Husband Material (London Calling, #2)

by Alexis Hall

“Okay. Except now we can be included. So shouldn’t we be, y’know, trying to be?” Oliver shrugged. “For some people, absolutely. But for me, it feels like a framework I didn’t create and can’t control that I’m expected to impose on my own life.” “And that’s why we can’t get married?” I asked. Because, oddly enough, I didn’t find this very comforting. “You love me and you want to be with me. You just don’t want to do it in the way nearly all our friends have done?” He stood, drawing me close with the lightest tug on my wrist. I don’t know why I went—given I still strongly suspected I was angry at him—but I did. “Is that so unthinkable?” “I–I don’t know.” I was tired enough and emotional enough that my brain was beginning to turn into an eel sandwich. “And I only have three minutes to work it out.” I’d been staring at the numbers on my phone, but then Oliver gently turned my face to his. “Lucien,” he said softly. “You know you are the truest thing I have ever dared choose for myself. And we are the only thing I’ve ever had that I haven’t let other people define for me.”