Boyfriend Material(29)

“Then what sort of cases do you work on?”

“Whatever comes. I don’t get to choose. It’s often rather banal.”

I shot him a quizzical look. “I thought this was your big passion.”

“It is.”

“You just described it as rather banal.”

“I meant, it can seem banal to other people. If your only experience of the law is television courtroom dramas, the reality that I spend my days defending teenagers who were caught shoplifting nail varnish and small-time criminals who’ve overreached themselves can be somewhat disappointing.” He stood and started gathering up the empty plates and bowls. “Socially, it’s a bit of a lose-lose. Either people think I spend all day putting killers and rapists back on the street for the money, or they think I’m terribly dull.”

Without thinking about it, I rose to help, our hands tangling among the brinnerware. “Maybe we can split the difference and say you’re spending your days putting teenage shoplifters back on the street for the money.”

“Maybe we can split the difference and say I spend my days making sure a single error of judgment doesn’t ruin a young person’s life.”

I flicked a stray blueberry at him, and it bounced off his nose.

“Your point being?” he asked.

Clearing up. I was very busy clearing up. “You…you really do care about this stuff, don’t you?”

“And that observation led you to assault me with soft fruit?”

“Objection. Badgering the witness.”

“You know that’s not a thing in this country?”

I gasped. “Then what do you do when counsel is testifying?”

“You either trust the judge to know what they’re doing—which they usually do, even the mad ones—or you very politely say something along the lines of ‘M’lud, I believe the honourable counsel for the prosecution is testifying.’”

“And to think”—here I heaved a deep sigh—“I was imagining you leaping up and laying the legal smackdown on the smug suits from the AG’s office.”

“Do you mean sterling public servants from the Crown Prosecution Service?”

“Dammit, Oliver.” His name tasted bright and sharp on my tongue. Sugar and cinnamon. “You’re kind of sucking the fun out of the criminal justice system.”

Very deliberately, he picked up another blueberry and launched it at me. It pinged off my eyebrow.

“What was that for?” I asked with what I hoped came across as feigned petulance.

His mouth was curling into a smile as slow and warm as maple syrup. “You deserved it.”





Chapter 13


Oliver washed up, and I mostly got in the way, which was how I handled domestic tasks.

“Um,” I said, hooking my thumbs in my pockets in a futile attempt to look casual. “Thanks for the food. And for not dumping me and stuff. I suppose I should…”

Oliver also hooked his thumbs in his pockets. Then immediately took them out again, as if he had no idea why he’d done it. “You don’t have to. I mean if you aren’t… There are some things we should probably discuss. About logistics.”

This was more the Oliver I’d been expecting. I guess I’d got a temporary upgrade on account of my dad having cancer. “Logistics, huh? You’ll turn a boy’s head with talk like that.”

“I’m not trying to turn your head, Lucien. I’m trying to make sure this doesn’t blow up in both of our faces.”

I made an insouciant gesture that involved knocking over the tiny vase of flowers that Oliver had just replaced on the table. “Shit. Sorry. But, how complicated is this? We carry on with our lives and tell anyone who asks that we’re dating.”

“That’s rather my point, though. Do we tell anyone who asks? What about Bridget?”

“Yeah”—I tried to fix the flowers and failed utterly—“she kind of already knows the truth.”

“And were you going to mention this at any point? Or were you just going to let me make a fool of myself in front of her as I naively committed to the pretence we were both supposed to be maintaining.”

“Bridge is the exception. We can’t keep secrets from Bridge. She’s my straight best friend. There’s a code.”

Oliver leaned past me and made two small adjustments to the flowers, transforming them from shabby and accusing to radiant and lovely. “But to everyone else we’re really dating?”

“Absolutely. I mean, there’s a guy at work who’s sort of in on it.”

“A guy at the work for whose benefit this whole deception is being practiced?”

“Well, it was his idea, so it was unavoidable. Besides”—I nearly got insouciant again, but then thought better of it—“he’s got the brains of a raspberry pavlova. He’s probably already forgotten.”

He sighed. “Fine. So to everyone except Bridget and this gentleman you work with, we’re really dating?”

“I can’t lie to my mum obviously.”

Another sigh. “So to everyone except Bridget, a gentleman you work with, and your mother, we’re really dating?”

“Well, my other friends might not buy it. You know, because I’ve told them all I hate you. And after years of my love life being a car crash in a dumpster fire it’s pretty fucking convenient I’ve ended up in a stable, long-term relationship just when I needed to do exactly that to not be fired.”