In that moment, all Nate could think about was the summer after his fifth year, when he'd gone home with tumultuous emotions he was unaccustomed to. He'd been withdrawn and almost depressed, and his mum--Natalie--had come into his room and gently coaxed it out of him. He hadn't understood why he had to be kept a secret, why he couldn't hold hands with the boy he was seeing while they were out in Hogsmeade or why they couldn't tell people they were together. His mum had given him one of the best bits of advice for his romantic life that summer, that he was allowed to set the boundaries of what he was comfortable with in his relationships, the same as anyone else was. That if those boundaries didn't match, it was okay to not be involved with that person. That it was up to him to decide if he could be satisfied with settling for less than what he wanted, but that he had no right to force anyone beyond what they were comfortable with.
They were lessons his parental unit had always taught him throughout his childhood, but that was the first time he'd really understood it in the context of romance. It had paved his path ever since. It was a large part of what had inspired Taboo. It was why he'd accepted that his decision to content himself with less than what he wanted was on him, not on Beau or any of the other closeted men he'd been involved with over the years. It was why he would stay tonight without any expectation of what might come next.
"No," he answered on a breath, one hand coming up to stroke a thumb lightly over Beau's stubbled jaw. "No, tonight I'm all yours," he promised. Eve had the club handled for tonight, and really, it wasn't much longer until they'd close until tomorrow.