by Alexis Hall
“I’m sorry.” His expression softened slightly, not that it made me feel any better. “I know it’s unfashionable, but I don’t think sex is something you should do just because it’s convenient.”
“Why? Is everyone supposed to wait until they’ve got this deep, meaningful connection and can gaze into each other’s eyes while they make tender love by an open fire?”
He visibly unsoftened. “You really do think I’m a god-awful prude, don’t you?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.” Oh God. How could I make this sound less…messed up and needy. “I’m just not used to a hookup being a big deal, so it feels kind of personal that you keep refusing to shag me.”
“What do you mean, keep?”
“Bridget’s birthday. Couple of years ago. We nearly got together, but instead, you pissed off and left me.”
He gazed at me with obvious incredulity. “Sorry, are you insulted that I didn’t date-rape you?”
“You what?” I gave him a shocked look back.
“I remember that evening, and you were completely out of it. I don’t think you knew who I was, much less what you were doing.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I snapped. “I’ve had a lot of drunk sex. I’d have been fine.”
“Oh, Lucien, how can I explain this?” For some reason, he sounded sad. “I don’t want fine. Fine isn’t enough. It’s not about the open fire or whatever other clichés you can conjure up, but yes, I want a connection. I want you to care as much as I care. I want you to need it and want it and mean it. I want it to matter.”
He had to stop talking. Or I was going to…I don’t know…cry or something. He had no idea what he was asking for. I had no idea how to give it to him. “I’m sure that’s all…lovely.” My mouth was so dry it was making my words click. “But with me, what you get is fine. And that’s all there is.”
There was a really, really, really long silence.
“Then it’s probably for the best that none of this is real.”
“Um. Yeah. For the best.”
There was a really, really, really, really long silence. Then Oliver put his arm round me, tucking me against his side. And, God knows the hell why, I let myself be tucked. “Will this do?”
“D-do for what?”
“Touching. In public.” He cleared his throat. “Not all the time, obviously. It would make going through doors difficult.”
Right now, I could live without doors. I turned my head, for the smallest of moments, breathing him in. And almost thought, imagined probably, his lips brushed my temple.
“I guess it’ll do,” I said. Because what else could I say? That the moments when it nearly worked made all the times it didn’t feel just a little worse.
All the same, it took every scrap of pride I possessed not to follow him when he stepped away.
“So.” I shoved my hands into my pockets in case they went reaching after him. “What now? Obviously you won’t want to stay in my shitty apartment.”
“I will admit, I have some concerns about the state of your bedroom. But if I’m caught leaving, it may look as if we’ve broken up.”
“Do you ever half-arse anything?”
He thought about it. “I gave up about two-thirds of the way through Wolf Hall.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, really. It’s quite long and involved, and I think I got distracted. Isn’t that precisely what half-arsing entails?”
Out of nowhere, I was laughing. “I can’t believe I’m pretending to date someone who just used the phrase ‘precisely what half-arsing entails.’”
“Would you believe me if I said I did it deliberately for your amusement?”
“Nope.” I did not want him to hold me again. I did not want him to hold me again. I did not want him to hold me again. “That’s just how you talk.”
“It may be, but you do appear to derive a unique enjoyment from it.”
“Okay. That one was deliberate.”
He offered me a slow smile—not the effortless one he used so freely in public, but something real and warm and almost reluctant, making his eyes shine from the inside like a lamp left in a window on a dark night. “All right. I’m prepared for the worst. Show me your bedroom.”
* * *
“I was not,” Oliver said, a few minutes later, “prepared for the worst.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”
“When did you last change your sheets?”
“I change my sheets.”
He folded his arms. “That’s not an answer. And if you can’t remember, it’s been too long.”
“Fine. I’ll change my sheets. Just, y’know, I might need to do some laundry first.” I tried not to look at my clothes, which were a little bit everywhere. “Maybe quite a lot of laundry.”
“We are taking a taxi back to mine. Right now.”
