Husband Material (London Calling, #2)

by Alexis Hall

“That would be wonderful,” replied Oliver, for once letting himself enjoy a thing uncomplicatedly. Or at least he did for about half a second. “Ah, except. I believe it’s made with cream?” I basked for a moment in having, very briefly, not fucked one thing up. “Actually, when I booked, I told them this was our first-date restaurant and that we’d had the lemon posset and you’d gone vegan since but could they do something. And they said they could.” Oliver’s eyes got very close to teary again. “Lucien.” He swallowed. “That was…that was terribly sweet of you.” If I’d been a lot more grown-up, I’d have said, It was nothing. If I’d been slightly more grown-up, I’d have said, Anything for you, babe. But wanting to make someone happy as much as I wanted to make Oliver happy was a very naked feeling to be having in a restaurant so, instead, I just gave an embarrassed cringe and said something that came out as “inerenugh?” By some magic I’d never quite mastered, Oliver caught the waiter’s eye, seamlessly volunteered that the meal had been lovely and, from there, segued into a requesting a lemon posset with two spoons to finish. I should have got used to Oliver being good at this shit by now but…I hadn’t. Really, all that had changed was that instead of making me feel inadequate, it made me feel smug that my boyfriend—fiancé—was polite and considerate and confident and knew how to restaurant. “You know I’m not letting you use that spoon, right?” He rolled his eyes in his secretly-in...