Page 46 of Boyfriend Material
Taking a sip, Alex made a face and then set the drink down on a coffee table. “Ah yes. It’s this stuff. Dreadful.”
I really wanted to ask Alex how he had wound up with his “usual” being a drink he didn’t actually like, but I was terrified that he might answer me. And I was saved in any case by Oliver’s arrival. He was looking all sleek and professional in another of his three-piece suits—charcoal grey, this time—and it wouldn’t have been totally unfair to say I was overjoyed to see him. And maybe it was because I’d had spent the last half hour alone with Alex, or maybe it was because Oliver was the only other person in the place who wasn’t a peer, a Tory, or a Tory peer, or maybe… Oh, who I was kidding? I was just glad he was here. So I could tell him how I’d tried to do the right thing by my dad, and his manager hadn’t even believed I was me. How some prick with an MBE had sent me another one of those not-homophobic-but-clearly-homophobic emails I was so sick of being polite and gracious about. How absurd it was that we were drinking wine none of us could identify under a royalist portrait the size of Cornwall. How I’d missed him.
That was when I realised that although Oliver and I were meant to be a couple, we’d failed to establish any rules for interacting in public. Well, unless you counted “Don’t kiss me” and “Stop telling everyone the whole thing’s a sham.” And I guess in my head somehow it’d be straight back to French toast, and silly texts, and Oliver’s hand in mine in the dark. But that didn’t happen.
I stood up awkwardly and he stood awkwardly in front of me.
“Hello, um…” He paused for way too long. “Darling?”
“His name’s Luc,” offered Alex, helpfully. “Don’t worry, I forget all the time too.”
Nice going, us. Undetectable fake boyfriending. “Oliver, this is my colleague Alex Twaddle.”
Alex stood up to shake Oliver’s hand—looking way more comfortable with him than I did. “Of the Devonshire Twaddles.”
“Alex, this is my…um…boyfriend, Oliver Blackwood.”
“Are you sure?” Alex glanced between us. “I thought you didn’t have a boyfriend. Didn’t we have this entire plan where you were going to find someone to pretend to be your boyfriend because you didn’t have a boyfriend?”
I sank down into my chair. “Yes. We did. And this is him.”
“Ah. With you.” He transparently was not with us. “How about a drink, Oliver?”
“That would be lovely.” Oliver settled onto the sofa next to Alex, crossing one leg elegantly over the other, and looking very much at ease.
While I was teetering on the edge of my crap chair like I was waiting outside the headmaster’s office. At least the headmaster’s office of the kind of school Alex and Oliver had probably gone to. They probably had portraits of the queen everywhere. They probably used them as blackboards. Fuck. I might as well go home and leave my fake boyfriend to bond with the office ninny.
“Did you say the Devonshire Twaddles?” enquired Oliver smoothly. “Any relation to Richard Twaddle?”
“My father actually, God rest his soul.”
I stared at him. “Alex, you never told me your dad died.”
“Oh, he didn’t. Why would you think that?”
“Because…never mind.”
“So”—Alex turned back to Oliver—“how do you know the old bugger?”
“I don’t know him, but he’s a big advocate for restricting the right to trial by jury so I have a sort of professional interest.”
“That sounds like him. Talks about it round the dinner table all the time. Says they cost the government a huge amount of money, that people are only in favour of them because of silly sentimentality, and they spread tuberculosis.”
“I’m not sure,” said Oliver, “but I think you might be getting jury trials mixed up with badgers.”
Alex snapped his fingers. “That’s them. He can’t stand the things. Little black-and-white furry bastards causing unnecessary delays in our already overstrained criminal justice system.”
Oliver opened his mouth, then closed it again. At which point we were mercifully interrupted by James returning with another glass of whatever Alex’s usual was.
“Thank you.” Oliver sampled the drink decorously. “Ah. What a fine amontillado. I feel quite spoiled.”
Trust Oliver Blackwood to be able to identify sherry by taste. It was fast becoming apparent that what I’d hoped would be me and him against the posh dingbat was actually him and the posh dingbat against me.
Alex slid his own glass over. “Have mine if you like. Can’t abide it.”
“That’s very generous of you, but I think I’ll stick to one drink at a time for now.”
“You don’t need to stand on ceremony here, old chap.” At this juncture, Alex decided to pat my fake boyfriend’s knee. “Lord Ainsworth usually has a glass in each hand the moment he walks through the door. That’s why they call him Double Fisting Ainsworth. At least, I think it is. Could be something to do with the prostitutes.”
