“Actually yes. By the low bar it sets for itself. The Beetle Drive hasn’t accidentally been relocated to a warehouse in Tooting Bec. Nothing’s caught fire in at least a couple of weeks. And some of the donors I scared off by doing the bad gay might deign to come back to us.”

“I’m glad the plan seems to be working. But I confess I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the assumptions that seem to underlie it.”

“You’d better not be getting cold feet on a train halfway to my mum’s.”

“I’m not. I just don’t think you should have to be dating someone like me for it to be acceptable to be someone like you.”

I finally met his eyes again. How had I ever found them cold? “I know, right? And what especially grinds my gonads is that it’s not even my, I will admit, real and extensive personality flaws they object to. It’s that they think I might have casual sex sometimes. Which, ironically, I’d be doing more of if I was in a healthier place emotionally.”

“I hope you wouldn’t.” He blinked several times. “That is, not in a sex-negative way. Just that, as far as I know, we never agreed this was going to be an open fake relationship.”

“What would that even be? Are you telling me that you don’t want me to have fake sex with other people when I’m fake dating you?”

“Well, I hadn’t given it much thought. But, if we were really dating, I’d want to be monogamous because that’s just, well, my preference. And so if you’re going to pretend to date me, I’m afraid you’ll have to pretend to be monogamous. Which, I suppose, when the press are following you, is going to be an awful lot like being genuinely monogamous. Is that”—he seemed to be trying to sink through the seat—“going to be a problem?”

“I wish I could say yes because I’m beating them off with a stick. But in practice, it just slightly changes the reason I’m not getting laid.”

“I thought when you said you hadn’t been in a relationship you meant, um, you hadn’t been in a relationship. Rather than you weren’t…”

I stared at him, daring him to finish that sentence.

“…getting any? As it were.”

I had to laugh. As it were indeed. “And I bet you couldn’t imagine me being any more of a loser.”

“You know I don’t think you’re a loser. But I don’t understand why you’d have difficulty…um…” He seemed to be flailing again.

“As it were?”

“In this area.”

This would have been a brilliant opportunity to build a deeper and more lasting relationship, based on trust, honesty, and mutual understanding. I could have told him about Miles. About partying like there was no tomorrow. And then waking up one day and finding out there definitely, definitely was. Oliver would have understood. It was kind of his whole jam.

“It’s complicated,” I said instead.

And he didn’t push it, because of course he wouldn’t push it, and I almost wanted him to—just so I could get it over with. But that was also the worst thing I could possibly imagine. So we went back to silence for the rest of the trip. Fun times.

I’d never been so glad to see Epsom Station (facilities lacking according to Google). Hopefully the woeful inadequacy of the station at which you couldn’t even use your fucking Oyster card would take my mind off my woefully inadequate attempts to emotionally connect with my fake boyfriend. We de-trained ourselves and struck out across the fields towards Pucklethroop-in-the-Wold.

The sun was just setting, making everything soft and golden and shiny, like it was taunting me with romance. And Oliver was all casual again: another crisp pair of jeans, into which his distractingly fabulous arse was wholesomely nestled, and a cream, cable knit jumper that made him look like he belonged on a Tumblr feed called fuckyeahguysinknitwear.

He paused with one foot on an actual stile, the wind ruffling playfully through his hair, making me briefly resentful that the fucking atmosphere was getting more action with my fake boyfriend than I was. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “We should probably refine our boyfriend act a little before the Beetle Drive.”

“Um. What?” I was not staring at…anything. Especially not anything crotch-related. But. The stile. He had one leg on a stile. No jury in the land would convict me.

“I don’t want to let you down and… Lucien, my eyes are up here.”

“Then stop…being in my face with your…jeans.”

He took his foot off the stile. “We work well when it’s just the two of us, but we should practice being together in company.”

“Is this”—I gave him a sly look—“your way of saying you want to spend more time with me?”

“No. My way of saying I want to spend more time with you was when I rang you up earlier today and asked if I could spend some time with you.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Something struck me. “Hang on, are you telling me you want to spend more time with me?”

“Would you still believe me if I claimed it was verisimilitude?”

“Maybe. I have very low self-esteem.”

Probably aware I was watching super intently, he climbed self-consciously over the stile and waited for me on the other side. I hopped over after, taking his hand without really thinking about it as I came down.

“Of course I want to spend time with you,” he said, still holding my hand. “I’d like you to come as my date to Jennifer’s thirtieth birthday in a couple of weeks.”

We headed for Mum’s. I didn’t mention the hand thing in case it went away.

“Who’s Jennifer?”

“An old friend from university. She and her husband are having a few of us round for dinner.”

I gave him a suspicious look. “Are these your straight friends?”

“I don’t generally categorise my friends by sexuality.”

“Do you only have straight friends?”

“I know Tom. And…and you.”

“Tom doesn’t count. I mean, not because he’s bisexual. I mean, because he’s dating Bridget. I mean, not that dating a woman makes him less bisexual. I’m just saying, he’s not your friend. She’s your friend. And I’m the rando you’re pretending to date, so I’m pretty sure I don’t count either.”

He smoothed down his adorably wind-tousled hair. “My friends are just the people who happen to be my friends. There are a lot of straight people in the world. I like some of them.”