“Sorry I’m laaaaate.” Bridget’s voice rang clarion-like across the beer garden, and I turned my face sideways in time to see her wobbling urgently over the grass in her ever-impractical heels. “You won’t believe what’s happened. Can’t really talk about it. But one of our authors was scheduled to have this massively prestigious midnight release tonight and the lorry carrying the books to Foyles went over a bridge into a river and now not only are half of them ruined but the other half have been scavenged by extremely well-organised fans and there are spoilers all over the internet. I think I’m going to get fired.” And, with that, she collapsed breathlessly into Tom’s lap.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close. “That’s not your fault, Bridge. They’re not going to fire you over it.”

Bridget Welles: my Token Straight Friend. Always late, always in the middle of a crisis, always on a diet. For whatever reason, she and Tom are genuinely good together. And although I’m messed up about Tom because of my own shit, it’s kind of nice that she’s found someone who sees what an amazing, loving person she is and who isn’t also as gay as a box of ribbons.

“Luc, on the other hand,” said Priya, “is definitely going to get fired unless he gets a boyfriend.”

Bridge honed in on me like a laser-guided date launcher. “Oh, Luc, I’m so pleased. I’ve been on at you to get a boyfriend for ages.”

I peeled my head off the table. “A+ priorities, Bridge.”

“This is the best thing ever.” She squeezed her hands together excitedly. “I know the perfect guy.”

My heart sank. I knew where this was going. I love Bridget, but she only knows one other gay person outside our immediate social circle. “Don’t say Oliver.”

“Oliver!”

“I’m not dating Oliver.”

Her eyes went big and hurt. “What’s wrong with Oliver?”

I’d met Oliver Blackwood exactly twice. The first time, we’d been the only two gay men at one of Bridget’s work parties. Someone had come up to us and asked if we were a couple, and Oliver had looked utterly disgusted, and replied, “No, this is just another homosexual I’m standing next to.” The second time, I’d been very drunk and very desperate, and invited him to come home with me. My memories of what happened next were hazy, but I’d woken alone the next morning, fully clothed next to a large glass of water. On both occasions, in uniquely humiliating ways, he’d made it very clear that we each had a league, and his was very much out of mine.

“He’s… not my type,” I tried.

Priya was obviously still narked I’d turned down her prostitutes. “He’s exactly the kind of man you said you were looking for. Which is to say, incredibly boring.”

“He’s not boring,” protested Bridge. “He’s a barrister…and…and he’s very nice. Lots of people have dated him.”

I shuddered. “And that’s not a red flag at all.”

“Alternatively,” suggested Tom, “you could look at it like this: between the two of you, you’ve had a completely normal, healthy dating life.”

“I don’t know why it never works out for him.” Bridget seemed genuinely bewildered that her awful friend was single. “He’s so lovely. And he dresses so well. And his house is so clean and tastefully decorated.”

James Royce-Royce pulled a wry face. “I hate to say it, darling, but he seems to be exactly what you’re looking for. Refusing to even meet with the man would be deeply ungracious.”

“But if he’s so fucking perfect,” I pointed out, “with his nice job and his nice house and his nice clothes, what the hell is he going to want with me?”

“You’re nice too.” One of Bridget’s hands landed consolingly on mine. “You just try very hard to pretend you aren’t. And, anyway, leave everything to me. I’m super good at this sort of thing.”

I was pretty sure my dating life was about to go off a bridge and into a river. And quite possibly wind up with spoilers all over the internet. But, God help me, it looked like Oliver Blackwood was my best hope.

Chapter 6

Three days later, against my better judgment and despite my protests, I was getting ready for a date with Oliver Blackwood. The WhatsApp group—One Gay More—was alive with advice, mainly about what I shouldn’t wear. Which seemed to amount to everything in my wardrobe. In the end I went with my skinniest jeans, my pointiest shoes, the only shirt I could find that didn’t need ironing, and a tailored jacket. I wasn’t going to win any fashion awards, but I thought I’d struck a nice balance between “has made no effort” and “is disgustingly desperate.” Unfortunately, too much texting, faffing, and selfie-taking for the approval of the peanut gallery had made me late. On the other hand, Oliver was a friend of Bridget’s so he’d probably developed a certain tolerance for tardiness over the years.

As I cantered through the door of Quo Vadis—his pick; I wouldn’t have dared go for anything so classy—it quickly became apparent he had not, in fact, developed any tolerance for tardiness whatsoever. He was sitting at a corner table, the light from the stained-glass windows dappling over his frown in shades of sapphire and gold. The fingers of one hand tapped impatiently against the tablecloth. The other cradled a pocket watch on a fob, which he was in the process of checking with the air of a man who had done so several times already.

Seriously, though. A fob. Who even?

“I’m so sorry,” I panted. “I…I…” Nope, I had nothing. So I had to fall back on the obvious. “I’m late.”

“These things happen.”

At my arrival he’d risen like we were at a tea dance in the ’50s, leaving me totally at a loss for what I was supposed to do in response. Shake his hand? Kiss his cheek? Check with my chaperone? “Should I sit down?”

“Unless”—one of his brows tilted quizzically—“you have another engagement.”

Was that a joke? “No. No. I’m, er, all yours.”

He made a be-my-guest gesture, and I wriggled gracelessly onto the banquette. Silence stretched between us, as socially discomforting as mozzarella strings. Oliver was much as I remembered him: a cool, clean, modern-art piece of a man entitled Disapproval in Pinstripes. And handsome enough to annoy me. My own face looked as if Picasso had created it on a bad day—bits of my mum and my dad thrown together without rhyme or reason. But Oliver had the sort of perfect symmetry that eighteenth-century philosophers would have taken as evidence for the existence of God.

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” he asked.