says. "You just… told them."

"Yes."

"People who didn't know." He is not asking. He is turning it over.

"Yes."

"You didn’t… prepare anything." A pause. He looks at our joined hands. "You just said it."

I look at him. "You told me once that you think gay and bi people shouldn't have to come out. That love is love and people should just live and let others figure it out." I pause. "I agreed with you. I'm living by it." A beat. "You're surprised I was listening?"

He looks at me. There is a long pause.

"I said that," he says.

"You did."

"To you. In conversation."

"Yes."

"And you just…” He stops. "You just did it."

"You said it was the right way to live," I say. "I thought so too." I hold his gaze. "Did you think I wasn't listening?"

He looks out of the window. The dark city. A long moment.

"I was listening," I say. Quietly. "I always listen to you, Jan."

"Okay," he says. Finally.

"Okay," I say.

His hand tightens in mine.

The hotel is good. I know this hotel. I've stayed here a dozen times. I know which rooms face the mountain and requested one without mentioning I was doing it. Jan walks in, puts his bag down, and stands at the window for a long moment — but it is dark outside and the mountain is invisible, just the city lights below.

"You requested this room," he says. Not a question.

"The other side faces the car park."

He turns. Looks at me with the steady attention he brings to things he has decided are worth it. "Thank you," he says.

"It's a room."

"Patrick."

"You're welcome," I say.

He crosses to the window again and I come to stand beside him. Cape Town at night — lights below us, the mountain somewhere beyond the glass, present but invisible in the dark.