“It’s good to be back,” I say, smiling at him. He’s leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. He’s wearing that odd expression again, almost as if he’s looking at a stranger. I pause en route to the bathroom. “You okay?”

He straightens. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason apart from the fact that you’re looking at me like I’ve got ten heads.” I toss my washbag onto the bathroom counter and turn back to him.

“If you had ten heads, your hair would fill this building.”

I laugh, and he flings himself onto my bed, bunching my pillows under his head and settling with a sigh.

“You okay there, Rip Van Winkle?” I tease. “You have got your own bed, you know.”

He smiles, his teeth very white against the tanned skin of his face. “Yours is better. I don’t know what you do to your bed, Charlie, but it smells so good.” He sniffs my pillow and lets out a throaty sound of happiness.

With a mixture of pleased surprise and acute horror, I feel my cock start to plump up. Surprise, because it hasn’t done that in so long I swear it had forgotten it had another function. Horror, because this is my Misha.

I shake my head to clear it. “It’s called laundry. You should try it.”

“I do laundry,” he says indignantly, stripping his jacket off and throwing it cavalierly on the bed before stretching out again. “It just never smells as nice as yours.”

“Hmm, I think that might be a ruse to get me to do your washing.”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

“Then it most definitely wasn’t a ruse.”

I tut and pick up the jacket, which makes my condition immeasurably worse, because the fabric smells like bergamot. And then I notice, surreptitiously, how fucking good Misha looks on my pale green sheets. His strong jaw is dusted with stubble that makes his eyes look impossibly blue, like the sky on a lazy summer morning. His waist is narrow and his legs long. I hastily turn away and put his jacket on a chair.

“So, was it good?” he asks, watching lazily as I take care of the rest of the items in my case.

I smile at him, strange thoughts thankfully dissipating. “It was good. It’s always lovely to spend some time with my mum and Phil. I love Norfolk.”

“Could you live there?” The trepidation in his voice indicates he might believe I plan to run off and buy a house immediately.

I consider it. “Maybe when I’m a lot older, but not now.”

He nods and seems to relax. “What did you do?”