Boyfriend Material(17)

“Luke?” Somehow I could always tell when people pronounced it with a k and an e. “It seems a shame when Lucien is such a beautiful name.”

“Actually that’s the English pronunciation.”

“Surely it’s not”—he flinched—“Looshan as the Americans would have it?”

“No. God no. My mother’s French.”

“Ah. Lucien, then.” He said it perfectly, too, with the half-swallowed softness of the final syllable, smiling at me—the first full smile I’d seen from him, and shocking in its sweetness. “Vraiment? Vous parlez fran?ais?”

There’s really no excuse for what happened next. I think maybe I just wanted him to keep smiling at me. Because for some reason I said, “Oui oui. Un peu.”

And then, to my horror, he rattled off God knew what.

Leaving me to scrape the bottom of the barrel of my GCSE French, for which I’d received a D. “Um…um… Je voudrais aller au cinema avec mes amis? Ou est la salle de bain?”

Utterly perplexed, he pointed. So I was obliged to go the bathroom. And when I slunk back, he immediately confronted me with “You don’t speak French at all, do you?”

“No.” I hung my head. “I mean, my mother used both when I was growing up, but I still turned out stubbornly monolingual.”

“Then why didn’t you just say that?”

“I…don’t know. I guess I assumed you didn’t speak French either?”

“Why on earth would I imply I could speak French, when I couldn’t?”

I stuffed a teetering forkful of pie into my mouth. “You’re right. That would be a deranged thing to do.”

Another of our silences. On a scale of uncomfortable to horrible, I would probably rate this as unpleasant, and I didn’t know what to do. I’d definitely succeeded in swinging the needle away from “dangerously intimate.” Unfortunately it was now pointing squarely at “not a chance in hell.”

I half thought about kicking him. Just to see how he’d react. But that was probably about as weird as randomly pretending I spoke French. God. This was why I was never going to get a proper boyfriend or even a semi-acceptable temporary substitute. I’d lost whatever capacity I ever had to relate to people in a romantic way.

“How come you’re so fluent?” I asked in a subcompetent attempt to salvage the evening.

“My, ah”—he poked sheepishly at the remains of his vegetables—“family have a holiday home in Provence.”

Of course they did. “Of course you do.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I shrugged. “Just, I can imagine it. No wonder you grew up all nice and put-together and perfect.” And way too good for me.

“I’ve certainly never claimed to be perfect, Lucien.”

“Oh stop it with the Lucien, will you?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you didn’t like it.”

Except I did like it. That was the problem. I wasn’t here to like things. Liking things was trouble. “I told you before,” I snarled, “it’s Luc. Just Luc.”

“Noted.”

A few minutes later, with me looking out the window and Oliver looking at his hands, the waiter came to clear our plates. And a few minutes after that, a lemon posset, topped with rhubarb arrived. It was exquisitely simple—this little white ramekin full of sunshine-yellow cream, topped by a pile of pinkish spirals. I felt awful.

“Nothing for you?” I indicated the empty space in front of Oliver.

“I’m not a fan of desserts. But I hope you’ll like this one. It’s very good.”

“If you’re not a fan, how do you know it’s”—I wriggled my fingers into air quotes—“‘very good’?”

“I… That is… I…”

“Do you want to share it with me?” It was the closest I could get, right then, to an apology. Because it wasn’t like I could say, Sorry I’m so desperate for this to work, and so terrified of this working that I’m lashing out at you over things like you being quite nice, and not wholly unattractive, and having had an ordinary childhood.

He was eyeing the lemon posset the way I’ve always wanted someone to look at me. “Maybe I could have a little? Let me ask for more cutlery.”

“No need.”

Okay. It was, at the eleventh and a half hour, time to get my sexy on. I broke the pristine surface of the cream, mounding it perfectly onto the spoon, along with a few pieces of rhubarb. And, holding it out to Oliver, I offered him my very best, most hopeful smile. Whereupon, he took the spoon from my fingers, crushing me so utterly I couldn’t even enjoy the way a taste of lemon posset made his whole face go dreamy with bliss.

“Thank you,” he said, returning the damn spoon.

I plunged it violently into the pudding, shovelling what remained into my mouth as if it was my mortal enemy.

Oliver watched me, confused once again. “Should I order another one?”

“No, I’m good. Let’s get out of here.”

“I…I’ll get the bill.”

God. I was undateable. Genuinely fucking undateable. No wonder Oliver had practically vomited when that randomer at Bridge’s party had thought we were going out. No wonder he’d dumped me in bed and run away screaming that time I’d tried to hit on him. No wonder he didn’t even trust me to put a spoon of pudding in his mouth.