Husband Material (London Calling #2)(102)

Eventually he and his mother reached the point in their separate rotations where they couldn’t avoid each other without admitting they were trying to avoid each other.

Oliver’s hand tightened on mine in a way that at least hinted at panic. “Mother…” he began.

Before she went up on tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

“Oliver, darling, don’t forget to pay the caterers.”

He gave the slightest of blinks. “I put through a bank transfer yesterday. It should clear within twenty-four hours.”

“Thank you.” And with a nod as slight as Oliver’s blink, Miriam Blackwood moved on.

“Walk?” I suggested because I could feel Oliver starting to vibrate beside me.

He didn’t say yes or no, but he let me lead him outside. The Blackwoods had a really nice garden, although I hadn’t had much chance to enjoy it the last time I was here. Not that I was going to have much chance now either, what with the drizzle, the fact I was at a wake, and the distress Oliver was radiating like a rubbish halo.

They were also middle class enough to have a gazebo, which seemed as good a place as any to shelter from the one-two punch of rain and social obligation.

“Have I paid the caterers,” said Oliver bitterly as we sat down on one of the little benches.

“It could have been worse,” I offered. “She could have said, ‘You suck, you ruined your father’s funeral.’”

“I might have preferred it if she had.” He ran a hand through his hair. “As it is, I think she’s saving that particular bombshell for a future disagreement.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “If it helps, so am I.”

That earned a soft laugh.

“Next time you’re like, Lucien, you’ve left your mug out again, I can be like, Yeah, well, at least I didn’t ruin my father’s funeral.”

“Ah.” He put an arm around me. “What a joy our life together shall be.” There was a slight pause. “Assuming, that is, you still want to.”

“Want to what?” I asked. “Leave my mug out?”

“Have a life together.” Another of those tense little pauses. “I’m just aware that…this has been a lot. That I’ve, perhaps, been a lot.”

I gave him an unhelpfully angled eye roll. “Oliver. It’s not your job to make being with you convenient for me. Just like it’s not my job to make being with me convenient for you. Which is good because if it was my job, I’d have been fucking fired ages ago.”

“Being with you is…is…” He broke off for what felt like an unflattering long time. “I sometimes don’t know what I’d do without you. Again,” he followed up hastily, “not in a suicidal ideation way…”

“You know,” I said, “I’m getting increasingly worried you feel the need to clarify that.”

“I’m a barrister. Clarity is my job. And what I’m saying is obviously I’d cope without you because wonderful as you are, I like to think this isn’t a codependent relationship. But I’d rather not have to. My life is more interesting with you in it, and you make me a worse person.”

“Um.” I sat up. “Thanks?”

“That sounded…more flattering in my head.”

“How did it sound in your head?” I asked. “You just told me I make you worse. As in, less good.”

“I thought it would be a sort of…witty, Wildean reversal.”

“How do you ever win a case? Do you stand in front of the jury and say, You should send this guy to prison—psyche! ”

“What I meant to say…” Oliver was using his you’re-being-mean-to-me-and-I-secretly-like-it voice, which was just different enough from his you’re-being-mean-to-me-and-I-very-much-don’t-like-it voice that we’d avoided some major misunderstandings. “Is that I’ve spent a lot of my life living by a set of rules that I never really interrogated and you make me interrogate them. I would never have been able to do what I did today without you, and maybe I shouldn’t have, maybe it was a dreadful mistake, but I’m inordinately grateful that I was able to do it.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to not melt into a pile of squish and then drain away in the drizzle. “So I’m your helpful shoulder demon.”

Oliver nodded. “Intermittently helpful.”

“I will very much take that.”

It was inappropriate to make out at a wake, even if we were technically outside the wake in a damp gazebo, so we had a long hug instead. And I was honestly a bit embarrassed to be a long-hug-having person, but sometimes you just had to long-hug.

We were at about the eighty percent mark on the long hug when to my dismay, I saw Uncle Jim making his way towards us across the garden.

“Really gave the old man what for, eh?” he yell-said from the steps.

Oliver and I dehugged and sort of stared at him. It wasn’t so much the intrusion as the shock of somebody admitting that the Inappropriate Eulogy of Doom had actually happened. As ever, Oliver pulled himself together faster than I did. “I’m sorry, Uncle Jim.

I know he was your brother and…I’m sorry.”

Uncle Jim shrugged. “Probably a bloody silly thing to do, all told.”