Boyfriend Material(127)

Priya frowned into the mirror. “Thanks for that speculation into the scale of my masturbatory habits.”

“Would you rather I said a tiny wank? A micro wank? A wankette?”

I covered my face with my hands. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m walking to Durham.”

“There, there.” Bridget offered me a consoling pat. “It’s going to be fine. Oliver really likes you. And you really like him. You’ve just been really bad at making each other believe that.”

“Actually he’d done a great job convincing me. Right up to the point where he said it was over and walked out of my flat.”

“He’s scared, Luc.”

“Yeah, I got that. Credit me with some emotional intelligence.”

“But you’ve also got to understand that he’s spent his entire life trying to be the perfect son and the perfect boyfriend, and it never seems to work out for him.”

I made an angry noise. “Yes, I got that too. I did pay some attention while we were dating. The difference is, his parents are dicks. And his boyfriends, I assume, have also been dicks.”

“Some of them were quite nice. The boyfriends, I mean. His parents are awful and hate me.”

“Oh how could anyone hate you, Bridget?” asked James Royce-Royce, with an almost inhuman lack of sarcasm.

She thought about it for a moment. “They seem to get very cross when you’re late. And it’s not like I’m late on purpose. Things come up. And I once asked for a Malibu and Coke at a party, and they looked at me like I’d asked for a glass of baby’s blood.”

“Yep.” I nodded. “Sounds like them.”

“So you can see,” Bridge pressed on, “why he’s not very good at having relationships.”

Even though Oliver wasn’t here, and it was the mildest possible criticism, I still felt a strange need to defend him. “He was amazing at them when he was with me. He’s the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”

“That,” offered Priya, “is because you’re a titanic romantic disaster with incredibly low standards.”

I gave her a look. “You know we really do only hang out with you for your truck.”

“Stop doing banter.” Bridge pounded her fist on the nearest solid object which was, unfortunately, me. “This is important. We’re sorting out Luc’s love life, and his low standards aren’t the problem.”

I was about to protest that I didn’t have low standards. But I was in this mess because I’d told my friends I needed literally anyone who would go out with me. “So what is the problem?”

“You can’t feel close to someone,” Bridge went on, “when you’re spending the whole time trying to be what you think they want.”

“But he is what I want.” Except then I remembered Oliver telling me he wasn’t who I thought he was. “Oh fuck. Isn’t he?”

Priya’s eyebrows did something very aggressive. “We’re about a third of the way to Durham, mate. He better fucking had be.”

I was so confused. Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe all this stuff about expectations and pretending and who people really were was so much smoke and bullshit. And maybe I’d just done a terrible job of showing Oliver that what made me happy wasn’t the V-cut or the French toast or the socially acceptable career: it was…him. Maybe it was that simple.

“Yeah,” I said. “He is.”





Chapter 51


It probably said something about Oliver’s sense of humour—even when he was apparently in the middle of an existential crisis—that he’d chosen to stay in a place called the Honest Lawyer Hotel. Going by my complete lack of historical knowledge or interest, it looked like a converted coaching house, all sash windows, sloping tile roofs, and chimney stacks. There was a blossom tree in full bloom out front, which made it, in theory at least, a great location to try and romance somebody back into your life. And, for that matter, county.

We stuck the truck in their carpark and piled through the front door, looking in no way suspicious.

“Um. Hello,” I said to the be-suited man behind the desk—who frankly, and fairly, already seemed to have had enough of my shit.

“Can I help you?” A pause. “Any or all of you?”

“I’m looking for Oliver Blackwood. I think he’s staying here.”

He got that weary expression that people in service industries got when you were asking them to do things that definitely weren’t their jobs. “I’m afraid I can’t give you information about guests.”

“But,” I pounced, “he is a guest.”

“I can’t give you information about whether someone is a guest or not.”

“He’s not a film star or anything. He’s just my ex-boyfriend.”

“That doesn’t make a difference. I’m not legally allowed to tell you who’s staying here.”

“Oh. Well. Please?”

“No.”

“I’ve come a really long way.”

“And”—to give the receptionist his due, he was being way more patient than I would have been—“you brought all these people with you?”

“We’re moral support,” Bridget explained.