Chapter 52

“We’re here.” Bridget poked me excitedly.

I rubbed my eyes, very glad to be home. “Thank fuck. I’m knackered.”

“I feel sooooo sorry for you,” drawled Priya. “Having to sleep in the back while I ferried you to and from Durham on a wild-goose chase.”

“Sorry. Sorry. Next time you have something heavy to lift, I’ll make far fewer excuses about helping you.” I plopped out of the truck, fumbling in my pocket for my keys. Then I realised I was in Clerkenwell. “Hey, wait. This isn’t where I live.”

Bridget yanked the door closed again and locked it before winding the window down just far enough that I could hear her. “No, this is Oliver’s. Don’t you remember? We said we’d take you here.”

Yes. Yes, they had. “I did not agree to this.”

“Tough. It’s for your own good. You’ll thank us when you’re eighty and have a million grandchildren.”

I banged on the side of the vehicle. “Let me in, you abject fuckers. This is not funny.”

Priya cracked the front window. “You’re right. It’s not. Hands off the paintwork.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I waved my arms, not quite daring to further risk Priya’s wrath. “I’m pretty sure this is legally kidnapping.”

“Oooh,” cried Bridget. “Oliver’s a lawyer. Knock on his door and ask him.”

“I am not going to wake him up in the middle of the night to ask a spurious question about whether my friends have committed a felony against me.”

“I was just trying to give a plausible cover story you could use to segue into telling him you want to go out with him again.”

I was still gesticulating. “Oh so many…many things. Firstly, it is not a plausible cover story. Secondly, it doesn’t make up for the fact you’ve dumped me on the street halfway across London from where I actually live. And, thirdly, most importantly, he doesn’t want to go out with me.”

“You were willing to do this in Durham. Why aren’t you willing to do it here?”

“Because,” I yelled, “I’ve had time to realise what a terrible idea it is. Now let me the fuck back into this van before Oliver’s neighbours call the police.”

Priya began winding her window back up. “Don’t you dare call my truck a van.”

“I’m so sorry. Clearly that distinction is what matters most in this moment.”

“Lucien,” said Oliver, from behind me, “what are you doing?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I turned, trying to look normal and nonchalant. “Just passing? On my way back from…a trip?”

“If you’re just passing, why are you standing outside my front door, screaming your head off? And why is there a truck full of people watching you do it?”

I stared at him helplessly for what felt like far too long. He was in stripy pyjama bottoms and one of his plain, excitingly clingy T-shirts, and he had that slightly overchiselled look he’d had when I first met him. It made him feel slightly like a stranger.

“I’m trying to think of a good excuse,” I told him. “But I can’t.”

“Then”—he folded his arms—“why don’t you try telling me the truth?”

Well, it couldn’t be any worse than “I happened to stop by with all my friends to ask you a legal question.” “Bridget told me you were moving to Durham. So I went to Durham. To tell you not to go to Durham. But it turned out you weren’t in Durham. You were at your house.”

He seemed to be having trouble processing this. Which made two of us. “Is that why you called earlier?”

“Um. Yes.”

Long silence.

“I’m…I’m not going to Durham.”

“Yes. I figured that out when you weren’t in Durham.”

More long silence.

“Why,” he asked slowly, “do you care?”

“I don’t know. I just…didn’t want you to be in Durham. I mean, unless you really wanted to be. But, I think…not that it’s my place…you probably don’t actually…want to, that is. Be in Durham.”

He was giving me this “what the hell is wrong with you” look. “Yes, Lucien. That’s why I didn’t go.”

“Yeah, but you applied for an actual job. Booked an actual hotel. Which means you must have been pretty serious for a while there.”

“I was. Or rather”—he blushed a little—“I had a moment of wanting to be somewhere else. Far away from everyone I’ve let down.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I protested, “you haven’t let anyone down.”

“You didn’t seem to feel that way when we last spoke.”

I waved my arms in exasperation. “I can’t believe you’re making me defend your right to dump me. But you didn’t let me down. You just made a decision I didn’t like. They’re not the same thing. I think you made the wrong call but it’s not your job to make me, or your parents, or anyone else happy.”

A chorus of “kiss, kiss, kiss” rose from the truck. I’m pretty sure Bridge started it.

Wheeling round, I gave them my hardest of hard stares. “Not the time. Really not the time.”

“Sorry, Luc, my sweet.” James Royce-Royce leaned over from the far passenger side and stuck his head out the window. “It’s hard to hear from this position, and we seem to have misread the body language.”

“You definitely have.”

“If it’s not too intrusive a question,” said Oliver, “why have you brought all your friends to my doorstep?”

“I didn’t bring them, they brought me. They’ve got this idea that if I turned up and told you how much I cared about you that you’d fall into my arms and we’d live happily ever after. But, frankly, they’ve wildly underestimated how fucked up you are.”

His expression Wheel of Fortuned through hurt, relief, and anger, before finally settling on resignation. “Well, I’m glad you’re finally seeing me clearly. Can I take it you agree you’re better off without me?”

“Fuck a goat, Oliver, no. I know I haven’t always got you, and I know there’s been a bunch of times where I was a dick to you without meaning to…and also a bunch of times where I was just a dick…but I was never into the guy you think you should be. I’m into the guy you are.”