Boyfriend Material(4)

“You really do own your illiteracy, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking about moving to America and running for public office.”

He laughed and kissed me, staying close this time, body pressed to mine, breath against my skin. “Okay. Weirdest place you’ve ever had sex.”

“Is that for number eight?” I asked, with a bleaty laugh that was meant to show I was incredibly cool and unconcerned.

“Number eight what?”

“You know, twelve celebrities’ kids who like to fuck in weird places. Number eight will shock you.”

“Wait.” He froze. “Do you honestly think I’m kissing you for a listicle?”

“No. I mean…no. No.”

He gazed at me for a long, horrible moment. “You do, don’t you?”

“I told you it was complicated.”

“That’s not complicated, that’s insulting.”

“I… It’s…” I’d pulled this back before. I could pull it back again. “It wasn’t meant to be. It’s not about you.”

This time, there was no ear tweaking. “How is it not about me if you genuinely have this concern about my possible behaviour?”

“I just have to be careful.” For the record, I sounded extremely dignified when I said this. And not at all pathetic.

“What the hell would I even write? I Met a Has-Been’s Kid at a Party? Celebrity’s Gay Son Is Gay Shock?”

“Well, it sounds like it’d be a step up from what you usually write.”

His mouth fell open, and I realised I might have gone the tiniest bit too far. “Wow. I was about to say I wasn’t sure which of us was the arsehole here, but thanks for clearing that up.”

“No, no,” I said quickly, “it was always me. Trust me, I know.”

“Really not sure that helps. I mean, I can’t figure out what’s worse. That you think I’d fuck a mildly famous person to get ahead. Or that you think if I was going to make such a profoundly degrading career choice, the person I’d pick to make it with was you.”

I swallowed. “All good points. Very well made.”

“Shit on a hot tin roof, I should have listened to Angie. You are a world of not worth it.”

He stalked off into the crowd, presumably to find someone less fucked up, leaving me alone with my lopsided bunny ears and a profound sense of personal failure. Although I guess I’d accomplished two things tonight: I’d successfully demonstrated my support for a man who in no way needed it, and I’d finally proved beyond all reasonable objection that nobody in their right mind would date me. I was a cagey, grumpy, paranoid mess who would find a way to ruin even the most basic human interaction.

I leaned against the bar and stared at the basement full of strangers having a far better time than me, at least two of whom were probably having a conversation right now about what a terrible human being I was. The way I saw it, I had two options. I could suck it up, act like an adult, find my actual friends, and try to make the best of the evening. Or I could run home, drink alone, and add this to the list of things I was unsuccessfully pretending had never happened.

Two seconds later, I was on the stairs.

Eight seconds later, I was out in the street.

And nineteen seconds later, I was tripping over my own feet and landing flat on my face in the gutter.

Well, wasn’t that just the ill-fitting crown on my inbred Hapsburg prince of an evening? And no way was it coming back to haunt me.





Chapter 2


It came back to haunt me.

And the way it haunted me was a Google alert that threatened to vibrate my phone off the bedside table. And, yes, I’m very aware that tracking what people are saying about you on the internet is generally the act of a tosser or a narcissist, or a narcissistic tosser, but I’d learned the hard way that it’s better to know what’s out there. I flailed, sending a different piece of vibrating technology—for gentlemen wishing to explore a more sophisticated kind of pleasure—spinning to the floor, and finally managed to close my fingers round my phone with all the grace of a teenager trying to hit second base.

I didn’t want to look. But if I didn’t, I was going to throw up the sticky mess of dread, hope, and uncertainty that had turned my insides to baby food. Probably it was less bad than I feared. Usually it was less bad than I feared. Except occasionally it…wasn’t. Peeping through my eyelashes like a small child braving an episode of Doctor Who from behind the sofa cushions, I checked my notifications.

And I could breathe again. It was okay. Though obviously in an ideal world, pictures of me lying in the gutter outside The Cellar in my bunny ears wouldn’t have been splashed across every third-rate gossip site from Celebitchy to Yeeeah. And in a truly ideal world my definition of okay wouldn’t have sunk quite that low. But, with my life being a never-ending pit of suck, my dismaydar has gone through some serious recalibrations over the years. I mean, at least the pictures showed me fully clothed and without anybody’s cock in my mouth. So, y’know, win.

Today’s nail in the coffin of my digital reputation had a strong “like father, like son” theme, because there’s a magic porridge pot’s worth of footage of Jon Fleming making a tit of himself out there. And I guess “Bad Boy Jonny’s Wild Child Son Collapses in Drugs Sex Booze Shame” is a better headline than “Man Trips Over in Street.” Sighing, I let my phone thunk to the floor. Turns out, the one thing worse than having a famous father who blew up his career like a champagne supernova is having a famous father who’s making a fucking comeback.