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still living cosy hetero lives in Headingley, continuing to comfort Serena. The one time he had raised the subject, Jem had snapped, ‘I had a best friend, and I’m divorcing her,’ and the weather in the room had changed so abruptly that Luke had let it lie ever since.
    ‘No, it’s mainly just the two of us. Staying in, sharing a bottle, watching films.’ Viggo folded his arms and gave him a disbelieving stare. ‘What? I like staying in.’
    ‘Sure you do. I don’t suppose you fancy a quick drink in Charmers?’
     
    Luke lurched out of the lift and onto the penthouse floor at one in the morning, kebab in hand. He hoped he’d remember to get up early enough to clear up the chilli sauce he’d spilled in the lift, which currently looked like the murder scene from The Untouchables . The key spun silently in the lock, and he took off his shoes and tiptoed.
    Jem was on the sofa in the dark. The only light came from his phone, which he had in his hand as though he’d been obsessively checking it.
    ‘This better be good,’ he said.
    ‘Sorry, baby, my battery died,’ said Luke, placing his kebab gently on the Corian worktop. ‘It’s no big deal. My interview went really well, thanks for asking , and I went for a pint with Viggo to wind down after it, and . . .’
    ‘A pint that ends now?’
    ‘It’s early . I was never asleep before three until I moved in with you.’
    ‘Did you fuck him?’
    His severe expression stifled Luke’s laughter.
    ‘Or someone else? Who’ve you really been with?’ He sniffed him all over like an animal. ‘You stink. You can have our bed. I’ll stay in the guest room. For fuck’s sake. You’re not a teenager any more, Luke, you’re with me now.’
    ‘Suit yourself,’ said Luke, puzzled and angry, and went to the bedroom where he passed out fully clothed.
    In the morning he forced himself up, still confused and hungover and smelling like onions and not quite sure what had happened, certain only that Jem couldn’t leave for work until they had sorted it out. They apologised to each other; Jem had overreacted, Luke had been insensitive. They acknowledged that they had survived their first argument and, after Luke had, at Jem’s insistence, had a shower and brushed his teeth, made fast, urgent love where they clung to each other like drowning men.
    ‘I’m sorry for being a silly jealous fool,’ whispered Jem into Luke’s neck. ‘It’s because I want you to myself. I love you too much for my own good. You’ll meet someone your own age and I won’t see you for dust.’
    ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Luke. Jem was more than enough, he was too much sometimes. How could Luke make him understand that it wasn’t the freedom to see other men, but the freedom to see himself again, reflected in his old friends? ‘I don’t want anyone else.’
    Suddenly Jem was pinning him down to the bed.
    ‘Do you mean that?’ he said. ‘Do you really mean that?’
    He tightened his grip. Luke wriggled away, breaking a sweat with the effort.
    ‘Of course,’ he said.
    Jem let go. When he had gone to work, Luke saw red fingerprints on his skin and reflected that while it had taken all his strength to struggle free, he could tell from the set of Jem’s shoulders that he had barely been trying.

Chapter 6
    An email pinged through from Maggie, with BAD NEWS in the subject line and a link to a story in the Bookseller . Len Earnshaw had sold the rights to his memoirs for a ‘high five-figure sum’, and would be writing them without the aid of a ghost writer. The quote from the delighted publisher echoed Luke’s sales pitch almost word-for-word.
    ‘You bastard ,’ said Luke to the screen. ‘I found you. You were my idea. This is my book.’ He was angry at Earnshaw for the betrayal but angrier still at himself. He was an idiot to be surprised that a man like that, someone who had sent his own friends to prison, would double-cross a young writer he had met once.
    He re-read the