Husband Material (London Calling #2)(27)

By the time we’d got everything sorted, or as sorted as it could possibly be given the circumstances, we were exhausted—the good kind of exhausted you got from doing something hard but rewarding.

And I barely even noticed that my dad had never called me back.





AS IT TURNED OUT, I didn’t only miss sticky miso peppers, I also missed asparagus and lemon spaghetti with peas, stuffed butternut squash with maple syrup and freekeh, and spicy aubergine with Szechuan sauce. And Oliver didn’t make a big deal out of it—what with being a lawyer he wasn’t exactly a stranger to things coming up at the last minute—but I felt bad anyway. Yes, we were in a good place, a good enough place that adapting to each other’s lives was just a part of being together that we both accepted and were cool with. Except I was beginning to worry I wasn’t so much adapting as bailing. It had been nearly a week of staggering home after another evening of intense wedding planning to find Oliver already in bed— and not in bed in a sexy “I’ve been waiting for you, tiger” way. More in an “I’ve put on my pyjamas and read my book” way.

And it was temporary. I knew it was temporary and Oliver, I’m sure, knew it was temporary too. Or at least I hoped he did because if he didn’t, then he was being worryingly calm about being in a relationship where we were never conscious in the same room. It didn’t help that since the wedding was in Surrey now, Bridge and all her bridesmaids were going to be spending the night before in Judy’s enormous stately home for a kind of non-gendered-person’s night, which I assumed would involve braiding each other’s hair, drinking champagne, and talking about boys.

Which, honestly, I’d normally have been up for. Only my personal boy would be at home without me, where he’d been every night that week. Still, best-friend code. Maid-of-honour code. And, unless something went catastrophically wrong, I would never have to do this again.

My plan for the evening involved calling a cab to take me to my flat where I’d stashed my suit, then to Oliver’s house where I’d somehow managed to stash nearly everything else I owned, and finally back to Bridge’s so we could bundle into a hastily rented limousine and get the party started. And, maybe, somewhere in the middle of all this, close my eyes for, like, ten seconds so I wouldn’t show up in all the wedding photos looking like Bridget’s stoner cousin.

I was just waiting for the cab and definitely had not closed my eyes for any length of time when Bridge sidled over to me with an apologetic look on her face.

“Oh God,” I said. “What’s happened now?”

She winced. “Nothing. But…” She broke off for a moment. “You know I love you, Luc?”

“You bloody well better after this week.”

“And I do. But I was wondering…would you be hurt if I said I wanted this evening to just be the girls?”

I wasn’t hurt exactly, but I was a bit confused. “Well, no. Except that doesn’t sound like anything you’d ever say in real life. I’ve been one of the girls for a clear decade.”

“Dammit.” She curled her hands into fists. “You caught me. I was talking to Liz, and she pointed out that you’re knackered and I should give you the night off. But I also knew if I said that, you’d get all defensive and pretend you weren’t.”

“I’m not getting…” I began, then stopped. “Okay. Yeah. Maybe a bit.”

Bridge gazed at me earnestly. “It won’t make you a bad friend or a bad maid of honour. In fact, a good maid of honour should be well rested so he doesn’t ruin the most important day of my life.”

Oh, I wanted to go home so badly. “Really?” I asked, trying to sound like I wasn’t begging.

“Really.” She gave a decisive nod.

“You know I love you too, right?”

“You rang your dad for me. If I hadn’t worked it out before, I’d have worked it out then.”

I was too over-weddinged to put up even a token show of resistance. “Bridge. Thank you so much.”

She prodded me lightly in the shoulder. “Go home. And I’ll see you tomorrow. Which is, in case you’ve forgotten, the most important day of my life.”

So I went home—or rather, I went to Oliver’s, which was what home meant these days. Although I didn’t like to dwell on that because I was scared that if I looked too closely, it would disappear.

In any case, I was going to be crap company this evening because I was exhausted, seeing seating plans every time I blinked and still slightly raw from having spoken to my dad who, surprise, surprise, hadn’t called me back, despite the fact the wedding was tomorrow. I suppose I was at least consistent when it came to boyfriending.

Much like I’d been consistent at sports in school. Which is to say, terrible in every respect.

I got to Clerkenwell about seven, hopped out the cab, and let myself in with the actual key I actually had. I hadn’t been in a key-exchanging relationship since Miles, and that hadn’t counted because we’d rented the flat together so he hadn’t so much given me a key as received a key at the same time I had. Anyway, I’d texted ahead so I’d expected Oliver to be expecting me. What I hadn’t expected was for him to be standing in the hall in full black tie holding a blue-velvet jewellery box.

Oh, shit. I’d forgotten something important. It definitely wasn’t our anniversary because while we hadn’t worked out when it officially was on account of the whole pretending-to-date-before-officially-dating thing, we’d agreed it was before the Beetle Drive, which had already happened. And it wasn’t Oliver’s birthday because, while I had forgotten when that was exactly, I knew it wasn’t in May.