Page 17 of Boyfriend Material
Was it me, or had he basically said “I think you’re behaving unethically, but I assume I can’t expect any better from you”? The mature making-this-work-and-saving-my-job reaction would be to let that slide. “Thanks. I always like my dinner served with a sprinkling of sanctimony.”
“That’s rather unfair.” Oliver moved again, and kicked me again. “Especially given you’d have been equally, if not more, offended if I’d ordered vegetarian without asking you. Also, I’m sorry I keep catching you with my feet. Yours are never where I’m expecting them to be.”
I gave him one my meanest looks. “These things happen.”
The conversation hadn’t so much died on us as been taken out back and shot in the head. And I knew I should be playing paramedic but I couldn’t quite bring myself to or work out how.
Instead, I crunched on some of the baked salisfy and parmesan that had just arrived (which was delicious in spite of the fact I had no idea what salisfy was, and didn’t want to give Oliver the satisfaction of asking him) and wondered what it would be like being here with somebody I could actually stand. It was a lovely, cosy place, with the brightly painted windows and caramel leather seating, and the food was clearly going to be amazing. The sort of restaurant you’d come back to for anniversaries and special occasions, and reminisce about the perfect first date you shared there.
The fish sarnie, when it showed up, turned out to be pretty much the most perfect thing I’d ever eaten: buttery sourdough wrapped around smoky slabs of eel, slathered in truly fiery horseradish and Dijon mustard, and served with pickled red onions just sharp enough to cut through the meaty intensity of the fish. I think maybe I genuinely moaned.
“Okay,” I said, once I’d inhaled it. “I was too hasty. That was so good I could pretty much marry you now.”
Maybe I was seeing the world through eel-tinted glasses, but right then, Oliver’s eyes had a touch of silver in them. And were softer than I’d thought. “I’m happy you liked it.”
“I could eat one every day for the rest of my life. How could you know these exist and give them up?”
“I…thought it was the right thing to do.”
“I can’t tell if that’s really commendable or really tragic.”
He lifted one shoulder in a self-conscious shrug. And the silence between us, while still not comfortable, seemed slightly less jagged. Maybe this was going to be okay. Maybe we’d been saved by a dead fish.
“So…uh…” Still riding my sandwich bliss, I felt slightly more able to make the effort. “I seem to remember you being a lawyer or something?”
“I’m a barrister, yes.”
“And what do you…barrist?”
“I—” The toe of his shoe whomped me in the knee. “God. I’m sorry. I’ve done it again.”
“I’ve got to say, you play one hell of a hard-core game of footsie.”
“I assure you, it’s been accidental every time.”
He looked so mortified I took pity on him. “It’s me. I’m all legs.”
We both peered beneath the tablecloth.
“How about if I…” I suggested, swinging my feet to the right.
He shuffled his Italian leather oxfords left. “And I go…”
His ankle brushed against mine as we rearranged ourselves. And it had clearly been way too long since I got laid, because I damn near fainted. Dragging my attention away from our under-table negotiations, I found him watching me with this crooked half-smile—as if we’d single-handedly (-footedly?) brought peace to the Middle East.
And all of a sudden he was a lot more bearable. Enough more bearable that I could almost see myself putting up with a man who smiled like that, and bought me amazing eel sandwiches, even if I didn’t have to.
Which was way, way worse than not liking him.
Chapter 7
“Your…your job?” I asked with all the smoothness of a bowl of granola.
“Ah. Yes. Well, I”—this time, his foot only stroked the side of mine as it jiggled under the table—“specialise in criminal defence. And you might as well get it over with.”
“Get what over with?”
“The question that everyone asks when you tell them you work in criminal defence.”
