Husband Material (London Calling #2)(55)

But when it had become clear I wasn’t going away anytime soon, they’d come to accept me the way one might accept a piece of spinach between a dinner guest’s teeth. They knew I was there but, for the sake of their continued happiness, pretended I wasn’t.

“And,” I asked nervously, “how did that go?”

“They said they’d support me in whatever decision I made.”

I winced. “Bad as that, huh?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I mean…” I didn’t even know what I was trying to say. I wanted to be supportive of Oliver, but I didn’t really want to spend the next however-many months tiptoeing around David and Miriam while they by—infuriatingly—either their presence or their absence made me marrying Oliver all about them. “We can… I mean… Do they…”

To my relief, Oliver cut me off. “Let’s just not think about it for now.”

Except I wasn’t sure that made it better. Especially because Oliver was terrible at just not thinking about things. And my ability to just not think about things scaled proportionately with how important that thing was to think about. Meaning, I was great at ignoring bills and hopelessly unable to ignore mean things people said on the internet. “You know I am always onside with hiding from problems in the hope they’ll go away—”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Lucien,” said Oliver sharply.

It was a bit like what he was doing. But Oliver had been seeing a trained professional for nearly two years because of his parents so I did my best to be sensitive and not poke anything that might be the emotional equivalent of a bear or a mine—or a bear-mine, which would be a bear that would maul you and then explode. I held my hands up in a don’t-maul-me-or-explode way. “All right. Just…this is supposed to be about our happiness. And so you need to think about…that. Instead of, you know, what your mum and dad will say.”

Some of the tension faded from Oliver’s jaw. “I will. Thank you.”

Well, that was super convincing. But I knew it was all I was going to get.

“In any case,” he went on, making a visible effort to smile, “I presume Odile was far more enthusiastic.”

Oh, fuck me with a rusty coat hanger. I’d somehow managed to not tell her. She was going to kill me. Oliver was going… Okay, he wouldn’t kill me. But he might take it as a bad sign, ring or no ring, that I’d forgotten to mention the most important thing in my life to the most important person in my life. Joint most important person.

Second most important person?

“Yeah,” I overcompensated. “She was really excited.”

For whatever reason—presumably because he still had a head full of disapproval—Oliver didn’t notice that I was talking like I was reading cue cards. “I’m glad. I assume we’ll be seeing her tomorrow?”

Oh, fuck me with a rusty coat hanger covered in sriracha sauce.

We saw Mum and Judy a couple of times a month, so I should probably have thought of that before pretending to Oliver that I’d told them something I hadn’t told them, and needed to tell them in person, and wouldn’t see them in person until I next saw them with Oliver.

And all I needed to have said was, Actually, I was waiting until we next went to visit so we could tell her together.

But instead I was starting my engagement drowning in lies.





THE NEXT DAY WE WERE standing in Pucklethroop-in-the-Wold waiting for my mum to let us in, and I still hadn’t worked out what to do about the fact that I’d lied to Oliver.

The door opened. “‘All?, Luc, mon—” was as far as Mum managed to get before I threw my arms around her.

“Mum!” I cried, then whispered, “Oliver and I are getting married, and he thinks I’ve already told you,” desperately into her ear.

She made an ah, I understand noise and, letting go of me, immediately embraced Oliver with a loud, “Congratulations on the wedding. I was so pleased to hear about it when Luc told me that it was happening, which he did several days ago.”

“Thank you, Odile,” said Oliver.

“Oh, you will have to stop calling me that now you are getting married. You will have to call me Maman.”

This was going to be a long evening. “Mum, I don’t even call you Maman.”

“That,” she glowered at me Gallically, “is because you have no respect for your heritage.”

I was about to deliver a fantastically clever and witty reply when the sound of barking echoed from inside and four ecstatic spaniels burst from the hallway. I say ecstatic, but they were, of course, ecstatic to see Oliver, who was great with dogs, and not at all interested in seeing me, who they’d known their entire lives.

On the plus side, Oliver did look incredibly cute kneeling down to receive an armful of fur and puppy-dog eyes.

“Charles,” he said, bestowing scratches, pets, and scruffles, “Camilla, Michael of Kent. Hello, Eugenie, old girl; who’s a good girl, you are, yes you are.” I never worked out how Oliver or, for that matter, anyone else, was able to tell the dogs apart.

Once Oliver had finished greeting the woofles as he occasionally and embarrassingly called them, all seven of us went through to the front room.

“Judy,” Mum announced, “look who is here. It is Luc and his fiancé, Oliver, who, as you know, he has told us he is engaged to.”