Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1)

by Alexis Hall

“I’m not trying to turn your head, Lucien. I’m trying to make sure this doesn’t blow up in both of our faces.” I made an insouciant gesture that involved knocking over the tiny vase of flowers that Oliver had just replaced on the table. “Shit. Sorry. But, how complicated is this? We carry on with our lives and tell anyone who asks that we’re dating.” “That’s rather my point, though. Do we tell anyone who asks? What about Bridget?” “Yeah”—I tried to fix the flowers and failed utterly—“she kind of already knows the truth.” “And were you going to mention this at any point? Or were you just going to let me make a fool of myself in front of her as I naively committed to the pretence we were both supposed to be maintaining.” “Bridge is the exception. We can’t keep secrets from Bridge. She’s my straight best friend. There’s a code.” Oliver leaned past me and made two small adjustments to the flowers, transforming them from shabby and accusing to radiant and lovely. “But to everyone else we’re really dating?” “Absolutely. I mean, there’s a guy at work who’s sort of in on it.” “A guy at the work for whose benefit this whole deception is being practiced?” “Well, it was his idea, so it was unavoidable. Besides”—I nearly got insouciant again, but then thought better of it—“he’s got the brains of a raspberry pavlova. He’s probably already forgotten.” He sighed. “Fine. So to everyone except Bridget and this gentleman you work with, we’re really dating?” “I can’t lie to my mum obviously....