Husband Material (London Calling #2)(89)

“Thank you, Bridget,” he said again.

“You have to reach out to people,” she went on. “You can’t lock everything up inside forever, or you’ll end up like Luc.”

I’d been in the process of returning the knife to the kitchen, but now I swung back. “Oi. I’m doing great these days and it only took me, like, five years.”

“I’m not talking to you, Luc. I’m talking to Oliver.” Bridge gave him one last squeeze. “We’re here for you.”

Priya swung her kit bag over her shoulder. “She’s here for you. I don’t know you that well so I think it would be weird.”

“I appreciate it,” said Oliver, still incapacitated with politeness.

Eventually, Priya dragged Bridge out the door, leaving me alone with the distant, emotionally distraught boyfriend I wasn’t totally sure wanted to see me. And having spent a week wishing Oliver was here so I could do something, I found myself wishing I knew what that something actually was.

We stared at each other like every easy habit we’d built up over the last few years suddenly didn’t count.

“Sorry”—Oliver cast a weary glance around my flat—“I think I interrupted…something.”

I couldn’t work out if telling him I’d had an I Was Sad Without You party would be reassuring or guilt-trippy. “We were just hanging out. I mean…” I gazed at him helplessly. “Like, how are you?”

He was silent for a couple of months. “I’m tired. And I…and I…”

“Do you hate me?” I blurted out. “Did I ruin your relationship with your father? Did we leave everything in a bad place? Are we broken now? And I’m making it all about me?”

“Honestly, you are making it a little all about you.” I thought he was trying to smile, but I might have just been wanting him to really, really hard.

“Fuck. Shit. Sorry. Do I at least get self-awareness points for realising that?”

“That’s making it slightly more all about you.”

I cringed. “Sorry. I suck.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, he almost laughed. “You don’t suck, Lucien. I realise I’ve probably been…worrying recently.

And I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

Oh God, his dad was dead and he was being reassuring. I did not deserve this man in any way. “No, no. You’ve got to…let yourself…take your time and feel your feels or whatever. And this must be so fucked up.”

“Yes.” There was something in his voice—something more there than when he’d come in. “I suspect I’m still working out quite how fucked up it is.”

That had only half been what I meant. “And, well, having a massive fight before you went couldn’t have helped.”

“It wasn’t ideal.” He’d stopped smiling, but it didn’t seem like he was going to dump me on the spot, which was the closest thing to a win I felt I could reasonably expect.

“I hope,” I tried, “it wasn’t in your head too much. Like, I know we got kind of heated and it might have felt like I don’t…like I’m not…like I’m not on your side. But I am. And I’m totally here for you and stuff, even if we’re fighting. You do…you do know that, right?”

For a moment, Oliver looked like he was wrestling with something, but at last he said, “I sometimes let myself forget but, in general, I do.”

It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but there was a mild tinkle to it.

“I think,” he went on, “we both said some things that we shouldn’t have, but perhaps they needed saying anyway.”

I couldn’t tell if that was ominous or comforting. “Needed saying?”

He gave a sad little shrug. “This may be just another habit of mind I’ve inherited from my parents, but I tend to believe that the things which feel worst are the things which feel truest. That doesn’t mean they always are. But…I’ve been thinking about what you said and…”

“And?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.

“And”—his face got all blank and exhausted again—“I don’t have any answers.”

“That’s okay,” I said quickly.

“I confess, it bothers me somewhat. But I’m also aware that now is not the best time for me to be interrogating my values for authenticity. I should probably bury my father first.”

I felt beyond bad for him. I mean, we’d had an argument over something that, in retrospect, was completely fucking trivial. So what if I liked rainbows and balloons and he liked podcasts and hanging out with straight people? All that mattered was that we loved each other and his dad was dead, and here was Oliver still steadfastly trying to become a better person because of some bullshit I’d yelled at him a week ago. I gave a kind of can-we-hug-now flail. “I’m really glad you came back.”

“I wasn’t going to live at my mother’s.”

“I meant emotionally, you doink.”

Crossing the room, he pulled me into his arms and we hugged for an embarrassingly long time. “I missed you,” he whispered.

“I missed you too,” I whispered back. “And I’m so sorry things are shit for you.”