Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1)

by Alexis Hall

Eventually, Theresa—who clearly had better manners than the rest of us—said, “Priya tells me you have a new boyfriend, Luc. Will he be joining us?” “He’s got a work thing.” I waved a hunk of James Royce-Royce’s delicious home-made bread slightly sheepishly. “He’s a barrister.” “What speciality?” Help. I hadn’t prepared for the quiz. “Um…criminal stuff? He defends them and stuff.” “That’s very admirable. I had a friend from university who went into criminal law, but he recently moved into consultancy. I understand it can be very draining and not particularly lucrative.” “Well, Oliver’s got a lot of passion for it. I can’t imagine him wanting to do anything else really.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then he’s lucky. Although in my experience there’s no one thing you need to make you happy.” “Is this,” said Priya, “your way of telling me you want a threesome?” Theresa gave her a wry smile. “Absolutely. In front of your friends at a picnic in a flat that still looks a little bit like the Siege of Constantinople is exactly how I’d choose to have that conversation.” “That sounds like it’s probably bad”—I went for another piece of infidel pie—“but I don’t actually know what the Siege of Constantinople looked like.” Theresa looked thoughtful again. I guess thoughtful was kind of the default in academia. “To be fair, it depends which siege you’re talking about, but I was thinking of the one in 1204.” “Oh good. Because if it had been any of the other ones, I’d have been deep...