Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1)

by Alexis Hall

“What’s wrong? Look, I know it’s not exactly a sexy job, and I don’t even have the comfort of saying ‘Someone has to do it’ because we totally don’t. But you’ve gone weird again.” “Sorry. It’s…complicated.” “Complicated can be interesting.” He went up on tiptoes to smooth a lock of hair behind my ear for me. “And we’ve got the kissing down. We’ve just got to work on the talking.” I gave what I hoped wasn’t a sickly grin. “I’d rather stick with what I’m good at.” “Tell you what. I’ll ask you a question, and if I like the answer, you get to kiss me again.” “Um, I’m not sure—” “Let’s start small. You know what I do. How about you?” My heart was racing. And not in a fun way. But, as questions went, that was harmless, right? It was information at least two hundred spambots already had. “I work for a charity.” “Wow. Noble. I’d say I’d always wanted to do something like that, but I’m far too shallow.” He turned his face up to mine, and I kissed him nervously. “Favourite ice cream flavour?” “Mint choc chip.” Another kiss. “Book that literally everyone else has read but you haven’t.” “All of them.” He drew back. “You’re not getting kissed for that. It’s a total cop-out.” “No seriously. All of them, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, anything Dickens ever wrote, All Quiet on the Western Front, that one about the time-traveller’s wife, Harry Potter…” “You really do own your illiteracy, don’t you?” “Yeah, I’m thinking about moving to America and running for public office.”