Husband Material (London Calling #2)(54)

Having been momentarily distracted by wiping the dribble from Baby J’s chin, James Royce-Royce took a shufty at the

merchandise. “I think that one”—he pointed at the ring with the rose-gold detailing—“is the most Oliver. Then again, you know him better than I do.”

I did, but he was completely right. Of course, the competition was two completely boring rings with no decoration whatsoever, but Oliver was definitely a subtle seam of rose gold kind of guy. “I’ll take it,” I said. “And if my boyfri—fiancé needs to come in to get it resized, I want you to be nicer to him.”

Despite being quite a lot shorter than I was, the assistant somehow managed to look down his nose at me. “I shall endeavour to accede to sir’s wishes.”

Although now I thought about it, Oliver had nothing to fear from this guy. Because he very much came across as white-suit, nice-hat Julia Roberts whereas I was more thigh-high-boots-with-a-safety-pin Julia Roberts. In any case, I forked over my seven hundred quid, pocketed the ominous velvet box, and got the fuck out of there.

The velvet box was still ominousing in my pocket at the point our evening reached the me on the sofa watching old seasons of American Horror Story and Oliver on the floor with his laptop and his case notes, being all hot and diligent stage.

“Oliver,” I said at the same time he said, “Lucien.” And then I said, “No, you,” and he said, “After you,” and we went back and forth like that for a bit until Oliver managed to squeeze in an “I think we should talk about the wedding” and I squeezed back a “Me too.”

Then we sat there in silence for about a million years.

“Can I—” I tried at the same time Oliver said, “Do you—” And this time I followed up quickly with, “Okay, I’ll go.”

I did not go.

Eventually Oliver cleared his throat. “You know that…anything you need to say we’ll…we can. It’ll be fine.”

“I guess…” Why was I so bad at this? “I guess, I just think I…

didn’t really think it through.”

Oliver closed his laptop in a we-are-now-having-aserious-conversation way. “It’s all right, Lucien. I understand.”

“I’m sure you do. But that doesn’t mean…it was right for me to ask you to marry me when you had your head in a cupboard.”

“I confess,” he confessed, “I was caught a little off guard.”

“Yeah. So. Um.” I fumbled in my pocket for the ominous box, couldn’t find it, fumbled in a different pocket, dropped to one knee a bit too hastily so it just looked like I’d fallen off the sofa, which had happened more than once, and then finished up with, “Ow. I mean —”

“Are you all right?” A very concerned Oliver got to his feet to help me up and then stared, with a non-flattering amount of confusion, at the velvet box of doom I was shakily holding out to him.

“Well, I banged my leg but, um, Oliver David Blackwood, now that you’re not in a cupboard, will you marry me?”

Oliver went through a range of expressions, none of which I could readily identify and at least some of which I was pretty sure were positive. “I thought I’d already agreed to that when I was in the cupboard. I assumed you were trying to call it off.”

“What? No.” I gazed at him in mounting horror, with the moderately affordable ring hovering between us. “Why did you think that?”

“Several reasons, Lucien. It was quite an impulsive thing to do in the first place, we’ve barely spoken about it since, and you literally just said you’d made a mistake.”

I cringed. “Okay, I can retrospectively see how that might have given you the wrong impression. But”—I took a deep breath—“when I said I made a mistake, I meant that I didn’t propose in a very romantic way or in a way that expressed how…how great you are and how…like…feelings you make me.”

Looking only a little bit as if I’d offered him a live snake, Oliver took the box and opened it. For a moment he stared at the distinctly average ring. Then, “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Thank you.” And then slipped it on his finger and— “Oh my God,” I cried. “It fits.”

Oliver looked down at his hand, half-rapt, as though he almost didn’t recognise it. “Yes, yes it does.”

“And,” I added, “it doesn’t look awful.”

He gave a little blink. “No. No, it looks wonderful.”

It did kind of look…wonderful, and he looked wonderful wearing it. Because it was like this little piece of Oliver Blackwood was very visibly mine.

Eventually we noticed that I was still on one knee, and Oliver was still standing, and it created a weird dynamic. So Oliver sat down on the sofa and I sat down beside him, my eyes flicking every now and again to— “Nice ring,” I said.

He normally didn’t descend to my level, but tonight, he smirked.

“I’ve had no complaints.” Then he grew quiet. “About the…the”—he cleared his throat—“wedding. I spoke to my parents today.”

Oh dear. For some reason, Oliver’s parents had never liked me.

I wasn’t sure if it was because of the way I dressed or the fact that my own parents were rock stars or if it possibly had something to do with that one time I told them to go fuck themselves at their ruby anniversary. I’d met them a couple of times since and I’d been marginally better behaved, but the cloud of go-fuck-yourself had trailed behind me like a fart on the way out of a lift. For the first year they’d clearly been biding their time on the assumption that Oliver would come to his senses and dump me—much, to be fair, as I had.