by Alexis Hall
They filled an hour, plus ad breaks, cycling through variants on the six people who are always on these shows: the cocky guy who nobody wants and is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is, the forgettable one who gets picked up but is destined to be cut in the first of the head-to-heads, the one with the tragic backstory, the quirky one who will go out in the quarter final but will wind up doing better than the actual winner, the one you’re supposed to underestimate but blatantly won’t because Susan Boyle happened, and the good-looking, talented one who the public will uniformly hate for being too good-looking and talented. Between the performances and the saccharine vid packages about people’s mums and hometowns, the judges had the sort of banter you’d expect from people who’d never met and had nothing in common except having reached a point in their careers where judging a reality TV show was their best option.
It was annoyingly watchable, is what I’m saying. And even Oliver would glance up occasionally to offer a comment. Apparently he hadn’t got the memo that the only socially acceptable way to watch reality TV was ironically because he kept saying things like, “I was very concerned for the shy girl with the NHS glasses and the braces, but I was very moved by the way she sang ‘Fields of Gold.’” And then I’d wish I had a blueberry to throw at him.
We got to a bit where Jon Fleming bid heavily on a girl with a harmonica (quirky one: will go out in quarter finals) only for Simon from Blue to play his wild card early and steal her out from under him. And it was the best moment so far by a mile. My dad tried to act all chill about it, but you could tell he was pissed off. Which meant, for about thirty seconds, I became a massive fan of Simon from Blue, while also not being able to name a single one of his songs.
I’m not entirely sure why—it could have been masochism, or Stockholm syndrome, or secretly feeling kind of cosy—but I queued up the second episode. It was pretty much identical in format to the first: the judges still didn’t know how to talk to each other, the presenter still didn’t seem to understand the rules, and the contestants were still telling heartwarming stories about their dead grandmas and day jobs at Tesco’s. We kicked off with a mum of three throwing everything she had at a two-minute version of “At Last,” which nobody went for, but then insisted afterwards they should have gone for before promptly forgetting about her. Then we got a seventeen-year-old boy, peeking shyly from behind the world’s floppiest fringe, black-painted nails on fingers curled tightly round the mic, who gave a weirdly fragile and affecting performance of “Running Up That Hill.”
“Oh,” remarked Oliver, glancing up from his laptop, “that was rather good.”
Apparently the judges thought so, too, and Ashley Roberts and Professor Green got into a slightly crazy bidding war for him that ended with Ashley Roberts pulling out and then Jon Fleming—with a sense of the dramatic honed over a career that, as the intro kept telling us, had spanned five decades—jumping out of his chair to play his wild card. This left the kid, Leo from Billericay, free to choose between the professor and my dad.
Obviously, the show cut straight to a commercial break, and we came back after an ad for car insurance with the tense music still playing, and Jon Fleming about to launch into his “pick me” speech.
He’d gone back to his seat and was sitting with an elbow on the armrest, and his cheek against his fingers, his blue-green eyes fixed intently on Leo from Billericay. “What was in your head,” he asked, in that nonspecifically regional burr that always made him sound so worldly and sincere, “while you were singing that?”
Leo squirmed behind his fringe and muttered something the mic completely failed to catch.
“Take your time, son,” Jon Fleming told him.
The camera jumped briefly to the other judges, who were all wearing their best this-is-a-moment faces.
“My dad…” Leo managed “…he died. Last year. And we never really agreed about a lot of stuff. But music was, like, the thing that really brought us together.”
There was a perfect televisual pause. Jon Fleming leaned forward. “That was a beautiful performance. I could tell how much the song meant to you, and how much of your heart you put into it. I’m sure your dad would have been proud of you.”
What.
The.
Fuck.
Okay, I felt very sorry for Leo from Billericay, because he was clearly bereaved, and having a shit relationship with an absent father sucked. But it didn’t change the fact that my absent father was having a redemptive bonding experience with some prick from Essex on national TV while I watched from the sofa of my fake boyfriend’s house.
Oliver glanced over. “Are you all right?”
“Yeahimfinewhywouldntibe?”
“No reason. But if hypothetically you stopped being fine and wanted to, I don’t know, talk about anything, I’m right here.”
On the screen, Leo from Billericay was biting his lip in that trying-not-to-cry way that made him look brave and noble and fan-favouritey, and Jon Fleming was explaining how much he wanted him on his team.
“Not a lot of people know this about me,” he said, “but I never knew my own father. He died on the Western Front before I was born, and I always regretted not having that connection in my life.”
No. Not a lot of people did know that. I didn’t know that. Essentially making Leo from Billericay—and for that matter, Simon from Blue, and how many the fuck million people watched this show live—closer to my dad than I was. It was getting increasingly hard not to be actively glad that the fucker had cancer.
Anyway, of course Leo from Billericay picked Jon Fleming to be his mentor. I came this close to cutting my losses and turning the show off, but that would have felt weirdly like letting my dad win. I’m not sure what it felt like letting him win, but I knew I wanted to stop him winning it. So, instead, I stared blankly at the screen while the carousel of hopefuls continued.
