Husband Material (London Calling, #2)

by Alexis Hall

“I think she probably did,” I began. I’d been about to add But it’s okay, I get that a lot of people think that way, but I never got that far. David Blackwood surged to his feet. Which was actually pretty intimidating in a cosy gastropub in Milton Keynes. “How dare you. You come up here, you let us pay for your lunch, and that’s how you talk to our son?” It wasn’t the most furious anyone had ever got with me, but it certainly had the highest anger-to-provocation ratio. If I’d been in a more charitable mood, I might have said that at least he was protecting Oliver and I could understand the instinct to protect Oliver. Except I wasn’t in a charitable mood, I hadn’t asked them to buy me anything, and David Blackwood was an arsehole. I was just psyching myself up to give a deeply insincere apology when there was a tiny clink as Oliver put down his salad fork. “Father,” he said. “You’re making a scene.” David snapped round like a rattlesnake. “Making a scene? I’m not the one arguing with your mother and making snide comments.” “I wasn’t—” But Oliver cut me off. “With respect, you’ve barely met Lucien. You know nothing about our relationship and, frankly, you know nothing about me. If we’re going to talk about snide comments, then you have a thirty-year head start on everybody at this table. And as for Mother”—his gaze flicked to Miriam—“I’m sorry, but you were being homophobic. You’re both quite homophobic people.”