“Ah, so. He finally convinced her that she is all he needs to be happy?”
“Yes.” My lover looked up from the letter and smiled. “It sure took him long enough.” They had been keeping company for almost as long as Frank Johansen and I had been together.
I stood before him, rubbing my fingertips over his chest. Beneath the material of his shirt I could feel the ring that pierced his n****e. “Unlike a certain round-eyes who would not take what was before him?”
“You wouldn’t have cared as much for me, if I hadn’t been so honorable.” He grinned around the pipe between his teeth.
“Would you have made me wait all this time, if I had not prevented Jennings from slicing into you?”
“You’re a smart man, Charley. You would have figured it out, sooner or later.”
“And they say we Chinese are inscrut
