Page 31 of Boyfriend Material
“I’m…not entirely sure. He said he just wasn’t happy anymore.”
“Ouch.”
He shrugged. “There comes a point when enough people have said,It’s not you, it’s methat you begin to suspect it may, in fact, be you.”
“Why? What’s wrong with you? Do you hog the duvet? Are you secretly racist? Do you think Roger Moore was a better Bond than Connery?”
“No. Good God no. Although I do think Moore is somewhat underrated.” Handling the serving spoon with irritating deftness, Oliver poured a perfect spiral of cream onto his poppy-seed waffle. “I honestly believed it was working. But then I always do.”
I snapped my fingers. “Ah. You must be terrible in bed.”
“Clearly.” He gave me a wry look. “Another mystery solved.”
“Dammit. I was hoping you’d get defensive and I’d at least find out something dirty about you.”
“Why Lucien, for someone who’s made it abundantly clear that he’s not interested, you seem quite fascinated with my sex life.”
Heat rushed to my face. “I’m…not.”
“If you say so.”
“No, really. It’s…”Urgh, this was a mess. Partly because I was maybe a bit more curious than I wanted to admit. Oliver was so self-possessed that it was hard not to wonder what he was like when he let go.Ifhe let go. What it would be like to inspire that kind of recklessness in him. “I’m just sort of aware that anything you wanted to know about me you could Google.”
“Would it be the truth, though?”
I cringed. “Some of it. And not only the good stuff.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my line of work, it’s that ‘some of the truth’ is the most misleading thing you can hear. Anything I want to know about you, I’ll ask.”
“What about,” I said in a small voice, “when you’re mad at me? When you’re looking for reasons to think the worst of me.”
“And you believe I’ll need the papers to help me with that?”
I shot him an outraged glare, but for some reason I ended up smiling instead. Something about the way he was looking at me took the sting from his words. “Is that what passes for reassurance in your world?”
“I don’t know. Is it working?”
“Weirdly, maybe a little bit?” I distracted myself with the French toast—which was rich and sweet and dripping with maple syrup. “You’ll end up looking, though. Everyone always does.”
“Do you really think I have nothing better to do with my time than web-stalk the e-list children of c-list celebrities?”
“Again, with the…mean comforting. What the hell is that about?”
“I, well, I wasn’t sure you’d accept any other kind.” He looked slightly abashed, chasing a blueberry round and round his plate.
Honestly, he might have been right. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “Try me.”
“I’m not going to make you any promises because that just gives all this nonsense more power over you. But—”
“It’s easy for you to call it nonsense. You don’t live with it.”
He gave an exasperated little huff. “See. I said you wouldn’t want my reassurance.”
“You haven’t given me any reassurance. You’ve told me you aren’t going to make any promises and dicked on my pain.”
“It wasn’t my intent to dick.”
We eyed each other warily over the battlefield of our breakfast foods. In many ways, our second date was going as badly as our first. Hell, in many ways it was going worse, since I’d arrived six hours late and been dumped before I got there. But it felt different. Somehow even being annoyed with him brought with it this strange warmth.
