Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1)

by Alexis Hall

I won’t lie. It was fairly terrible. But there were some compensations. Like what? I asked. You.

I’d started trying to put things in places, but the places where I wanted to put the things were already full of things that weren’t the things that were supposed to go in those places, so I had to take the things out of the places, but there were no places to put the things that came from the places, so then I tried to put things back in the places but they wouldn’t go back in the places, which meant now I had more things and nowhere to put the things, and some of the things were clean and some of the things were very much not clean, and the very much not clean things were getting mixed up with the clean things and everything was terrible and I wanted to die.

relatable

I tried to lie on the floor and sob pathetically, but there was no room.

also relatable

LUC IM GOING OT KEEP ASKING YOU HOW THINGS ARE WITH OLIVER UNTIL YOU ANSWR OR MY THUMBS FALL OFF I took pity on her. Or maybe on everyone else. It’s wonderful. We’re getting married. Why do you think I need to clean my flat? YOUR BEING SARCASTIC THAT MEANS YOU SECRETLY LIKE HIM!!!

And also I, y’know, liked, y’know, seeing, y’know, him. And stuff.

We all took a moment to remind ourselves that there were some jobs James Royce-Royce was scarily good at. “You see,” said James Royce-Royce, kissing his husband’s cheek extravagantly, “isn’t he fabulous?”

“Oh my God, Luc,” cried James Royce-Royce. “What’s happened to your mouth?” I glanced up, startled. “If there’s hummus on my face, just tell me.” “It’s far worse than that. You were smiling.”

His arms went round me, in that enfoldy sort of way he was so good at, and he pressed against my back. “It’s certainly very different from what I’m used to. But I don’t…I don’t think it’s bad. It’s honest.”

People express love in different ways.” “And apparently I do it by being a dick.” “Then”—God, his mouth right now wasn’t stern in the slightest—“you must care for me very deeply.” “I…” I was actually dying. I was going to blush myself to death.

“Where I am going with this, mon caneton, is that I don’t give a shit. It is my curry, and I will make it the way I fucking well want to. And that is the way Oliver should live his life. Because the people who matter will love you anyway.”

I let my head rest against his knee, and, somewhere between the mini-challenge and the runway, Oliver’s hand began stroking softly through my hair.

“Yes. There’s actually French toast.” “For me?” “Lucien, I don’t understand why you’re obsessed with glorified eggy bread.” I think I was blushing. “I don’t know. It’s just got this domestic bliss vibe to it that I find, um, nice?” “I see.” “And, honestly,” I admitted, “I never imagined anyone would actually make it for me.” He brushed the hair out of my eyes almost absentmindedly. “You know, you’re sometimes very sweet.” “I…” Fuck. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

“Don’t worry, it’s easily done, old thing. Only yesterday, I answered the phone with ‘Good afternoon’ and then realised it was only 11:30.” “Alex,” I said slowly, “wasn’t yesterday Sunday?” “Gosh. So it was. I thought it was a bit quiet.”

Yes. One of them. Rhys wants me to get some publicity for a friend of his and I said I would because you’ve made me a better person you bastard My apologies. I didn’t mean to. It’s fine. You can pay for it by making me look like I understand art

“They’re my friends, Lucien. They’ll be happy I’m happy.” I stared at him. “You’re…you’re happy? I make you happy? That’s a thing I do?”

I was probably going to get dumped. But there was really no other response. “Don’t have a cow, man,” I said, at exactly the same time everybody else did.

So I want to thank you all for having managed to avoid work crises, childcare emergencies—” Some polyphonic bells rang out from Ben’s breast pocket and he leapt to his feet, nearly clocking Tom in the head on the way. “Fuck. Babysitter. I bet the little fuckers have burned the house down.” And, with that, he ran out of the room. “—mostly avoid childcare emergencies,” Jennifer continued.

“Shhh. You don’t have to do anything. You’re enough. You’re…” I gazed at him, not sure what was coming next. From the look on his face, he probably wasn’t either. “Everything,” he finished.

There was a pause. He stroked his beard. “Ooh, I like it. It’s rather Dadaist. You see, I was expecting you to interrupt me during the final line because you’re an interrupting cow. But you didn’t, so I was surprised, and that made it funny. I’ll be chuckling about that all day, I will.” They were doing this deliberately, weren’t they?

Pinkie swear.” He gave me a disapproving look. “Pinkie swear? Are you American all of a sudden?” “Okay, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a sausage in my eye?

Finally, Oliver took a bite of sandwich. His eyes fluttered closed. “God, that’s good.” “I know this is wrong of me”—I dabbed a tiny curl of ketchup from the edge of his mouth with a fingertip—“but, fuck me, you’re sexy when you’re compromising your principles.”

His fingers curled lightly into my hair. “Thank you for doing that for me.” “I’d say I got as much out of it as you did, except you ate my fucking sandwich.” “I’m so sorry.” “I’m teasing, Oliver.”

And if we let happy things make us unhappy when they stopped, there would be no point having happy things.”

“Don’t worry.” Bridge was already rummaging in her bag. “I’ve got this. I’ll be incredibly subtle.” “Well,” said Priya, “we’re fucked.”

It felt safe to let my guard down with you because I could tell myself it wasn’t real. But now it is and…well…I’m coming to the conclusion I might be unbelievably terrified.” “Me too,” I said. “But let’s be terrified together.”