I was pretty sure I was getting a headache. What with Oliver and Jon Fleming, and Leo from Billericay, and my job hanging by a thread, there was too much in my brain. And the more I tried to deal with any of it, the more it just swirled around like clay in the hands of an inexperienced potter. So I shut my eyes for a moment, telling myself things would make more sense when I opened them.
Chapter 14
“Lucien?”
I opened my eyes to find Oliver right in my face. “Wuthuh?”
“I think you fell asleep.”
“I did not.” I jerked into a sitting position, nearly headbutting Oliver in the process. There was no way I was letting him think I was the sort of person who spent his evenings passed out in front of the TV. “What time is it?”
“A little after ten.”
“Really? Shit. You should have woken me sooner. I mean, not woken me. Reminded me.”
“I’m sorry.” Tentatively he unstuck a strand of hair from where it had plastered itself over my brow. “But you’ve had a long day. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
A glance around the living room revealed that Oliver had finished his work, probably some time ago, and packed everything neatly away around me. Fuck. “I can’t believe I turned up on your doorstep out of nowhere, insisted you continue pretending to date me, whined about my dad’s cancer, got in a massive argument about logistics, made you watch reality TV, and then fell asleep.”
“You also threw a blueberry at me.”
“You should dump me.”
“I tried that already. It didn’t take.”
“Seriously. If you want out, I’ll be reasonable this time.”
Oliver held my gaze for a long moment. “I don’t want out.”
Relief bubbled through me like indigestion. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I thought we’d established that fairly clearly. I’m stuffy, pompous, boring, and desperate. Nobody else will have me.”
“But you make amazing French toast.”
“Yes”—his expression grew charmingly rueful—“I’m starting to think that’s the only reason my relationships lasted as long as they did.”
For some reason, I was suddenly very aware I wasn’t allowed to kiss him.
“There’s still time to catch the last Tube,” he went on, “or I can call you a cab, if you like.”
“It’s fine. I can grab an Uber if I need to.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Their business model is deeply unethical.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think we’ve just worked out why nobody’s going out with you.”
“Because I don’t use Uber? That seems fairly specific.”
“Because you’ve got an opinion about everything.”
“Don’t most people have opinions?”
At least I wasn’t thinking about kissing him anymore. “I don’t mean opinions like ‘I enjoy cheese.’ Or ‘John Lennon is overrated.’ I mean opinions like ‘You shouldn’t use Uber because of the workers’ and ‘You shouldn’t eat meat because of the environment.’ You know, opinions that make people feel bad about themselves.”
He blinked. “I don’t want anyone to feel bad about themselves or that they have to make the same choices I do—”
“Oliver, you just told me not to get an Uber.”
“Actually, I said I’d rather you didn’t get an Uber. You can still get an Uber if you want to.”
“Yeah”—somehow we’d got all close again, making me aware of the heat of him, the shapes his mouth made when he was arguing with me—“except you’ll look down on me if I do.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll accept you don’t have the same priorities I do.”
“But your priorities are clearly right.”
His brow furrowed. “I think now I’m confused. If you agree with me, what’s the problem?”
“Okay.” I drew in a calming breath. “Let me try to explain. Most of the people who aren’t you understand that capitalism is exploitative and climate change is a problem and that choices we make can support things that are bad or unjust. But we survive by a precarious strategy of not thinking about it. And reminding us of that makes us sad, and we don’t like being sad, so we get angry.”
“Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “I can see that being terribly unappealing.”
“It’s also kind of admirable,” I admitted reluctantly. “In a really infuriating way.”
“I don’t mean to cherry-pick, but did you just call me admirable?”
“You must have imagined it. And now, ironically, I’ll have to get an Uber because I can’t make the train and I’ve got no cash for a cab.”
He cleared his throat. “You could stay the night if you wanted.”
“Wow, you are seriously committed to me not supporting Uber’s business model.”
“No, I just thought it might be… That is.” A self-conscious little shrug. “For the sake of verisimilitude.”
“Who do you think is going to notice where I sleep? Do you think we’re being monitored by the FBI?”
“I believe surveillance outside the United States is more likely to be carried out by the CIA, but actually I was mostly considering the paparazzi.”
That was a fair point. They’d caught me leaving various people’s houses on various mornings down the years.
“And it would be no inconvenience,” he added awkwardly. “I have a spare toothbrush, and can sleep on the sofa.”
“I can’t make you sleep on the sofa in your own house.”
“I can’t make you sleep on the sofa when you’re a guest.”
There was a long silence.
“Well,” I pointed out, “if neither of us can sleep on the sofa, then either I go home or…”
Oliver faffed with a sleeve of his jumper. “I think we’re mature enough to share a bed without incident.”
“Look, I know what happened outside the restaurant was a bit much, but I usually wait for an invitation before I jump on someone. I’m an incident-free zone, I promise.”
“Then, it’s getting late. I suggest we head upstairs.”
