Husband Material (London Calling, #2)

by Alexis Hall

“I’m not opposed to marriage in general.” Oliver gave a tight little smile. “I’m just not the sort of person who can get invested in the trappings if I’m not invested in the couple.” I didn’t think I was either, really. I’d only agreed to help organise Bridge’s wedding because she was my best friend and I was pretty sure she’d do all the important planning herself. Of course, part of it was that for most of my life it hadn’t looked like marriage was a thing I’d ever be able to do. And in some ways it was nice to think if I was growing up today, I’d be able to be one of those kids spending his days planning his fantasy wedding to the man of his dreams. But in other ways, it felt kind of like I’d missed out.

even after two years of relationshipping and self-care and emotional development, it still scared me how vulnerable sex could make me feel. Which meant it was way easier to say Spank me, Daddy, which we both knew I didn’t mean, than Hold me, I love you, which I definitely did.

Which felt bad for a moment, then good, then something else that was neither. A sort of soft, nostalgic ache for a time you didn’t particularly want to go back to but resented that you couldn’t.

“I absolutely don’t want to denigrate anybody’s values. But places like this are… Well, I’m sure for people who like to express themselves in this kind of way that they’re very empowering. But for me…” Now he ran a hand through his hair. Also not the best of signs. “It’s like this whole event is telling me I’m doing my identity wrong if I’m not draping myself in rainbows at every opportunity. Ironically, it makes me feel judged.”

“I mean,” I admitted, “I probably don’t actually need to see him poo himself.” Oliver glanced speculatively towards the happy couple. “Are you sure? It could be arranged.” “How?” “Laxatives in the champagne. There’s a twenty-four-hour chemist up the road.” I’d heard people say the key to a good relationship was still being able to surprise each other. But I think, maybe, it was an unexpected willingness to arrange public defecation.

“And I think, when it comes to love, it’s worth rolling the dice.”

“No. It’s the kind of thing I would do. I mean, it’s not the kind of thing I would do. It’s the kind of thing the kind of person I am would do if they were going to fuck up their relationship with the kind of person you are.” Oliver took a deep breath. “You are not that kind of person. You just worry you might be every time somebody likes you.”

I guess I’d kind of forgotten, or let myself forget, just how, like, God-centric a full-on religious ceremony could be. And as much as I’d found the all-the-rainbows-all-the-queer-iconography-all-the-time setup of Miles and JoJo’s wedding a bit extra, this thing we were doing now was way weirder. I mean, we were sitting in a medieval building while a man in a triangular hat read to us out of a two-thousand-year-old book.

“By most objective metrics,” observed Dr. Fairclough, “humans are by far the worst animals, except perhaps in terms of our ability to survive in diverse environments.” She paused. “Although in those terms we are arguably inferior to our own gut flora.”

I wish I could be that brave or that selfish but, ironically, it’s not how I was raised. And I’m working on that, but my father was inconsiderate enough to die in the middle of the process rather than at the end of it. So here I am, doing what is expected of me, because right here and now right, I cannot imagine doing anything else.”

“I feel like such a fool.” “You shouldn’t,” I told him. “It was really brave of you. I mean, there was me, thinking the options were eulogy or no eulogy. But, dark horse that you are, you went through the door marked Extemporaneous monologue about fatherhood and loss.”

If funerals were easier than weddings because no one was expected to enjoy them, then wakes might have sucked harder because you sort of were. I mean, not in a Munchkin Village way, but in an “in the midst of death we are in life; the deceased would want us to be joyful” way. And that was a really specific mood. A really specific mood that was hard enough to achieve at the best of times, and even harder to achieve when the deceased had actually been kind of a dick and everybody knew it.

And for a moment, just for a moment, I half wished this was our first date again. I mean, not literally because it had been a disaster. But I wanted to keep this. This almost fragile feeling of everything being what it was and being for its own sake and not needing to go anywhere or become anything else. But that was how relationships began. It wasn’t how they lasted. You couldn’t live forever on lemon posset and French toast. At some point you had to think, really think, about where you were going and what it meant. You had to ask if you were in this forever, and if you were, what were you going to do about it, and if you weren’t, what were you even doing. You were either in or you were out. You either got married or you moved on.