Page 53 of Boyfriend Material
Miffy tossed back her hair and reeled off something incomprehensible that I assumed was a list of designers.
This was fine. I was fine. I just had to look vaguely like I belonged in this nice world where nice people could have nice things. How hard could it be?
“Have you set a date yet?”
“The eighteenth.”
Relax. But not too relaxed. Smile. But not too much. I tried to remind myself that journalists were like tyrannosauruses. Their vision was based on movement.
“Eighteenth of what?”
“Yes,” Miffy said.
Were they getting closer? I was sure they were getting closer. Also not sure I could breathe. I must have been photographed enough by now, right? Good publicity was starting to feel worse than bad publicity. At least bad publicity, or the sort of bad publicity I was used to, didn’t pin you into a corner and yell at you.
I scanned the jostling horseshoe of newspersons, looking for a gap between the bodies. But I could hardly see for the after-images, and the idea of being grabbed at and pulled at as I tried to force my way through a pack of strangers made my stomach twist. I was this close to throwing up. On camera. Again. Another crackle of silver, and when the starbursts faded, I realised I was looking this one guy straight in the eye. I tried to turn away, but it was too late. “Is that Jon Fleming’s kid?” he yelled. “You into Rights of Man, Miffy?”
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
“I’d so love to chat”—her voice ebbed and flowed in my ears like the tide—“but I have to see a horse about a man.”
“Which horse?”
“Which man?”
Another lightning storm of flashes—this time pointed much more squarely at me. I threw an arm across my face like a vampire trying to dab.
“What’s the matter, Luc?”
“Overindulged?”
“Making the old man proud?”
“N-n-no comment,” I muttered.
“Have you joined the Cadwallader Club?”
“What have you been drinking?”
“Are you turning over a new leaf?”
No way was any of that not a trap. “No…no comment.”
“Cat got your tongue, Luc?”
“Are you coked up right now?”
“Where’s your bunny ears?”
“That’s enough.” There was suddenly an arm around my waist. And then I was being drawn against Oliver’s side—right up against that warm, gorgeous, um, coat. It was the most pathetic thing I’d ever done, possibly the most pathetic thing in the world, but I turned in to him and hid my face against his neck. The scent of his hair, so clean and, somehow, sohim, slowed the panicked racing of my heart.
“What’re you hiding from?”
“Come on, mate. Give us a smile.”
“Who’s your boyfriend?”
“My name is Oliver Blackwood.” He didn’t shout, but he didn’t have to. There was something about the way he spoke that sliced through the clamour. “I’m a barrister at Middle Temple, and I suggest you get out of my way.”
