Page 76 of Boyfriend Material
“I panicked.”
“Also: title of your next sex tape.”
“If That’s AgreeableorI Panicked?”
“Both.”
“I take it you’re too busy? And I know we saw each other on Friday, and the papers are likely to be sick of you for at least another week… I’m sorry, I should have planned this better. Andpleasedon’t say that’s the title of my third sex tape.”
I could have teased him about his imaginary sex tapes literally forever. But there was the whole wanting-to-see-me thing. Which was…perfect? “I…I’m not… It’s not that I don’t…” Shit. I was coming perilously close to telling Oliver that I’d rather see him than watch old episodes ofDrag Racewith my mother, her best friend, and her best friend’s spaniels. Which, now I thought about, wasn’t the tremendous compliment I’d built it up to be in my head. Still couldn’t say it, though. “I’ve kind of accidentally told my mum I’ll go see her tonight.”
“I would like you to formally acknowledge that I have taken the moral high road and shall not suggest thatAccidentally Told My Mum I’ll Go See Her Tonightis the title ofyoursex tape.”
“Oh, hell no,” I protested. “You don’t get credit for pretending you’re not making the joke you’re clearly making.”
“Plausible deniability, Lucien. Plausible deniability.” How could Ihearhim smiling? “But you should visit your mother. I know how much she means to you.”
“I mean… You could…” Help. Words were happening. And I couldn’t seem to stop them “Come? If you wanted to. It’ll be awful, because Mum already thinks you’re Nicole Kidman—don’t ask—and she’s making a curry, which she does not know how to do, but won’t admit she doesn’t know how to do, and her best friend is…this… Actually, I don’t even know how to describe her. But she once told me she’d shot an elephant in her nightdress. And when I said, ‘What was an elephant doing wearing your nightdress?’ she said, ‘It broke into my tent, and I think it got draped over its trunk.’”
“I recommend you breathe at some point in the very near future.”
He had a point. I breathed. “Anyway, you really can sit this one out. I’m pretty sure it’s too early in our fake relationship for you to be meeting my mother.”
“Well, aren’t I going to be meeting your father next week?”
“That’s different. I care about my mum.”
“I’d like to meet her, if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable.”
I opened my mouth, realised I had no idea what I was going to say, and finally settled on, “Okay then.”
Given I was already late, Oliver suggested we rendezvous at Waterloo, which I suggested sounded like a terrible love song from the forties. Then I texted Mum to let her know I’d be bringing my fake boyfriend, threw on my coat, dashed out the door, and tried not to think too hard about what it meant that I wanted Oliver to meet my mother.
Chapter 24
Half an hour later I was sitting on a train with Oliver. And it was weird. The problem was that being on public transport with someone for more than a couple of stops on the Tube fell down the uncanny butt crack between necessity and social occasion. I mean, it was basically just the two of you, sitting down facing each other, for about as long as you would if you were in a restaurant, only with much worse surroundings and without food to give the whole thing focus. Worse, I was worried I was going to blurt out something awful like “I missed you” or “I tidied my flat for you.”
“So,” I said. “How’s the case?”
“I’m afraid I can’t—”
“Talk about it?”
“Precisely.”
A pause, both of us looking anywhere except at each other.
“And—” he crossed one leg over the other and then uncrossed it when he kicked me in the knee—“your work? It’s going well, I take it?”
“Actually yes. By the low bar it sets for itself. The Beetle Drive hasn’t accidentally been relocated to a warehouse in Tooting Bec. Nothing’s caught fire in at least a couple of weeks. And some of the donors I scared off by doing the bad gay might deign to come back to us.”
“I’m glad the plan seems to be working. But I confess I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the assumptions that seem to underlie it.”
“You’d better not be getting cold feet on a train halfway to my mum’s.”
“I’m not. I just don’t think you should have to be dating someone like me for it to be acceptable to be someone like you.”
I finally met his eyes again. How had I ever found them cold? “I know, right? And what especially grinds my gonads is that it’s not even my, I will admit, real and extensive personality flaws they object to. It’s that they think I might have casual sex sometimes. Which, ironically, I’d be doing more of if I was in a healthier place emotionally.”
