Page 58 of Boyfriend Material
“Why?”
“I don’t know, really. It’s quite long and involved, and I think I got distracted. Isn’t that precisely what half-arsing entails?”
Out of nowhere, I was laughing. “I can’t believe I’m pretending to date someone who just used the phrase ‘precisely what half-arsing entails.’”
“Would you believe me if I said I did it deliberately for your amusement?”
“Nope.” I did not want him to hold me again. I did not want him to hold me again. I did not want him to hold me again. “That’s just how you talk.”
“It may be, but you do appear to derive a unique enjoyment from it.”
“Okay. That one was deliberate.”
He offered me a slow smile—not the effortless one he used so freely in public, but something real and warm and almost reluctant, making his eyes shine from the inside like a lamp left in a window on a dark night. “All right. I’m prepared for the worst. Show me your bedroom.”
* * *
“I was not,” Oliver said, a few minutes later, “prepared for the worst.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”
“When did you last change your sheets?”
“I change my sheets.”
He folded his arms. “That’s not an answer. And if you can’t remember, it’s been too long.”
“Fine. I’ll change my sheets. Just, y’know, I might need to do some laundry first.” I tried not to look at my clothes, which were a little bit everywhere. “Maybe quite a lot of laundry.”
“We are taking a taxi back to mine. Right now.”
“Wow. This is turning into an episode ofQueer Eyeonly with fewer hot men, and without the heartwarming bit where they make you feel good about yourself.”
“I’m truly sorry. I wasn’t intending to judge, but this situation, frankly, demands judgment. I mean, how can you not be miserable living here?”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I’m confused. What on earth has given you the impression I’m not miserable?”
“Lucien—”
“Also,” I rushed on, not sure if I was more afraid of him saying something nice or something mean, “your house might be clean, but you’re clearly not happy either. At least I admit it.”
A touch of pink had crept across the top of Oliver’s starkly defined cheekbones. “Yes, I’m lonely. I sometimes feel I haven’t achieved what I should have achieved. On the basis of quite a lot of evidence, I worry that I’m not very easy to care for. But I’m not trying to hide that. I’m just trying to cope with it.”
God, I hated it when he was all strong and vulnerable and honest and decent, and everything I wasn’t. “You’re not…completelydifficult to care for. And I think I might have some clean sheets that I bought the last time I realised I didn’t have any clean sheets.”
“Thank you. I know I’m sometimes a bit of a control freak.”
“Really?” I gave him a big-eyed look. “I’ve never noticed.”
We stripped my bed, which I honestly think was less gross than Oliver was making out, although I super wished my, um, personal pleasure device hadn’t bounced out of the sheets and landed right at Oliver’s feet like a dog wanting to go walkies. Except, y’know, up my bum. I shoved it hastily in my bedside drawer which, unfortunately, involved revealing yet more of my, now I thought about it, depressingly onanistic collection.
Whether out of embarrassment or gallantry, Oliver said nothing. Just got on with crimping down the edges of my new sheets until they were glass smooth and hotel room perfect. From there, he changed the pillowcases and the duvet cover, even bothering to do up the little poppers at the bottom which I was pretty sure no human being ever, ever did. And, finally, he started taking off his clothes.
I stared blankly. Or not so blankly. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not sleeping in a three-piece suit, and meaning no disrespect, I don’t especially want to borrow any of”—he made a circular gesture that encompassed the various piles of crap strewn across my floor—“this.”
“That’s fair.” A thought occurred to me. “Hey, does this mean I finally get to meet the V-cut?”
