by Alexis Hall
“Enjoy your, y’know, lives.”
I was halfway to the door at a full canter when Nathaniel’s voice stopped me. “Arden?”
“Yes?”
“Now that we’re done with the business side of things, I was wondering…” He broke off, and there was something oddly vulnerable about it. “Would you like to come to dinner with us?”
I lost control of my shoulder bag. Scrappy pieces of paper, old bus tickets, a tampon Ellery had made me carry for her once, and the remains of a half-eaten packet of sweets spilled across the pristine office floor. “What? Shit. Oh no, my jellybeans. What?”
“Well,” Nathaniel went on, making a tremendous effort to ignore the fact I was crawling about on my hands and knees, “I’ve thought for a while we didn’t get off to what you might call the best start. And since you’re a friend of Caspian’s, I would like to remedy that.”
I paused, jellybeans bouncing from between my fingers. The thing is, I did not want to go for dinner with Caspian and Nathaniel. Because, while I could theoretically imagine worse things—being stuck on an alien spaceship and hunted by a Xenomorph, for example—they weren’t happening to me there and then, and I could be pretty sure I wouldn’t be expected to smile and say thank you afterwards. On top of which, I was not Caspian’s fucking friend. I was his ex who was still in love with him.
“Look,” I tried. “Like, the thing is—”
Fuck. He’d got me. There was no way I could get out of this. I couldn’t claim to be busy because the invitation was too vague (“Unfortunately, Nathaniel, I’m washing my hair literally forever”), and I couldn’t just refuse because that would make me look like a total dick in front of Caspian. To him, this probably seemed like his current partner doing the decent thing by his previous, so my options were: Be the bad guy who rejected a peace offering, or tacitly accept Nathaniel’s reframing of my role in Caspian’s life. Basically I’d been friend-zoned by proxy. If he hadn’t been doing it right to my face, I’d have been a little bit impressed.
Suddenly, Caspian was out of his chair and kneeling in front of me. I’d forgotten the grace in him when he wasn’t self-conscious. The heedless power. And God, that cologne of his: those sweet, dark notes, all cocoa and sandalwood and the promise of wicked things. Oh help. He was too close and too beautiful and I wanted him too much.
He offered me a slightly fluffy jellybean. “Do come, Arden. It would be good to see you.”
“Would it?” That was fucking news to me. “Would it really?”
“Of course it would. As Nathaniel says, we’re friends…aren’t we?”
Oh, for God’s sake. Et tu, Caspian? But I didn’t quite have the bollocks to say No actually, I’m your scorned ex-lover and you know it. The thing is, Nathaniel inviting me to a Yah Boo Sucks Ardy dinner, I could just about get my head round. But why the fuck was Caspian on board with this? He didn’t actually want to see me, did he? And if he did, he had a fucking funny way of showing it.
Oh, wait. What was I saying? This was Caspian Hart. Not speaking to you for three months, then glaring at you coldly was practically his love language.
“Of course,” I said, through gritted teeth. “And dinner would be lovely.”
Chapter 12
Somehow, I made it out of Caspian’s office. But as soon as I was safely on the street, I collapsed into a huddle against the wall of the building, not sure whether I was going to pass out or throw up, my body reacting about as well as it had the time they made us do one of those beep test things in PE. But I got over it, and quite a bit faster than I had the beep test, which had left me so emotionally and physically traumatised Hazel had stormed into school and got it banned. Shame she couldn’t do that to Nathaniel, really. Although probably part of being a responsible grown-up and shit meant you couldn’t get your mum’s girlfriend to handle all your problems for you.
At any rate, I was starting to get funny looks. I was already way out of place in this part of London—probably I was the only person within a square-mile radius who wasn’t wearing a suit—but I wasn’t helping my case by throwing a massive wobbly. Time to limp back to the office. And at least I could compose myself on the Tube, since, far as I could tell, the whole point of being on the Tube was to ignore the existence of as many as people as possible.
