261|Black Roses Aren't Natural

Austin found Willem by chance on the main terrace, smoking.

When he left Marybeth, a smoke break wasn't part of his plans, and now that he'd stopped for a cigarette, he wondered if he'd made a mistake. Willem looked like a man with a lot on his mind. And as experience had taught him, men like Willem, who carried the world on their shoulders, were hard to ignore.

"You've been avoiding me," Willem said, watching him retrieve a flat, stainless steel box from his breast pocket.

"Not avoiding you," replied Austin as he opened the container and took out a cigarette, irritated with himself for forgetting his lighter in his suite.

"May I?" he said, nodding at Willem's bright yellow Bic beside his sherry glass on the patio table. Without waiting for the man's response, he snatched it up and lit his cigarette, the herbaceous, woody aroma of Marloboros floating in the air a second later.

He didn't speak for a bit, revelling in the balmy evening air and the wonderfully tantalising numbness caressi