Boyfriend Material(89)

I’m not sure that narrows it down.

An uprising?

There was a pause. Anyone else would have been Googling, but Oliver was just typing. There’ve been several.

Yes. One of them. Rhys wants me to get some publicity for a friend of his and I said I would because you’ve made me a better person you bastard

My apologies. I didn’t mean to.

It’s fine. You can pay for it by making me look like I understand art

I’d love to, Lucien, but I have to work tonight.

Sorry. Not getting out if that easily. It’s on all week.

I am genuinely keen to go. Of course he was.

Weekend then?

We have Jennifer’s birthday. Followed quickly by: I mean I have Jennifer’s birthday, and you are invited to come but should not feel obligated. Followed quickly by: Of course you’ll be very welcome. They’d like to meet you.

Calm down. How about Friday?

Works for me.

Okay. On to trying to score some premium tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at a non-exorbitant price. I was beginning to think the box office was never going to get back to me when my phone rang.

“Hello, Luc O’Donnell speaking.”

“Hullo, Luc.” It was Alex from the front desk. Which meant somebody was trying to call me but there was about a 50 percent chance he’d already hung up on them. “Got a slightly queer chappy on the line for you. Okay if I transfer him?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Righto. Any idea how I…you know…do that?”

I didn’t sigh. I felt very proud of myself for not sighing. “Did you already press Transfer before you called my extension?”

“Yes. I remembered to do it that way around because I’ve got a clever mnemonic. I just remember the phrase Sic transit gloria mundi, then I remember that you press Transfer first because ‘transit’ is the second word in the old memory aid. Deuced thing is, I can’t remember what comes next.”

“Hang up.”

Alex seemed hurt. “Steady on, old chap, no need to be like that. Just because a fellow has a bit of a tricky time remembering how to use the telephone machine doesn’t mean you should just tell him to hang up out of nowhere.”

“If you hang up the phone,” I explained, “it will transfer automatically.”

“Really? That’s dashed clever on it. Thanks a jillion.”

“No problem. Thanks, Alex.”

There was the briefest click of a line reconnecting, and then Jon Fleming’s legend-of-rock voice rumbled down the line at me. “Hello, Luc. I don’t think Sunday went the way either of us wanted it to.”

That was the problem with reaching out to people. Sometimes they reached back. And while I was mostly trying to be a kinder, gentler, nicer person, Jon Fleming was the exception. “No fucking shit.”

“I’m back in London. I said I’d look you up.”

“Well, you have. Congratulations on partially following through on a commitment.”

“So how’ve you been?”

There was no way I was telling him about, well, anything. “Good, as it happens. Which, I should clarify, has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”

There was a slight pause. “I can see you’re still carrying a lot of anger with you. I was the sa—”

“Don’t even think about telling me you were the same when you were my age.”

“As time passes, you learn to be more accepting of things that aren’t as you’d wish they were.”

“Did you want to talk”—I cradled my office phone awkwardly against my shoulder as I ran down a list of other auction possibilities—“or are you practicing sound bites for the next time you’re on Loose Women?”

“I was wondering if you’d be free to meet up while I’m in town.”

Oh fuck. I’d just about made my peace with the idea that I’d reached out and it hadn’t worked and I was never going to see Jon Fleming again. And the fucker hadn’t even given me that. “Um. Depends. How long are you here for?”

“There’s no hurry. We’ll be filming for the next month or so.”

I glanced around my office, which was a carnage of pre–Beetle Drive prep. “I don’t suppose,” I tried, since by all rights there should be some upside to having a famous father, “you want to come to a fundraiser for the charity I work for.”

“I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you one-on-one. I’d like an opportunity to set things right.”

“Look, I…”

Note to self: Don’t start sentences you have no idea how to end. I absentmindedly flicked the release, and my swivel chair sunk about three inches—pretty much matching my mood right down to the weary hiss. Basically, I had no idea what a “setting things right” conversation with Jon Fleming would even begin to look like, but I had a creeping suspicion that it would end with him feeling better and me feeling worse.

I’d obviously left a really audible thinking gap because he said, “You don’t have to decide immediately,” in this tone that made it sound like he was doing me a massive fucking favour.

“No, it’s fine. We can get dinner or something. I’ll find out when Oliver’s available.”