Before I vanished underground, though, I stood in Liverpool Street Station, underneath the great iron ribs of its vaulted ceiling, scrolling through my contacts, looking for Bellerose. He’d given me his number while I’d been dating Caspian, but Caspian had also insisted I use a second phone and I couldn’t remember if it had occurred to me to synch my data in the haze of newly dumped heartache. Oh. Apparently I had. But then, there had been a small window of crystal-sharp competence when I’d been moving out of One Hyde Park. Having fucked up so many things with Caspian, and in so many ways, I’d taken a terrible pride in clearing out of his life neatly and efficiently.
He was a big fan of efficiency, was Caspian. And suddenly I was remembering him ruining Carcassonne, and missing him so very much. Missing him and mourning all the could-have-beens that had been trampled underfoot like cherry blossom in spring.
Enough. I called Bellerose.
The phone rang for a really long time. Just rang and rang—not even cutting off or going to voicemail. And I was just about to give up and try again later when he answered, managing to sound both exactly the same as ever, and not at all like himself: “What do you need, Arden?”
My mouth plopped open unhelpfully. Probably I should have, y’know, at least thought about what I was going to say to him. “I…I don’t think I need anything. I mean…I was kind of wondering if you were okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, I saw Caspian today. With Nathaniel, I mean. And you weren’t there.”
“He didn’t fire me, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” An odd note of bitterness touched Bellerose’s voice. “I’m taking some time. Involuntarily.”
What the fuck did that mean? Bellerose was the perfect, um, whatever the hell his job was. And he was devoted to Caspian to a degree that, in any other context, would have been creepy. Actually, maybe it was creepy. But that just made this whole thing weirder. I was pretty sure it was psychologically impossible for Bellerose to do anything that Caspian didn’t want. “What I’m concerned about,” I said, “is you. I know how you feel about Caspian.”
He made a contemptuous sound—a sort of laugh, if laughing had a nasty second cousin nobody liked. “Don’t turn this into something sentimental. It’s humiliating enough already.”
“God, you’re so fucking like him.” Maybe that was why I wanted to shake both of them. “It’s okay to have feelings.”
“I am well aware of that, thank you. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand mine.”
I gave up. I was starting to wonder why I’d tried at all. Why I kept on trying when the only thing it accomplished was making me feel small and crappy and useless. “Have it your way. Sorry to bother you.” Yet still something kept me on the phone. “Look, you’ve got people, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“People who are there for you.”
“Oh yes,” he said airily. “I’m surrounded by them. Beating them off with sticks.”
“Okay now you’re just, like, lying to me.”
Another pause. “I…I’m not really a people person.”
“So in other words, Caspian has forced you into exile, you’re all alone, and you’re not okay.”
“Well, somebody got out the feisty side of bed this morning.”
“Bellerose…and, for the record it seems really weird to be calling you Bellerose, but I don’t quite have the balls to use Justin…you can be as salty as you like, but”—and I actually stamped my foot in the middle of a train station—“I’m trying to be your people here.”
More silence. Even deeper than before. “Why?”
“Because you’ve been there for me.”
“I was the
re for Caspian. You were incidental.”
“If you’re trying to hurt my feelings, you have chosen an epically bad time. Because that doesn’t even make the top ten of shitty things said to me today.”
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings.” There was something about Bellerose’s too-clean, too-sharp accent that made nearly everything sound faintly sarcastic. But right now, it seemed like he meant what he was saying. “I just don’t want you to be under any illusions.”
I’d had perilously similar talks with Caspian. Usually with unhappy outcomes. “I’m not. Whether you wanted to or not, whether you would have chosen to or not, you’ve helped me a lot. And I would like you to know that means something.”
I was ninety-nine percent certain he was going to reject me. And thirty-nine percent certain he was going to do it in a totally soul-destroying way. Because, let’s face it, soul destroying was the theme of my day.
