Page 154 of Boyfriend Material
“You’re right.” Thank God Tom was on my side. “Standing around and watching would be a bit ridiculous. Let’s stop at a Welcome Break and grab some popcorn first.”
Priya grinned. “I’d high-five you right now, but I like my truck far too much to take my hands off the wheel.”
“I don’t even know what I’m going to say to him,” I muttered, “and, Bridge, if you tell me to tell him I loooooooove him one more time, I will shove you out of this vehicle.”
That earned me a Level Seven Bridget Pout. “Don’t be mean. I’m supporting you. And, besides, ‘I love you’ is all you should have to say.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”
“It’s all Tom had to say to me.”
“For the record”—this was Tom—“I said quite a lot of other things. About how sorry I was for hooking up with your best friend—no offence, Luc.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s fine. Tell me to my face what a mistake I am.”
“Point is,” interrupted Bridget, “it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t listening to anything after the ‘I love you’ bit.”
Tom laughed and pulled her close. “Idolove you.”
“Oi.” Priya banged the wheel. “The only person who’s allowed to fuck in my truck is me. I mean me, and whoever I’m fucking.”
“Yes, we’d inferred that, darling,” remarked James Royce-Royce. “Otherwise you’d just be lying in the back seat having a massive wank.”
Priya frowned into the mirror. “Thanks for that speculation into the scale of my masturbatory habits.”
“Would you rather I said a tiny wank? A micro wank? A wankette?”
I covered my face with my hands. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m walking to Durham.”
“There, there.” Bridget offered me a consoling pat. “It’s going to be fine. Oliver really likes you. And you really like him. You’ve just been really bad at making each other believe that.”
“Actually he’d done a great job convincing me. Right up to the point where he said it was over and walked out of my flat.”
“He’s scared, Luc.”
“Yeah, I got that. Credit me with some emotional intelligence.”
“But you’ve also got to understand that he’s spent his entire life trying to be the perfect son and the perfect boyfriend, and it never seems to work out for him.”
I made an angry noise. “Yes, I got that too. I did pay some attention while we were dating. The difference is, his parents are dicks. And his boyfriends, I assume, have also been dicks.”
“Some of them were quite nice. The boyfriends, I mean. His parents are awful and hate me.”
“Oh how could anyone hate you, Bridget?” asked James Royce-Royce, with an almost inhuman lack of sarcasm.
She thought about it for a moment. “They seem to get very cross when you’re late. And it’s not like I’m late on purpose. Things come up. And I once asked for a Malibu and Coke at a party, and they looked at me like I’d asked for a glass of baby’s blood.”
“Yep.” I nodded. “Sounds like them.”
“So you can see,” Bridge pressed on, “why he’s not very good at having relationships.”
Even though Oliver wasn’t here, and it was the mildest possible criticism, I still felt a strange need to defend him. “He was amazing at them when he was with me. He’s the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
“That,” offered Priya, “is because you’re a titanic romantic disaster with incredibly low standards.”
I gave her a look. “You know we really do only hang out with you for your truck.”
“Stop doing banter.” Bridge pounded her fist on the nearest solid object which was, unfortunately, me. “This is important. We’re sorting out Luc’s love life, and his low standards aren’t the problem.”
