It was gradually sinking in that if Dad did kick the bucket, my last, and pretty much only, words to him would have been “fuck off and literally die.” And I resented how shitty that made me feel about myself because, while a lot of people had an absolute right to make me feel shitty on account of the many years I’ve spent systematically letting them down, Jon Fleming was just some prick I’d never met.

This was the problem with, well, I was going to say “the world” or “relationships” or “humanity in general,” but I guess I really meant me. Because when I let someone into my life, it went one of two ways: either they carried on putting up with me, even though I’m clearly not worth putting up with. Or else they pissed all over me and walked out, occasionally popping back to piss on me some more.

Around this point, remembering I had—for the moment—still got a job, and that job involved more than sitting in my office, making personal calls, and wallowing in self-pity, I checked my email.

Dear Mr. O’Donnell,

I have been a supporter of CRAPP for many years and have always believed that my not-insignificant contributions were being well directed towards a worthwhile cause. Having seen your recent personal conduct and made my own independent researches into your, frankly, sordid history I am forced to conclude that this belief was misguided. I do not give money to charities in order that they can pay people to gallivant off on homosexual drug binges. I am withholding all donations to your organisation for as long as it remains associated with you or your lifestyle.

Sincerely,

J. Clayborne, MBE

Needless to say, he had cc’ed it to Dr. Fairclough, the rest of the office, and possibly his entire address book.

I was just making a detailed plan to slink home, drink heavily, and pass out under a pile of at least three duvets when Alex popped his head around the door.

“Ready to go, old chap? Bit tricky to get a reservation at this notice but, you know, a fellow’s always willing to call in a marker for a fellow who needs it.”

Oh yes. That. Fuck.

Chapter 16

Alex’s club was called Cadwallader’s and it was exactly like you’d expect a club called Cadwallader’s to be. Lurking discreetly behind a door just off St James’s Street, it was made entirely of oak, leather, and men who’d been occupying the same armchair since 1922. Seeing no way to get out of the social engagement that had been arranged purely for my benefit at very short notice, I’d gone ahead with Alex.

He’d left a note with someone I thought was an honest-to-goodness butler that we were expecting guests later, and was now leading me up a staircase of Hogwartsian proportions, all gleaming mahogany and blue velvet carpeting. From there, we passed between a set of actual marble pillars and into what a little plaque informed me was the Bonar Law Room. It was sparsely occupied, allowing Alex to lay claim to a sizeable sofa directly underneath an even more sizeable portrait of the queen.

I perched on a nearby chair, uncomfortable partly because the chair itself was surprisingly hard, given that it probably cost more than my laptop, partly because my day was turning into a string of back-to-back rejections, and partly because of the surroundings. The room appeared to have been decorated on the assumption that its inhabitants would have an aneurysm if they realised we didn’t have an empire anymore. I’d never seen so many chandeliers in one place, even counting that time I’d accidentally gone to the opera.

“Well, isn’t this cosy.” Alex beamed at me. “Would you like anything while we wait for the ladies? I mean, my lady and your boylady.”

“I’m not sure ‘boylady’ is the correct term.”

“Terribly sorry. Still a bit of a novel sitch. Not that it isn’t fearfully nice that you’re a homosexual. Just never brought one to the club before. After all, they only let ladies in three years ago. They can’t join, of course. That way madness lies, let us shun that. And, actually, thinking about it, it must be terribly jolly for one’s lady to be a gentleman. You can go to all the same clubs, have the same tailor, play on the same polo team. No metaphor intended.”

“You know,” I said, “I think I will have a drink.”

He leaned over the back of the sofa and made an obscure posh gesture at a soberly dressing butling person who, I’d swear, hadn’t been standing there ten seconds ago. “The usual, James.”

“Um, what’s the usual?” I had enough experience with high-society bullshit that I knew “the usual” could have been anything from a sweet white wine to live herring that you had to eat with a soup spoon.

Alex looked momentarily confused, even by his standards. “Haven’t the foggiest. Can never quite remember, but don’t have the heart to tell the staff.”

A few minutes later, we were served two thistle-shaped glasses full of a honey-coloured liquid that I was pretty sure was something in the sherry family.

Taking a sip, Alex made a face and then set the drink down on a coffee table. “Ah yes. It’s this stuff. Dreadful.”

I really wanted to ask Alex how he had wound up with his “usual” being a drink he didn’t actually like, but I was terrified that he might answer me. And I was saved in any case by Oliver’s arrival. He was looking all sleek and professional in another of his three-piece suits—charcoal grey, this time—and it wouldn’t have been totally unfair to say I was overjoyed to see him. And maybe it was because I’d had spent the last half hour alone with Alex, or maybe it was because Oliver was the only other person in the place who wasn’t a peer, a Tory, or a Tory peer, or maybe… Oh, who I was kidding? I was just glad he was here. So I could tell him how I’d tried to do the right thing by my dad, and his manager hadn’t even believed I was me. How some prick with an MBE had sent me another one of those not-homophobic-but-clearly-homophobic emails I was so sick of being polite and gracious about. How absurd it was that we were drinking wine none of us could identify under a royalist portrait the size of Cornwall. How I’d missed him.

That was when I realised that although Oliver and I were meant to be a couple, we’d failed to establish any rules for interacting in public. Well, unless you counted “Don’t kiss me” and “Stop telling everyone the whole thing’s a sham.” And I guess in my head somehow it’d be straight back to French toast, and silly texts, and Oliver’s hand in mine in the dark. But that didn’t happen.

I stood up awkwardly and he stood awkwardly in front of me.

“Hello, um…” He paused for way too long. “Darling?”

“His name’s Luc,” offered Alex, helpfully. “Don’t worry, I forget all the time too.”

Nice going, us. Undetectable fake boyfriending. “Oliver, this is my colleague Alex Twaddle.”