“Very well,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
Good question. Very good question. “Um. We could meet up? Talk or something?”
“Tell me when, tell me where. I have nothing but time.”
He offered this up so matter-of-factly that it sounded bleak as fuck. “Tonight? It’ll have to be after work. So maybe sixish? The Shaston Arms, just off Carnaby Street?”
“I’ll be there.”
He’d hung up before I could even say goodbye. Bellerose was also way into efficiency.
And holy shit, we were meeting for drinks. The whole idea suddenly seemed wildly outlandish. I mean, given that all our previous conversations had revolved around whatever crisis I happened to be having at the time, what the fuck was I going to say to him? Well, I guess I’d figure it out. And rely on the fact that Bellerose had told me once he didn’t find me completely repulsive. Truly, was that not the bedrock of friendship?
* * *
Once I got back to the office, I fully intended to dive straight into transcribing the conversation from the recording like a proper grown-up journalist but foundered on account of it turning out to be a horrendously shitty job. Every time I heard Caspian, I wanted to cry, and every time I heard Nathaniel, I…also wanted to cry. But in a really angry way. None of which was really conducive to, y’know, professionalism.
“Hello, poppet.”
I glanced up to discover George lounging at the end of my desk and looking impossibly hot in a very fitted, bottle-green suit and skyscraper Louboutins. “Go away please,” I said virtuously. “I am very busy and important.”
“Very busy and important taking all the staples out your stapler and putting them back in again?”
“That’s very vital maintenance. Otherwise I could try to staple something and it wouldn’t work and the world would end.”
One of her eyebrows lifted in this unconvinced way. “How was the interview?”
I was pretty sure keeping track of days when I’d have to do something miserable-making was above and beyond the call of duty for a kinky fuckbuddy. But then, George was kind of above and beyond in most areas. She’d even tactfully excluded me from the photoshoot so I wouldn’t have to carry things and be helpful while my ex-boyfriend looked happy and beautiful with his new fiancé. “Sort of a disaster,” I admitted. “But not in any way that will stop me writing a bunch of fluff about how lovely it is that rich gays can get married now.”
George gave a theatrical sigh. “Sometimes I think same-sex marriage is the worst thing that could have happened to us. It’s only been legal for ten minutes and already queer relationships are getting stuffed into all the same anodyne little boxes as straight ones.”
“And there was me, dreaming of the day you were going to walk me down the aisle.”
“How about”—she smirked at me—“I walk you to lunch?”
Tempting. Except I was a mature, career-minded adult who wasn’t going to run away from his own interview. “I’d love to, but I really do need to get on with this.”
“Your stapler will still be here when you get back. And taking some time to clear your head might let you actually do the job you’re currently pretending to do.”
“What if it just makes it worse? And I spend the rest of my life trying to write this article.”
“Then at least you’ll have had lunch.”
I drooped.
“There, there, Ardy.” Reaching out, she chucked me lightly under the chin. “I’m going to take you to my club. Which you’re going to like very much because it has panelled walls and a wonderful menu and very long tablecloths.”
“Why am I suddenly into tablecloths?”
“I’m implying something lewd. Do try to keep up.”
“Ohhh. You mean you want me to blow you under the table?”
She laughed. “No, poppet. I mean I will allow you to blow me under the table if you’re good.”
Guess what? I was good.
* * *
Of course, when I got back—probably later than I should have—the recording was still waiting for me, but I felt altogether better about grappling with it. And the wine I’d had at lunch certainly didn’t hurt. I stuck in my headphones and got back to Nathaniel and Caspian. I’d expected only hearing their voices would give me a little bit of distance, but it didn’t at all. It took me straight back to the conference room but in this “freeze rotate enhance” Blade Runnery way that let me pick up on details I hadn’t been in any state to handle at the time. Like the fact they looked so damn good together. Elegant, sophisticated, but not too threatening: the gay couple you’d invite to your dinner party to prove you weren’t a homophobe.
