Husband Material (London Calling #2)(44)

“Anyway”—I gave a sickly smile—“this is Oliver Blackwood, my boyfriend. Oliver, this is Jonathan…” Aaaand I couldn’t remember his surname. “This is Jonathan, who I knew at university, but we didn’t like each other.”

“Good to know you’re still a cock, Luc,” said Jonathan.

Strangely more in his element now I was asking him to be polite to an arsehole in a suit, Oliver offered his hand. “Lovely to meet you.

If it helps, Luc didn’t like me either.”

“I like you now,” I protested.

Oliver laughed. “I should bloody well hope so. It’s been two years.”

“So…” Jonathan had always had the eyebrows of an angry cartoon character, and now they knitted together ominously. “What didn’t he like about you?”

“He thought I was boring.”

“Me too,” said Jonathan.

“Oliver, I didn’t,” I lied. “I just thought you were…you know, overachieving and a bit serious.” And too good for me, but I was fucked if I was admitting that in front of Jonathan.

“Being overachieving and serious are very underrated qualities.”

You could never tell if Jonathan was joking. He delivered everything in the same unplaceably accented monotone.

For whatever reason, Oliver had concluded that was both a joke and one he could join in on. “Perhaps we can exchange details.

Then we can meet up some day and discuss our favourite shades of beige or compare pension plans.”

Jonathan glanced at me. “Keep this one, Luc. He’s all right.

Anyway, what are you doing these days?”

“I work for a charity that protects bugs that eat shit.” Two years ago, I’d have cringed. Now I liked to think I was owning it. Okay, renting it. “You?”

“I run a shop.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “You…run a shop.”

“Yeah, big building, people come in and buy things. I know your parents are pop stars, but this is basic stuff.”

How I’d known this man for ten years and not punched him once, I’d never quite worked out. I suppose the seven-year gap in the middle helped. “I know what a shop is, you utter turd. I just thought you’d be in finance or something. Not selling…groceries?”

“I don’t sell groceries. I sell bath and bedroom furniture because people will always need it. I’ve got three stores, about to open a fourth. And, yeah, I’d probably earn more in the city, but I’d have to work for some prick with a hedge fund.”

“From where I’m standing,” I said, “you’re still working for some prick.” In hindsight, we didn’t know each other well enough anymore for me to be making that kind of joke, but I was a bit on edge on account of Miles and how Oliver and I hadn’t quite got a resolution on doesn’t-like-rainbows-gate.

“Fuck off, O’Donnell.” He turned back to Oliver. “Nice meeting you.”

“And you,” returned Oliver because he was a better person than me and didn’t randomly insult people at weddings.

“Sorry,” I said once Jonathan had vanished into the crowd. “I’d say I don’t know what happened, but he was always like that.”

Oliver gave me a faintly chiding look, which I’d have found sexy if it had happened in the bedroom. “As, I suspect, were you.”

“No, I just act like a wanker. He really is one.”

“I would say wankers are in the eye of the beholder, but that raises some disquieting images.”

I gave an involuntary blink. “Yeah, I definitely don’t want to think about Jonathan wanking, let alone wanking in my eye.”

In an effort to be a good boyfriend, I asked Oliver once more if he wanted to go, and he told me he was fine, and not dog-in-a-burning-room fine. And I still wasn’t quite ready to draw a line under the evening—still hadn’t quite got whatever nebulous thing I was hoping to get and couldn’t describe but was increasingly sure I’d know when I saw it. So we stayed, and for a while we bounced around half-forgotten acquaintances, repeating the ritual of how-are-you-what-have-you-been-doing all over again. Over the next couple of hours I caught up with at least half a dozen people I hadn’t seen in the best part of a decade and found that they were almost all either city bankers or performing artists, with precious little middle ground.

Most of them were also married. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of that.

We were on our second or third circuit when I almost collided with Roger. Or Heather, I suppose, given she wasn’t performing. And since she’d taken off the moustache, I was fairly confident we were back in a she/her pronoun space.

“Fuck, Luc,” she said. “I-I did not expect to see you here.”

I’d been hearing that a lot, in tones ranging from pleasantly surprised to unpleasantly surprised. Heather, though, sounded genuinely shaken. We’d been close back in the day. But she’d been one of Miles’s best friends, and she’d really vocally sided with him at the time. Which, for some reason, hadn’t gone down well with me.

I gave a limp shrug. “Yeah but…bygones, I guess?”

Her eyes narrowed. I’d forgotten quite how good her bullshit detector was. “I don’t buy that for a second. What Miles did to you was fucked up, and you have every right not to forgive him.”