“Is now a good time?” asked Bridget from the truck.

“No,” I called back. “Very much not.”

“Okay. Sorry. Can you let us know?”

“I really can’t. Kind of getting shot down again, actually.”

“I’m not shooting you down,” interrupted Oliver, making a valiant effort to ignore the fact I’d accidentally brought an audience. “But you have to understand that I’m not someone people stay with. I try and I try to be a good person, and a good partner, but it’s never enough. And it’ll never be enough for you.”

“Tell him you’ve got incredibly low standards,” suggested Priya.

“I do not have incredibly low standards. Well, I do. But it’s not relevant here.” I put my back firmly to the truck and faced Oliver. “Look, you’ve got it super wrong. I can’t answer for your past relationships, but…what you think pushes people away is what lets them in. And, God I sound like an inspirational Instagram post, but not letting people in is what pushes them away.”

“What pushes them away”—Oliver had that tight, frowny expression—“is that I let things slip. My parents see it. You’ve seen it. When I was with you, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was eating too much, taking too little exercise, I was leaning on you far more than I should have. And God, those scenes I subjected to you to with my family and afterwards. That’s not who I wanted to be with you.”

“Oh, Oliver. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? I wasn’t with you because you had a V-cut and no problems.” Even as I said, it didn’t sound quite right. “Okay, I was at first. But I stayed because you’re… Fuck, I was going to say perfect. But you’re not perfect and no one’s perfect and you don’t have to be perfect.”

“Of course no one’s perfect, but I can be better.”

“You don’t have to be better. You’re everything I want right now.”

“Can I just remind you that you opened this conversation by telling me how fucked up I am? That cannot be something you want.”

“It absolutely can.”

“You’ve seen me have one bad day, Lucien. That doesn’t mean you know me.”

I laughed. “Oh, you have no fucking idea. When we met, I was too busy drowning in my own shit to pay much attention to yours, but you hide it way less well than you think you do.”

“I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“Tough. You literally asked for this. You’re prissy and insecure and uptight and use pretentious language because you’re afraid of making mistakes. You’re so controlling you keep your bananas on a separate hook and such a god-awful people pleaser that it borders on self-destructive. Which is weird because you’re also convinced you know what’s best for everybody—and it never occurs to you to actually ask them. You’re smug, patronising, and adhere rigidly to a set of ethics I don’t think you’ve thought through anywhere near as well as you pretend you have. And I honestly think you might have a little bit of an eating disorder. Which you should probably see someone about, by the way, whether you go out with me or not.”

“I thought you came here to try and win me back. Not to elucidate for both of us why I’m the last thing you need.”

“Luc, you’re doing this all wrong,” yelled Bridge. “You’re meant to tell him he’s wonderful, not that he sucks.”

I kept my gaze on Oliver. “You are wonderful. But you need to believe that I don’t like you in spite of all…all of that. I like you because you’re you, and all of that is part of you.” In for a penny. “And, anyway, I don’t like you—I mean, I do like you, but you probably should know that I love you as well.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bridge literally punch the air. “Yes. Better.”

Oliver, however, was silent. Which didn’t seem like a good sign.

So I kept talking. Which was probably also a bad sign. “And I know you’re in a weird place at the moment. And I was in a weird place when we started this. But I’m in a way better place now, and that’s partly because of you, and partly because of these dickheads.” I indicated my friends who still had their noses pressed right against the windows like puppies for sale. “The thing is, even then, when I kept fucking up—and let’s face it, I fucked up a lot—I knew on some level that we were right. And I kept coming back to you and you kept taking me back. Because you knew it too. And this time, I hate to say it, but you’re the one who’s fucked up. And I’m still coming back to you because I still think we’re right. So, y’know, it’s time for you to do your bit.”

Okay, even my friends were being quiet. And my stomach felt like it was about to fall to the centre of the earth.

It carried on feeling that way for a very, very long time.

This was it. This was the moment where he got what was I saying, and threw his arms around me, and told me…

“I’m sorry, Lucien,” said Oliver. “It’s not the same.”

Then he turned, walked back into his house, and closed the door.

Chapter 53

“You know,” said Bridget, as Priya drove us to Shepherd’s Bush, “I really thought that was going to go better.”

I sighed and wiped my eyes. “I know you did, Bridge. That’s why we love you.”

“I don’t understand. You’re perfect for each other.”

“Yeah. We’re both perfectly messed up.”

“In complementary ways.”

“If it was complementary, he wouldn’t have dumped me, then left me standing on the doorstep when I begged him to undump me.”

At which point James Royce-Royce chimed in. “I didn’t want to bring this up. But I’m not sure you handled the situation quite as well as you could. I mean, opening with ‘Here are all your personal flaws and, by the way, I think you have an eating disorder’ is possibly not the best way to strike a romantic tone.”

“No.” Bridge squidged her face between the headrests. “I thought that at the time, but it was the right thing to do. Oliver needs to know he’s loved no matter what.”

“I see what you’re saying”—James Royce-Royce was nodding sagely—“but I think if what you wanted to communicate was that he was loved no matter what, you should have gone with ‘Oliver, you’re loved no matter what.’”

I curled further into the corner. “Not massively appreciating the postmortem of my utter romantic failure.”