Husband Material (London Calling #2)(38)

“Well?”

“I’m afraid I can’t think of a rebuttal. Your cooking really is that bad.”

“Then dance with me.”

“Lucien…”

“Seriously”—I stopped dragging and stepped in close—“dance with me.”

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “If it will make you happy, but be warned I am not exaggerating. If I were on Strictly Come Dancing, they’d put me with Anton du Beke.”

“You know,” I told him, “I would legitimately love to see that.”

We hit the floor just as the playlist flicked over from “Thinking Out Loud” to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).” And I did. I did want to dance with somebody who loved me. And I was.

Which was pretty cool.

Although it turned out that Oliver’s dancing was, in fact, as bad as my cooking. All elbows and rocking side to side like a dad at a disco, which, thinking about it, was the age group we were both rapidly entering. And wasn’t that a sobering thought.

The soberingness of my thoughts must have leaked onto my face because Oliver abruptly stopped flailing and stood stock-still in the swirl of bodies. “I told you I was terrible at this. If you’re embarrassed, it’s your own fault.”

“You could never embarrass me.”

I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. And for just one moment it wasn’t Bridget’s day—it was mine, and his, and ours.

Then the sleeplessness and the rushing around and the fatigue caught up with me all over again, and I sagged against him, and Oliver, being Oliver, led me to a free table at the side of the room without having to ask what was wrong or what I needed.

I was pretty sure I only put my head on Oliver’s shoulder for a moment or two, but when I opened my eyes again, it was full dark, and Tom and Bridge were saying their final round of goodbyes.

Which meant that it was no longer a dereliction of duty for me to sneak off as well.

So Oliver guided me around one final time, taking me through all the people I had to hug and wave at and say good night to before he could finally, mercifully, take me back to the car and drive me home.

When we got in, he let me lean on him as I staggered upstairs and helped me undress before I flopped into bed. Then he lay with his arms around me while I murmured whatever came into my head.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get married,” I suggested to the night in general. “It’s sooo much work and it makes you sooo sleepy.”

Oliver pressed a kiss to the back of my head. “Whatever you want. But rest. You deserve it.”

I wasn’t sure I did. But I was too exhausted to protest. I shut my eyes and let the cotton-wool darkness swallow me.





"WHAT," I ASKED ALEX TWADDLE, “do you call a deer with no eyes?”

Alex blinked. “I don’t know,” he said gamely. “What do you call a deer with no eyes?”

“No-eye deer.”

“Oh.” Alex blinked again. “That’s disappointing. I thought it was a joke.” He opened Bing. “Shall we Google it?”

Fuck me. “No, Alex. It’s a joke. The joke is ‘no-eye deer.’

Because it’s a deer with no eyes.”

“Yes, I know it’s a deer with no eyes, and I know you’ve no idea what it’s called, but you’ve got me wondering now.”

“Alex, it’s called a no—”

“I say,” cried Alex, with fatal enthusiasm, “Rhys? You wouldn’t know what the technical term for a deer with no eyes is, would you?”

Rhys influencer-walked into the office, with his phone at the optimum streaming angle. “Not sure that’s really the kind of thing there’s a technical term for, Luc.”

“I don’t want to know what the technical term is,” I yelled. “I just said, ‘What do you call a deer with no eyes? No idea.’”

He considered this for a moment. And then of all the many ends of the many sticks in front of him he grabbed tightly to the wrong one. “So it’s a specific deer, then? Are you adopting a deer?”

“No, Rhys. I’m not adopting a deer. Where would I keep a deer?”

“This is tragic.” Alex actually had a slightly teary look. “The poor little deer. With no eyes. Was it pollution? If you can’t keep it at your house, Luc, I’m sure we’ve got room on the estate, though the other deer might bully it.”

Just when I thought this had got as out of control as it could possibly get, Rhys Jones Bowen addressed his increasingly vast audience. “Hello, Rhystocrats. Got an exciting new conservation challenge for you. My friend Luc is adopting a deer with no eyes who’s going to live on Alex’s estate. And we need to find a name for him. Or”—he glanced back at me—“or is it a her or some kind of nonbinary deer?”

I flailed like I was Oliver dancing. “It’s not a nonbinary deer. It’s a completely hypothetical deer.”

“So far,” Rhys told me, “the names that are winning are Deerdrie, Deery McDeerface, and Steve.”

“I might go with Steve?” I suggested, hoping vainly that a quick surrender would end my suffering.

Rhys was still checking his feed. “Oh, somebody here has suggested you call it No-Eye Deer, which I think is very inappropriate. I mean you can’t make the poor thing’s disability its whole identity.”