Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1)

by Alexis Hall

Unlatching the gate, I made my way through the slightly overgrown front garden and let myself into the house. I’m not entirely sure what I’d been expecting. But it definitely wasn’t Jon Fleming. At first, I thought I was having some kind of hallucination. He’d been around when I was very young, but I had no memory of him. So this was effectively the first time I’d seen my, you know, father in person. And I had no way of processing it—just a vague sense of a man wearing a scarf indoors and getting away with it. He and Mum were sitting at the opposite ends of the living room, looking like two people who ran out of things to say a very long time ago. “What the fuck,” I said. “Luc…” Mum stood, actually wringing her hands. “I know you won’t remember him very well, but this is your father.” “I know who he is. What I don’t know is why he’s here.” “Well, that’s why I called. He has something to tell you.” I folded my arms. “If it’s ‘sorry,’ or ‘I’ve always loved you,’ or some bullshit like that, he’s about twenty-five years too late.” At this, Jon Fleming also got to his feet. As the saying goes, nothing says family like everyone standing around, staring awkwardly at each other. “Lucien,” he said. “Or, you prefer Luc, is that right?” I would have been happy to live my entire life without having to look my dad in the face. Unfortunately—as with so much else—he wasn’t giving me the choice. And I will tell you now, it was the weirdest fucking thing. Because the way someone seems in a...