[He goes still. He doesn't know why it surprises him, he doesn't grasp the magnitude of his shock, of his own, quiet shame rearing its ugly head again. He thinks, months ago, he might have been angry that Stephen told her. He thinks months ago he'd have pulled away by now and said: you had no right to tell anyone. He doesn't pull away, he isn't angry. The embarrassment is less about the fact that he and Stephen are men, and more than some, deep part of him still thinks to care.

He exhales after a long moment. ] Anyone back home might have said the same thing, to me. [Worse, even. Crueller. He might have said the same thing, once. ] So it'll be nothing I won't have heard before.

[He adds, after a beat: ] You know - some of us, or most of us, need time to adapt and relearn ... Old prejudices. A lot of time, sometimes. Maybe more than six months in a strange town, with stranger people.