Page 4 of Husband Material
I was the worst maid of honour ever.
Fuck.
I was a bad friend and a bad boyfriend, and the reason people kept screwing me over and abandoning me was because I sucked and deserved it.
Fuck.
“Is this seat taken?”
Turning around, I saw Oliver standing behind me. He looked a funny mix of composed and dishevelled, his tie loose around his neck and his formal shirt unbuttoned to reveal hisBridge’s Bitches No Oliver I Think It’s Fine We’re Using It in the Reclaimed Sense and Anyway It’s Too Late to ChangeT-shirt beneath. He looked more worried than angry.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Bridget said that you’d disappeared, so I asked around to see if anybody had seen a tall man with a vagina on his head running away from a cocktail bar.”
“Vulva,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“The vagina is internal—the external part is the vulva.”
Oliver gave me his warmest, reassuringest smile. “Either way it was a distinctive enough look that you weren’t hard to find.” He came around the bench, sat down next to me, and put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned in to him without even thinking about it. “Bridget told me she saw Miles. She thought that might have been why you left.”
I nodded. “They were playing my dad’s song too.”
Oliver gave me a little squeeze. “That sounds like quite the perfect storm. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“So was I. Fuck, sorry, I mean… I mean it would have been great if you were there. I don’t mean… I know you had to work.”
“I know what you mean.”
“It just would have been great to be able to say ‘Hi, Miles, fuck you, my life is great.’”
Oliver gave a sort of half laugh. “You could still have said it.”
“Yeah, but I’d have had no proof.”
“You’reproof.”
One of these days I was going to stop being surprised when Oliver said exactly the right thing. But this wasn’t the day. “For fuck’s sake, Oliver. Stop being so…so…completely great.”
And for a while we just sat there, and I let myself feel safe and held and loved, and he took my hand and didn’t say anything because he didn’t need to.
“Also,” I said, because I’d decided that feeling nice was overrated and I wanted to ruin the moment, “his fiancé is, like, twelve.”
“I assume not literally?”
“No, but he’s…like…this tiny little pretty boy calledJoJo. I mean who the hell is calledJoJo?”
“I assume that’s rhetorical?”
“I’ll tell you who’s called JoJo,” I went on. “A prick, that’s who.”
Oliver was still there and still, despite my decision to insult an innocent stranger, not judging me. “Perhaps. Although personally I think the man who sold you out and made you afraid to ever trust anybody again is a bigger prick.”
“Oh yeah. He’s a huge prick. Which is ironic because his actual prick is quite tiny.”
“Is that true?” Oliver gave me another smile. “Or are you just trying to make me feel special?”
