"Well, that's one of the things I'm good at, simplifying matters. Either that or making them more complicated. I guess if I'd asked that and you hadn't been interested, things would have been a lot more complicated. I got the best possible outcome, I think."

And he's still amazed at how relatively smoothly it had gone. The whole time, he'd been convinced he was going to ruin something, say something inappropriate, drive Ned away for good, but Ned had enjoyed talking to him, and had enjoyed being intimate with him, too. That was unheard of, and it made him feel bizarrely attached to Ned, perhaps too attached.

He doesn't think Ned's comments make him sound promiscuous or weak-willed, but even if they did, he wouldn't judge him for it. There had been a time when he might have considered himself desperate, too, but it had never worked out. Now, he tries to take things as they come, and it seems to be going better, considering that he's sitting there with Ned, in his underwear, eating breakfast.

"I'm glad it's possible. I mean, I know it's possible, because obviously that's how it is for me, but knowing that it's possible for someone else. How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

Another one of those awkward, blurted, embarrassing questions. Dammit, and here he'd thought he was beyond that point.