Nick put one lanky arm around Bill’s shoulder and squeezed Bill’s ass with his other hand. “Wow,” he said. “You have a nice butt, Bill.” He tried to touch Bill’s crotch but Bill batted his hand away.

“Behave.”

Nick pouted and said, “You’re no fun,” but let Bill walk him up Castro into Coming Home.

When he hauled Nick into the diner, his favorite waiter, Freddy, raised a shaggy eyebrow and said, “Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”

“I found him outside Badlands,” Bill said. “I’m going to get some food into him and drive him home.”

Freddy smirked. “Sure, and I am Marie of Romania.”

“Give me a break. I’m not a child molester.”

Nick squeaked, indignantly, “I’m not a child!”

Freddy laughed and said, “Sit him down and I’ll bring him coffee.”

“Bring him a cheeseburger too,” Bill said. “And one for me, with a Coke.”

Watching Nick demolish his burger, Bill thought: Eighteen. The kid barely looked sixteen. Whatever his age, the boy, swiping a paper napkin across his grease-coated lips and sucking down Bill’s Coke, seemed fearless even though he was drunk, stranded, and sitting with a man who had just picked him up off the street. No, Bill corrected himself, not fearless. Innocent. Like someone who didn’t worry about bad things happening to him because nothing bad ever had. Nothing seriously bad, anyway. The kid probably wasn’t even gay. More likely he was a curious straight boy who had wandered into the queer neighborhood filled with liquid courage and decided to check out the local fauna.

But then Nick reached his hand across the table and grabbed Bill’s hand and said, “Are we going to your place now, Bill?”

“No, I’m driving you back to school. What were you doing trying to sneak into Badlands?”

“Looking for Prince Charming. I guess I found him.”

The food had sobered him up a bit, dissolving the alcoholic glaze in his eyes. Bill allowed himself the thought that had the kid been just a few years older and not so drunk, he would have happily taken him to bed. He was exactly Bill’s type: cinnamon-skinned, his eyes coffee bean brown and bright in a narrow, pretty face framed by long, black hair parted in the middle. A small patch of hair was making a gallant stand on his chin; his eyebrows were sexy black smudges and those ears—a little floppy but perfectly shaped. Bill imagined nibbling them and then licking the boy’s long, flawless neck.

“Like my friend Waldo says, the city’s full of queens, but not too many princes.”

Nick giggled. “I like your friend Waldo.” He rested his face between his hands and said, with a note in his voice, almost of awe, “You are so handsome.”

Bill felt absurdly touched by the compliment. “You’re pretty cute yourself, kid.”