Boyfriend Material(67)

Chapter 26


Partly out of a desire not to look like a terrible son and partly because I needed a change of scenery, I persuaded Mum to let me deal with the cleanup. It wasn’t until I got into the kitchen that I remembered quite what carnage my mum was capable of creating, especially when she was making the special curry.

“I can see where you get it from,” said Oliver, coming in behind me, with Eugenie trailing behind him.

I dumped the bowls next to the sink, which was full of other things that should in no way have been necessary to produce anything like what we’d just eaten. “I’m sorry.” I kept on staring at the washing up, too scared to look at Oliver, in case he was horrified or disappointed or confused or contemptuous. “This is awful, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s not awful. They’re your family, and you clearly all care about each other a lot.”

“Yeah but we’ve talked about my dad’s penis, served you a literally inedible nonvegetarian curry, and then I had a fight with my mum I really wish you hadn’t seen.”

His arms went round me, in that enfoldy sort of way he was so good at, and he pressed against my back. “It’s certainly very different from what I’m used to. But I don’t…I don’t think it’s bad. It’s honest.”

“I shouldn’t have freaked out about Jon Fleming.”

“You had a slightly emotional disagreement that I could tell came from a good place.”

I let myself lean into him, his chin settling neatly onto my shoulder as if it belonged there. “You can’t want any of this.”

“If I didn’t want this, I wouldn’t have come.”

“It must be so weird to you, though.” Turning, I discovered too late that it brought us way too close, way too quickly. Probably I should have moved away, but between the sink and the currypocalypse, there was nowhere for me to go. And, anyway, I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to. “I mean, you have two fully functional parents, and neither of them have ever been in jail or on TV. I bet you don’t row in public or ask if people are in the KGB two seconds after meeting them.”

He laughed softly, his breath warm and sweet against my lips—oddly sweet, actually, considering the curry. Must have been the banana. “No, we don’t. And I admit, I’m quite glad we don’t. But it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong you do. People express love in different ways.”

“And apparently I do it by being a dick.”

“Then”—God, his mouth right now wasn’t stern in the slightest—“you must care for me very deeply.”

“I…” I was actually dying. I was going to blush myself to death.

“Boys,” bellowed Mum, “we are tired of waiting for you, and we are starting our engines. You do not want to miss the entrances. They are a very important part of the experience.”

We startled away from each other, almost guiltily, and hurried back to the living room.

“Come, come.” Mum waved us onto the sofa. “This is my first viewing party. I am very proud.”

I couldn’t quite imagine anything worse than sitting between my mum and my boyfriend—I mean, my fake boyfriend who I might have accidentally spurted feels onto in the kitchen—on the sofa, while we watched RuPaul’s Drag Race with her best friend and four spaniels named after minor royals. So I sat on the floor instead, slightly closer to Oliver’s leg than was probably strictly necessary. Also I didn’t quite have the heart to tell Mum that me, Judy, and Oliver didn’t really add up to a viewing party. We were more like some people watching television.

Apparently Mum and Judy were up to season six already, which shouldn’t have surprised me because, as far as I could tell, Mum and Judy’s standard evening was Netflix and chill, only not a euphemism. At least, I assumed it wasn’t a euphemism. Probably best not think too much about that. They got all of one queen in before the running commentary started, and for the next two full episodes, Judy and Mum were ranking the death drops, making inaccurate predictions about who would go out, and asking us earnestly which boys we thought looked nicest.

Mum paused before episode three autoplayed. “How are enjoying the Drag Race, Oliver? You are not too confused?”

“No,” he said, “I think I’m keeping up.”

“We should probably explain that the woman who does the judging at the end and the man in the workroom at the start are actually the same person.”

I put my head in my hands.

“At the beginning, we thought it was like Project Runway and the man at the beginning is like Tim Gunn and the woman at the end is like Heidi Klum. But then Judy realised that they seem to have the same name, and that because it is a show all about men putting on dresses, she probably is actually the same man only in a dress.”

I looked up again. “Nothing gets past you, does it, Mum?”

“Yes,” agreed Oliver, ever polite, “the name did tip me off.”

“Seriously, Oliver,” I asked, nervously, “how are you finding the show? We can leave at any time. Any time at all.”

He made a hmming noise. “We don’t have to go. I’m enjoying myself. And the show is…interesting.”

“You are so right, Oliver.” Mum turned to him enthusiastically. Odds were about 60/40 in favour of her next line being wildly inappropriate. “I had not known there were so many different sorts of gays. In my day we had Elton John and Boy George, and that was it.”