And, just like that, I’d apparently agreed to spend the night with Oliver. Well. Not with Oliver. More sort of in Oliver’s general vicinity.
Except, right then, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, there didn’t feel like much of a difference.
* * *
It should have come as no surprise to me that Oliver owned actual pyjamas. In dark-blue tartan. Also that he made his bed like an actual grown-up, instead of throwing a duvet vaguely in the direction of a duvet cover, somewhere near a mattress.
“What are you staring at?” he asked.
“I’d assumed people stopped buying nightwear in 1957. You look like Rupert Bear.”
“I don’t remember Rupert Bear wearing anything remotely resembling this.”
“No, but he would have, if it had been available.”
“That seems specious.”
I struck what I assumed to be a lawyerly pose. “M’lud. The honourable counsel for the prosecution is being specious.”
“I think”—Oliver seemed to be giving this far more consideration than it deserved—“unless you had established expertise in the field, your speculation as to what Rupert Bear would have worn, had he been given the opportunity, would not be admissible in court.”
“M’lud. The honourable gentleman is being mean to me.”
He pursed his lips peevishly. “You’re the one who said I looked like Rupert Bear.”
“That’s not mean. Rupert Bear is cute.”
“Given he’s also a cartoon bear, I’m still not certain I can take it as a compliment. And I happen to have a spare pair of pyjamas if you’d like to borrow them.”
“What. No. I’m not a child in a Disney movie.”
“So will you be sleeping fully clothed or completely naked?”
“I…did not think this through.” I flailed mentally for a moment. “Look, do you have a spare top or something?”
He rummaged around in a drawer and threw me a plain, grey T-shirt that had clearly been ironed. Refraining—with some difficulty—from further comment, I retreated to the bathroom to change. Normally, I put a bit more thought into what underwear I have on the first time a guy’s going to see it, not least because it might end up in the papers. One of the few upsides of my self-destructive manslut phase is a largeish collection of sexy underpants—I mean, sexy in the sense of making my dick look big and my arse look perky, not in the sense of crotchless or edible. Of course, today, safe in the knowledge that they would go entirely unobserved, I was wearing my comfiest pair of schlumping shorts.
They were a slightly faded blue, with tiny hedgehogs picked out on them in white. Oliver’s T-shirt, which smelled of fabric softener and virtue, was long enough that it mostly covered the design, but it was a good thing I definitely didn’t want to get it on with him because Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle—the hedgehog design, that’s not what I call my penis—would have nuked my chances.
By the time I emerged, Oliver was already in bed, propped up against the headboard, his nose buried in a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns. I darted from the doorway and dived under the covers, wriggling myself into a sitting position and trying to get close enough it wasn’t weird but not so close it was weird.
“I feel like Morecambe and Wise,” I said.
Oliver turned a page.
“You know you’re wearing pyjamas wrong, right?”
He didn’t look up. “Oh?”
“Yeah, you’re supposed to just wear the bottoms, and have them hanging low on your hips, displaying your perfectly chiselled V-cut.”
“Maybe next time.”
I thought about this for a moment. “Are you saying you have a perfectly chiselled V-cut?”
“I’m not sure that’s any of yo
ur business.”
“What if someone asks? I should know for verisimilitude.”
The corners of his mouth twitched slightly. “You can say I’m a gentleman and we haven’t got that far.”
“You”—I gave a thwarted sigh—“are a terrible fake boyfriend.”
“I’m building fake anticipation.”
“You’d better be fake worth it.”
“I am.”
I hadn’t quite been expecting that and didn’t quite know how to reply. So I just sat there, trying not to think too hard about what Oliver’s idea of “worth it” might be.
“Good book?” I asked, to distract myself.
“Relatively.” Oliver glanced my way briefly. “You’re being very talkative.”
“You’re being very…not talkative.”
“It’s bedtime. I’m going to read and then go to sleep.”
“Again, starting to see why people don’t stick around.”
“For God’s sake, Lucien,” he snapped. “We’ve made an agreement to be useful to each other, I have work in the morning, and you’re in my bed, wearing rather skimpy hedgehog boxers. I’m trying to maintain some sense of normalcy.”
“If it’s upsetting you that much, I can take my skimpy boxers and leave.”
He put the book on the bedside table and did that massaging-his-temples thing I was seeing way too often. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to leave. Shall we try to sleep?”
“Um. Okay.”
He flicked the light off abruptly, and I tried to settle myself down without impinging on his personal space or sense of propriety. His bed was firmer than mine, but also way nicer, and probably way cleaner. I could just about catch the scent of him from the sheets—fresh and warm, like if bread was a person—and I could just about feel the shape of him beside me. Comforting and distracting at the same time. Damn him.
Minutes or hours crept by. Determined to be a good sleeping partner, I was assailed by a thousand itches, niggles, and a terrible fear of farting. Oliver’s breath was steady enough that I became hyperaware of my own, which was on the edge of going full Darth Vader. And then my brain started thinking stuff, and wouldn’t stop.