Husband Material (London Calling #2)(119)

“I go on marches, Lucien. It’s parties I have trouble with, not protests.”

“Okay, but I mean, I don’t think being gay is more important to you than…” I waved my hands in a tight little circle “…all the rest of it. Like, you actually care about shit. Way more shit than I care about.

And that doesn’t mean you’re letting the other side down or anything.

It makes you like…like a thousand-piece Moomin jigsaw with a wolf in a wig.”

Oliver stared blankly at me. Which I probably deserved.

“Sorry. My mum’s randomly got into jigsaws and maybe the Moomins? I should have just said you’re complicated, but all the bits make a nice picture.”

He thought about this for a long time. Then gave up. “Thank you.

I think?”

“Oliver, I’m sorry.” I tried again. “I never meant to make you feel that I thought you were, you know, doing gay wrong. Or that you had to be like me. Any more than you think I have to be like you.” I paused. “At least, I hope you don’t. Because if you do, you’re fucked.”

“I’ve never wanted you to be anyone but yourself,” said Oliver immediately because he was also way better at being reassuring than me.

“And I don’t want you to be anything but that either,” I told him.

“So we’re good.”

He wasn’t giving me we’re-good face. He was giving me we-might-be-good-but face. Which was better than we’re-fucked face but not by much. “My lingering concern is that works in theory, but in practice you being who you are and me being who I am may not work.”

Shit. “Not work how? And if you mention the fucking balloon arch one more time, I swear I’ll—”

“You’re the one who keeps bringing up the balloon arch. But it is an appropriate example. If we get married underneath a rainbow balloon arch, we’ll be denying who I am, and if we don’t, we’ll be denying who you are. And while that’s a relatively trivial matter on its own, these things can add up. Over the long term they can add up catastrophically.”

“They haven’t so far,” I pointed out.

“No, but marriage can change things. That’s why the pictures from your bachelor party bothered me so much. You were so happy in them, but it was a happiness I don’t think I could ever share with you and, well, I suppose I wanted to make certain you knew that if you wanted to pursue it, I…well, I won’t stand in your way.”

Oh fucking hell. He was really making this difficult. “Sorry, are you dumping me because I enjoyed going to a party at a queer gallery?”

“I’m not dumping you at all.” He picked up his fork, eyed his rotolo, and then put the fork down again. “I think what I’m doing is…

is giving you a chance to dump me. If you… Now you…”

“Now I what?” I said, still at very much the wrong volume for this kind of restaurant.

There was a pause. Oliver was breathing in a very, very careful way. And his eyes had gone their flattest, coldest grey. “When we first met,” he went on doggedly, “you were, we were both, but you especially were…in rather a bad place. And, sometimes, the person you need to be with when you’re in a bad place isn’t the person you want to be with when you’re…when you’re not.”

My mouth literally fell open. Fortunately, I’d recently taken a sip of water, so it was empty. “What the fuck? Of all the things I’d expected to go wrong this evening, you going full I have healed you and now I set you free was not on the short list.”

“I don’t mean to…” Oliver broke off, looking embarrassed, as well he bloody well should. “That is…” He squirmed. Again, in a different context, it would have been cute. “I just saw the pictures of you looking happy and in your element, doing the sorts of things that, realistically, you’re not likely to do very much of with me. And I–I suppose I got in my head.”

“Too fucking right you did.” I kicked him under the table, entirely deliberately. “I look happy in those pictures because I’m at a party where I’m celebrating the fact that I’m getting married to the man I love. Who is you. You fool. You numpty. You absolute pillock.”

He was blushing now. Really blushing. “Yes. Well. I suppose when you put it like that, it does make sense.” Somehow, impossibly, the blush got deeper. “You…you’re a very entrancing man, Lucien.

And you could be with someone equally entrancing, someone with whom your life could be interesting and glamorous. Instead of, I suppose, whatever I can offer you. Which is, by comparison, rather quiet and ordinary.”

My head was throbbing. I laid it momentarily on the table, which might have disrespectful to the restaurant dining experience, but I was having a feel. “For the record, and I can’t believe you’re making me say this, I’ve always found you pretty fucking entrancing.”

“Are you sure?” He gave a little cough. “Because, right now, I feel like someone you argue about napkins and DJs with.”

That was true. But it didn’t seem fair to admit it. “Yeah, but…

that’s temporary. It’s a wedding thing. Not an us thing.” God, I hoped it was a wedding thing, not an us thing. I levered myself back off the table. “Oliver, I’m not going to lie, I had a great time last night. But the reason I had a great time was because when I lived that kind of life before I was miserable and hating myself and trying to prove something to a world that could not conceivably have given less of a fuck.” I reached for his hand and he let me take it, the mediocre engagement ring I’d given him gleaming between us. “Basically, that’s the first time in a decade I’ve partied for…for fun. And I enjoyed it, and I maybe even needed it, but I also needed to be coming home to you. I mean, symbolically. Because obviously I went back to the flat and face-planted on my couch.”