In retrospect, it hadn’t been the perfect interview. But it wasn’t exactly a Frost-Nixon situation. It was mostly just, Gays can marry now, look how nice and handsome they are. Depressingly enough, I found it the easiest thing in the world to spin Caspian and Nathaniel into exactly the sort of story Mara was looking for. The ruthless billionaire and the passionate altruist. Just enough queer to be affirming but not so much it was challenging. A relationship that was aspirational and yet still accessible. I honestly couldn’t tell if I was rocking my job or destroying my soul. Maybe a little bit of both? And this being Milieu, I managed to get at least five hundred words out of Caspian’s family, the aristocratic patrons of Nathaniel’s charity, and the jeweller behind their bespoke engagement rings.
By end of day, I’d drunk four cans of Diet Coke, spilled one, and eaten all the loose jellybeans I’d been able to dig out of the lining of my bag. But I’d also banged out a solid first draft. And y’know something, despite a faintly queasy feeling that could just as well have been down to the jellybeans-fluff-caffeine combo, I was calling that a win.
Chapter 13
I saved the document eighty-five thousand gazillion times, just to be on the safe side, packed myself up, made sure my desk was pristine, and hurried off to meet Bellerose. What with being slap bang in the middle of Mayfair, the get-drunk-after-work options were plentiful but not entirely to my taste—chain pubs that tried to pretend they weren’t by making a big deal of their authentic Tudor fittings, and cocktail bars where you had to pay twenty quid for a martini. But make for Soho and you could find places like the Shaston Arms, with hanging baskets and fire-engine-red paintwork and, um, the two doors on account of the legit actual wall running down the middle of the building. It was also so dinky that in the summer and early autumn most of the patrons ended up spilling onto the pavement with their beers. Basically, it was a pub that was quirky beyond the point of practicality. Which, of course, meant I was way into it.
It was early enough that it wasn’t yet impossible to squidge in. And having squidged, I found Bellerose already occupying one of the booths—which were my favourite place to sit, because they made me feel like a ne’er-do-well in a Victorian novel.
“Hi.” I managed to put my shoulder bag down without spilling anything and slid in opposite.
“Arden.”
Bellerose was getting some attention—furtive, English attention but at
tention nonetheless. Partly, I think, because he looked too attractive to be real. But also because he was knitting.
“Can I get you a drink?” I asked, trying not to stare. It wasn’t that my mind was being blown by the sight of a man engaged in a hobby traditionally practiced by grandmas. It was more that we were in a pub and that it was Bellerose. I mean, he’d told me he knitted. But I’d found it impossible to imagine and, consequently, only half believed him.
He shook his head. “No thank you.”
“So, like, we’re in this place called a pub. And what pubs do is they own a building, and in that building they sell beer and other alcoholic beverages, and in return for buying the beer and other alcoholic beverages they let people stay, for free, in the building that they own. And from the money they make from selling their beer and other alcoholic beverages, the pub gets to keep their building and the people who bought the beer and other alcoholic beverages get to have fun, and everyone lives happily ever after.”
At this, Bellerose glanced up, though his needles didn’t stop moving. “I’ll have water.”
“Bellerose—”
“I’m an alcoholic.”
“Water it is then. Unless,” I added quickly, “you’d rather go somewhere else. Coffee? Juice bar? Bubble tea? I think there’s a bubble tea place round the corner. Except I don’t really get bubble tea because there’s the whole liquid thing but also the bubble element and that makes my throat confused, so I keep thinking I’m going to choke. And once I was so confused I sneezed and that was bad. That was so bad.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okie-dokie.”
Trying not to dwell on the fact I’d just said “okie-dokie” in cold blood, I slunk over to the bar and ordered a mineral water for Bellerose and, after dithering for about six years over whether it would come across as patronizing or supportive if I had water too, a bottle of Blandford Fly for me. I’d never been a huge beer drinker, but I’d learned real quick when I discovered how expensive wine and cocktails were in London.