Husband Material (London Calling #2)(79)

Fuck. It was a double-sigher. This was going to be bad. “We’re at a wedding, we’re engaged to be married ourselves, and you’ve told me you think I have internalised homophobia.”

Well, that was worth the double sigh. “I’m not sure I did.”

“You did.”

“Okay but”—I tried to smile but it came out as a grimace—“I once told you that you had an eating disorder, and you found that very romantic.”

He didn’t smile back. “They’re not the same and you know it.”

I nodded, reaching a new peak of feel-awful-ness. “I do know.

And, again, I’m sorry.”

We were silent a while, Oliver continuing to idly search for the intended path through the maze, while I kept pace with him on the straightforward one.

“I think,” he said finally, “what I find most difficult is that I can’t tell if you’re right or not. Or what it would mean if you were. Or, indeed, if you weren’t.”

I offered another grimace. “I’m glad you’ve got that therapist.”

Still, he didn’t smile back.

“Um,” I asked, concluding—as I should have concluded a while ago—that I couldn’t joke my way out of this one. “What does this mean? For, like, us?”

Oliver stopped and met my eyes. His had gone all dark grey and sad. Go me. I was the worst. “I’m not completely sure. But I don’t think it means anything for us. I think it just means something for me.”

“Okay.” I felt bad for being relieved this was an Oliver thing, not an us thing or me thing. But I was relieved. “So…what does it mean for you?”

He sighed for a third time. “That you’re right: it’s fortunate I’ve got a therapist.”

“And…and…the wedding?” Oh my God, Oliver was having some kind of serious emotional something. And I was all, but my special day. I was turning into a groomzilla.

“If anything,” Oliver murmured, “it should make things easier.

You have your preferences, and I’m…I’m interrogating my own.”

“What?” I nearly tripped over an ornamental hedgehog. “No. This is…this is not what I meant to happen. I just wanted… Like, I don’t know. Maybe a rainbow balloon arch. Not to make you have a complete crisis of identity.”

And at last he smiled. “If it helps, I think the identity crisis was long overdue. Although I will say that a rainbow balloon arch still sounds dreadful.”

“Mr. & Mr. table confetti?”

“Twee.”

“Rose-gold penis straws?”

Oliver laughed. “Tasteless, phallocentric, cisnormative, and the kind of thing you’d have at a bachelor party, not a wedding.”

“A customised portrait where it’s two angels embracing but the angels have our faces.”

That earned me a worried look. “Suspiciously specific.”

“I found it on a website. It’s really cute. In, I should stress, an intentionally kitsch way.”

“You know the word kitsch comes from—”

I did know, we’d been dating for two years and he’d told me before. “Yes, yes, it comes from volkitsch which was a central part of Nazi ideology. I like to think we’re reclaiming it. Like queer and bitch.”

“You know”—Oliver folded his arms—“saying you’re reclaiming something doesn’t actually give you standing to reclaim it or make it reclaimed?”

I deployed a sigh of my own. “Yes. I know.” And then, because I was still a bit shaken by quite how badly this had gone, I heard myself asking needily, “So…are we…are we good?”

“Always,” he said.

And then he stepped over the little maze wall to kiss me.





A FEW DAYS LATER, OLIVER tried to wake me gently with “I’ve made French toast.”

But firstly, I wasn’t sleeping, I was just lying there in sulky dread.

And secondly, it was definitely a bribe. Today was the day we were seeing his parents, and like any sensible person, I did not want to see his parents. “There are some things,” I said, “that you can’t make better with French toast. You’re making French toast worse by association.”

“Well, I can throw it away if—”

“No.” I cast off the covers and made a grab for the plate. “No. I will eat it. But I want you to know that I am eating in the full knowledge that this is a bribe.”

Oliver looked faintly guilty. As well he might. “I prefer to think of it as me doing something thoughtful for you because I know you’re going to do something thoughtful for me.”

“Yeah, that’s literally what a bribe is.”

“No, a bribe is contingent. A bribe comes with expectation. This came after you’d agreed to do the thing I wanted so it’s legally a thank-you gift.”

Moodily, I munched through the incredibly delicious French toast, trying not to resent how incredibly delicious it was. But it was incredibly delicious. Dammit.

Oliver cleared his throat. “While I always enjoy watching you pout and/or enjoy my cooking, we are going to need to hurry a little bit.”

I mopped up the remains of the maple syrup with the last corner of the toast and inched it, slowly, towards my mouth. “We’ve got plenty of time. As long as you’re happy to wear the shirt you’re wearing and not planning to cycle through sixty-five other identical shirts before we leave.”