Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1)

by Alexis Hall

It was the longest week ever. Which made no sense because I’d only had a pretend boyfriend for ten minutes. And it wasn’t like I’d ever been Mr. Knows What to Do with Himself—it’s just that before Oliver came along, I’d been resigned to a lifetime of cruising Grindr, then freaking out in case I got recognised and ended up in the papers again, and deciding instead to spend my evenings half-dressed under a pile of blankets binge-watching Scandi-noir on Netflix and hating myself. And now I…I don’t know… I guess I wasn’t? He still texted because, of course he would. Though mainly he said things like, Grabbing a bagel. Case is complicated. Can’t discuss it. Apologies for lack of dick pic. Which was lovely for about three seconds, and then just made me miss him. And what was with that? Was my life really so empty that Oliver could just walk into it, sit down, and start taking up space? I mean, it probably was. But somehow, even after so little time, I couldn’t imagine anyone doing that but him. After all, who else could be that annoying? And thoughtful. And protective. And secretly kind of funny. And—bugger. At nine o’clock on Tuesday night, halfway through an episode of Bordertown, which I’d been paying no attention to, I came abruptly to the conclusion that all my problems would be solved if I tidied my flat. At nine thirty-six on Tuesday, I came abruptly to the conclusion that this had been the worst idea ever. I’d started trying to put things in places, but the places where ...