“From what you’ve said, that might not have been a good thing.”

“See. You’re making progress.”

There was a pause. “I’m afraid I still can’t quite bring myself to think about it properly. I’m not as fearless as you.”

“I’m plenty fearful, as you well know.”

“It never seems to hold you back.”

I caught his wrist and kissed his palm. “You’re giving me way too much credit. I was a total mess before I met you.”

“Your flat was a total mess. It’s not the same.”

“Y’know”—I smiled up at him—“I’m not going to sit here and argue with you about whether I suck or not. You just keep believing I don’t.”

“I’ll never believe you’re anything less than remarkable.”

Oh fuck. I’ve never been good at this stuff. “Me too. I mean, only like, I think you are. Not that I think I am. I mean, not in a low self-esteem way. Like, that would be really arrogant. Look, can we have sex now?”

“Ever the romantic, Lucien.”

“It’s how I express myself. It’s part of my unique charm.”

He snorted, but let me lead him into the bedroom anyway. Where I undressed him slowly and, for some reason, couldn’t stop kissing him. And he gave himself up to me, moment by moment, and I lost myself in the rhythm of his body and the hunger of his touch. I came to him like I thought I’d never come to anyone—forgetting to hold back in the need to make him feel as safe and as cherished and as special as he made me. I held him, and he clung to me, and we moved together, and, okay, I gazed into his eyes. And I whispered to him, telling him…stuff. Embarrassing stuff about how much I cared about him and how wonderful he was to me. And I…and we…and.

Look.

It’s not the sort of thing you talk about, okay? It was for us. And it was everything.

* * *

I was awoken, frankly way too early for a Sunday, by a fully dressed Oliver kissing me lightly on the forehead. This wasn’t completely unprecedented because Oliver, being a responsible human adult, didn’t share my commitment to the art of the lie-in, but something felt off.

“Goodbye, Lucien,” he said.

I was suddenly way more conscious than I liked being at this time of the morning. “Wait. What? Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“Why? If you’ve got work to do, you can do it here. Or give me ten minutes”—well, that was fairly optimistic but what the hell—“and I’ll come with you.”

“You misunderstand me. I’ve enjoyed our time together, and I’m grateful for your efforts, but we’ve done what we set out to do. It’s time for us both to move on.”

What was even happening right now? “Hang on. What… I… Hey, we had the this feels real to both of us talk. There’s no takesy-backsies on the this feels real to both of us talk.”

“And,” he said, in this cool, empty voice, “we also agreed that we would wait until the end of the arrangement to make any formal commitments.”

“Okay. Then I…formally commit.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Once again, what was even happening right now? The only thing I was certain about was that I did not want to be having this conversation naked. Not that it was looking like I had a choice. “Why not?”

“Because we were wrong. This isn’t real.”

“How isn’t it real?” Pulling the duvet around me, I struggled into a kneeling position. “We’ve gone to restaurants, we’ve talked about our feelings, we’ve met each other’s fucking parents. In what way is this not a relationship?”

“I’ve had far more of them than you. And I can assure you this has felt nothing like one. It’s been a fantasy. That’s all.”

I stared at him, angry and betrayed and hurt and confused. “You’ve been in more relationships than me because—by your own admission—you’ve ballsed so many of them up. Are you honestly trying to claim we’re not a couple because we’re not miserable or bored of each other?”

“It’s easy to be happy,” he told me, “when you’re pretending.”

“Who’s fucking pretending? Do you think I’d be like this if I was pretending?”

He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his brow in that tormented way he had. Except this time it was expressing more than indulgent frustration at my antics. “Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“Of course I’m going to make it fucking difficult. You think I’m just going to let you throw this away? For no reason except… Oh fuck, is this because I made you a bacon sandwich?” I put my head in my hands. “I can’t believe I’m about to get dumped over a bacon sandwich.”

“It’s not about the sandwich. It’s”—he sighed—“about you and me. We’re different people.”

“But we work.” That came out sounding slightly more pitiful than I would have wanted. But I guess I had some choices ahead of me, and if it came down to keeping my dignity versus keeping Oliver, things weren’t looking so good for dignity. “And I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. I mean, apart from telling your entire family to fuck off. And, okay, that was probably a biggie, but if it was a deal-breaker, I wish you’d told me that before I made a total fool of myself over you last night.”

“It’s not that either.”

“Then,” I yelled, “what the fuck is it? Because from where I’m standing, you spent months telling me I’m wonderful and beautiful and amazing and worth something and now it’s just, what, kthanksbai?”

“It’s not about you, Lucien.”

“How is you dumping me not about me?” Okay. This was good. I could work with this. If I was angry, I wasn’t crying. “Like, did you mean a single word you said since this whole thing started?”

“I meant all of it, but being with you isn’t right for me. And being with me isn’t right for you.”

“It felt fucking right yesterday. It’s been fucking right for ages.”

He wouldn’t even look at me. “I’ve already told you: this hasn’t been real. It can’t last because, as you’ve pointed out, my relationships don’t, and I’d rather remember what we’ve had than watch it go cold and die, like it always does.”