He didn’t dare try to see Drew again. He sent Drew an email the next day, apologizing, saying he’d been drunk and promising to keep his distance. Drew replied, saying it was fine, forget about it. They spoke on the phone a few times. The kiss, Canal Street, it was never mentioned.
Five weeks later Paul arrived in the early morning at the railway station with his gear for a weekend in London. He found Drew and his parents already on the platform.
“Did he get a nice suit?” Paul asked Drew’s mother, Pat. Drew muttered about being nagged.
“Oh, yes,” Pat said. She patted the suit carrier laid carefully over the bench beside her. “I went with him. He looks ever so handsome in it.”
No date in sight, though. Drew was giving him a look Paul interpreted as a challenge to make something of that,
