“He literally used it as a punch line.”

“Lucien, I feel bad enough about this already.”

“You shouldn’t be the one who’s feeling bad,” I insisted. “You’re a good person.”

“But not a very good son.”

“Only by the standards of the arseholes you’re unfortunate enough to have for parents.”

He hid his face, and I had a horrible feeling he was crying again. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Wow. I sucked at being comforting. I’d love to pretend that I’d strategically made myself the bad guy so Oliver had someone other than himself to be angry at but, firstly, I hadn’t. I’d just fucked up. And, secondly, it wasn’t working anyway. I patted him again because it was the most successful thing I’d done that afternoon.

“Sorry.” I kept patting. “I’m really sorry. And I’m here for you. And, y’know, feel your feelings. However you need to feel them.”

He felt his feelings for…quite a long time.

Eventually he lifted his head. “I wish,” he said, “I could have a bacon sandwich.”

“That”—my enthusiasm here was probably a little bit inappropriate, but I was just so fucking glad I could actually help somehow—“I can do.”

“I meant, except I’m a vegetarian.”

I thought about this a moment. “Okay, but in an ‘industrial farming is bad, think about your carbon footprint’ way?”

“Does that make a difference?”

“Well,” I went on, hoping that I was putting this together right. It felt like something Oliver would say, and I thought he’d appreciate that. “If you’re avoiding meat because you’re trying to reduce the overall negative effect of meat-eating on the world, then what really matters isn’t what you eat, it’s what gets eaten. In fact, it doesn’t even matter what gets eaten, it matters what gets bought.”

He sat up. Turns out being emotionally supportive wasn’t nearly as effective as giving him an intellectual exercise. “I might make the case that one should nevertheless take responsibility for one’s own behaviour, but go on.”

“Well, I’ve already got bacon in my fridge. Which has already been paid for, so whatever contribution it’s making to the—I don’t know, the cured meat industrial complex or whatever—has already been made. So now it doesn’t technically matter who eats it.”

“But if I eat your bacon, you’ll just buy more.”

“I’ll promise not to. Pinkie swear.”

He gave me a disapproving look. “Pinkie swear? Are you American all of a sudden?”

“Okay, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a sausage in my eye? But you’ve got to admit I kind of win here. Also it’s very good bacon. It’s, like, ethical and free range and shit. From Waitrose.”

“I’m sure there’s a flaw in your argument somewhere. I’m not thinking very clearly right now. Also”—his lips curled upwards very faintly—“I really want some bacon.”

“For the record, I make an amazing bacon sandwich. I have a life hack.”

“Perhaps I’m showing my age, but I remember when we called life hacks ‘ways of doing things.’”

He was definitely on the mend. “Yeah, and I have an excellent way of cooking bacon. Shut up.”

“I shouldn’t do this…”

“Oh, come on. You want a bacon sandwich. Please let me make you a bacon sandwich.”

He was silent for a long moment or short minute. I hadn’t quite anticipated what a big deal this was going to be for him.

“Well,” he said finally, “all right. But you have to promise not to buy any more bacon for a fortnight.”

“If that’s what it takes…fine.”

He dried his eyes and straightened his tie, settling his hands back in the ten-to-two position with the air of someone who’d got past the desire to plough us off the road and into someone’s privet hedge. And to my relief, he drove us home very, very sensibly.

As for me, I think I’d been put off Milton Keynes for life. And all the concrete cows in the world couldn’t bring me back.

Chapter 48

Surprisingly, my flat was still in pretty good nick. Obviously, not “cleaned all the things” level pristine, but also not a “what the hell is wrong with you” cesspit. It helped that Oliver had stayed over a couple of times and seemed to tidy as he went like some kind of human Roomba. Although I suppose thinking about it, a human Roomba is just a person with a vacuum cleaner.

Oliver was still doing whatever he was doing, dwelling or processing or crying on the inside, when we got in. So I headed for the kitchen and got out my cheap frying pan and my expensive bacon. Some people would probably have had it the other way around. But some people were wrong.

In a minute or two, Oliver—having shed his jacket and tie, but still wearing the ill-fated blue shirt that I maintain he looked fine in—came to join me. Something my kitchen was barely capable of dealing with.

“Why,” he asked, smooshing up behind me, “is your bacon underwater?”

“I told you. It’s a life hack.”

“Lucien, I haven’t had bacon in several years. Please don’t ruin this for me.”

If he hadn’t had such a terrible day, I’d have been insulted at his lack of faith. “I’m not going to ruin it. This works perfectly. I mean, assuming you like your bacon crispy and delicious, not flabby and burned.”

“That seems like a false dichotomy.”

I hoped the fact he was using the word dichotomy in cold blood meant he was feeling at least a little bit better. “I just mean, it’s a good way to cook bacon so it doesn’t dry out or turn to charcoal.” I half turned so that I could catch his eye. “Trust me. If there’s one thing I take seriously, it’s bacon.”

“I do.” He kissed my neck, making me shiver. “Trust you, that is. Not take bacon seriously.”

“Well, you did come in here to assess my bacon strategy.”

“I came in to be close to you.”

I ran through a bunch of responses in my head, but decided it wasn’t the time to be taking refuge in banter. “I like having you here.”

I mean, in abstract I liked having him there. In practice, it was a little bit awkward—but, hey, it was bacon, not the Sistine Chapel. It didn’t take that much concentration, and I could watch it cooking almost as effectively with Oliver’s arms around me as, well, not. Eventually, the water boiled off, and the bacon had crisped up beautifully. As it always did because the bacon hack is the best thing ever.