Boyfriend Material(128)

“If you know this man,” said the receptionist slowly, “wouldn’t you have his phone number?”

“I guess I was worried he wouldn’t pick up.”

“But you thought he’d be fine with you showing up at his hotel with no warning and an entourage?”

I turned away from the desk. “Bridge, why did you think this plan would work?”

“It shows you’re going above and beyond.” She tripped forward to join me. “It shows how much you care.”

“Yeah.” That was Priya. “I’m coming to the conclusion that it mostly shows you didn’t think this through.”

“I have to agree,” said the receptionist.

Sheepishly, I pulled out my phone and rang Oliver. It went to voicemail, but since there was no message I could conceivably leave, I hung up quickly. “I think he might be screening me.”

Desk guy folded his arms in a smug, vindicated way. “You see, this is why we don’t give out information about guests.”

“But this is, like, love and shit,” I tried.

“This is, like”—the receptionist was still visibly unmoved—“my job and shit.”

“Don’t worry,” cried Bridge. “I’ll call him. Nobody screens me.”

James Royce-Royce struck a despairing pose. “I try to, pumpkin. But you never take no answer for an answer.”

“She once left me thirty-seven consecutive voicemails,” agreed James Royce-Royce, “about a shop she’d found that was still charging 15p for Freddos.”

“Really? Where?” asked the receptionist.

Bridge gave him a haughty glare. “I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to give that information away.”

“Can you please”—I tried very hard to sound calm and in control—“call Oliver for me.”

“Don’t worry.” Bridge was already rummaging in her bag. “I’ve got this. I’ll be incredibly subtle.”

“Well,” said Priya, “we’re fucked.”

There was a brief pause as Bridge unlocked her phone. And she’d been right—Oliver wasn’t screening her. Which was good under the circumstances but also made me feel like shit.

“Hi,” she trilled, not, I’ll be honest, entirely convincingly. “I just thought I’d check in for no reason… No, everything’s fine… No, no crisis… How’s Durham… What do you mean you’re not in Durham… Oh. That’s nice… Been lovely talking to you. Bye-bye.”

“Okay.” I stared at Bridget, reminding myself she was my best friend, and you didn’t wish your best friend would fall into an open sewer and die. “What was that about him not being in Durham?”

“Apparently”—Bridge squirmed—“he changed his mind. About the job. And, obviously, he must have cancelled his hotel room as well.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” put in the receptionist. “But please leave.”

Priya threw her hands in the air. “You fuckers owe me dinner. Or I’m driving back on my fucking own.”

“Can you at least stop saying ‘fuck’ in the lobby?” asked the receptionist in the plaintive tones of a man who, at this stage, would take what he could get.

“The restaurant here looks perfectly acceptable,” piped up James Royce-Royce. “All their ingredients are apparently sourced within twenty miles of the hotel, and I do like a good side of local beef.”

“Quick question.” I turned back to the receptionist. “Would our going and buying dinner in your restaurant make you less annoyed with us or more annoyed with us?”

The receptionist shrugged. “Right now, I mostly want you away from my desk.”

“Yay.” Bridge did an actual dance. “Food adventure.”

She and I ended up splitting the bill between the two of us since this had been entirely her idea and, theoretically, for my benefit.

After we’d had starters, mains, desserts, and Priya had made a point of ordering coffee, we bundled back into her truck and started the journey home—always the worst part of any road trip, especially one with a gigantic anticlimax in the middle.

“It’s a good sign really.” As ever, Bridge was the first to break a perfectly satisfying miserable silence.

James Royce-Royce lifted his head from James Royce-Royce’s shoulder. “Go on, darling. Spin this one for us.”

“Well, don’t you see? He was so sad when he broke up with Luc that he had to run away to the other side of the country. But when he thought about the reality of leaving you behind, he couldn’t do it.”

“Alternatively,” I said, “he was in a bad place because he’d just got out of a weird not-quite-fake relationship and his parents had been dicks to him so he thought about doing something dramatic. Then realised it was stupid, because his house, his job, and all his friends are in London. Where he’s perfectly happy without me.”

Tom had been half dozing in the corner, but now he sat up. “Is it at all possible there’s a middle ground here? Like maybe whether Oliver wants to get back with Luc has nothing to do with whether he wants to move to Durham?”

“So you’re saying”—I glanced at Tom over Bridge’s shoulder—“that Oliver isn’t happy or unhappy without me because I’m completely irrelevant?”