“Wow. This is turning into an episode of Queer Eye only with fewer hot men, and without the heartwarming bit where they make you feel good about yourself.”
“I’m truly sorry. I wasn’t intending to judge, but this situation, frankly, demands judgment. I mean, how can you not be miserable living here?”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I’m confused. What on earth has given you the impression I’m not miserable?”
“Lucien—”
“Also,” I rushed on, not sure if I was more afraid of him saying something nice or something mean, “your house might be clean, but you’re clearly not happy either. At least I admit it.”
A touch of pink had crept across the top of Oliver’s starkly defined cheekbones. “Yes, I’m lonely. I sometimes feel I haven’t achieved what I should have achieved. On the basis of quite a lot of evidence, I worry that I’m not very easy to care for. But I’m not trying to hide that. I’m just trying to cope with it.”
God, I hated it when he was all strong and vulnerable and honest and decent, and everything I wasn’t. “You’re not…completely difficult to care for. And I think I might have some clean sheets that I bought the last time I realised I didn’t have any clean sheets.”
“Thank you. I know I’m sometimes a bit of a control freak.”
“Really?” I gave him a big-eyed look. “I’ve never noticed.”
We stripped my bed, which I honestly think was less gross than Oliver was making out, although I super wished my, um, personal pleasure device hadn’t bounced out of the sheets and landed right at Oliver’s feet like a dog wanting to go walkies. Except, y’know, up my bum. I shoved it hastily in my bedside drawer which, unfortunately, involved revealing yet more of my, now I thought about it, depressingly onanistic collection.
Whether out of embarrassment or gallantry, Oliver said nothing. Just got on with crimping down the edges of my new sheets until they were glass smooth and hotel room perfect. From there, he changed the pillowcases and the duvet cover, even bothering to do up the little poppers at the bottom which I was pretty sure no human being ever, ever did. And, finally, he started taking off his clothes.
I stared blankly. Or not so blankly. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not sleeping in a three-piece suit, and meaning no disrespect, I don’t especially want to borrow any of”—he made a circular gesture that encompassed the various piles of crap strewn across my floor—“this.”
“That’s fair.” A thought occurred to me. “Hey, does this mean I finally get to meet the V-cut?”
He gave a weird little cough. “You will be passing acquaintances at best.”
“I’ll take it.”
I bounced onto my newly Oliver-approved bed and knelt there, rumpling the duvet, and gazing somewhat shamelessly as Oliver undid his shirt.
“Lucien,” he said. “What you’re doing right now looks suspiciously like ogling.”
I cupped my hands round my mouth. “Off. Off. Off.”
/>
“I’m not a stripper.”
“You’re literally stripping right now. I’m just encouraging you.”
“What you’re doing is embarrassing me.”
He removed the shirt, folded it neatly, realised there was nowhere to put it, and stood there in confusion.
But.
Oh holy God.
You normally had to pay money to see something like that. I mean, we were talking grooves, ridges, just the right amount of hair—fuzzy, not furry—and even a couple of playful little veins snaking up from beneath the waistband of his trousers.
Fuck. I wanted to lick him.
Double fuck. I suddenly realised I could never ever take my clothes off in front of this man.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Oliver. “And where can I put my shirt?”
“I…I…I’ll find you a hanger.” And some kind of, I don’t know, beekeeping outfit for me. Something nicely covering.
I ran out of the room and changed into the biggest, baggiest T-shirt I could find, along with my loosest, least formfitting pair of lounge pants. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was fine with how I looked. I’d had no complaints body-wise from anyone, and there’d been plenty of complaints about other things so it wasn’t a reticence issue. But Oliver was the sort of fantasy I usually didn’t even bother to have because I thought it was just too unrealistic. And I had no idea what a man who looked like that could possibly see in me.
Oh wait.
He didn’t have to see anything. That was the deal.
By the time I got back to the bedroom, Oliver was waiting for me in a pair of black boxer briefs that somehow managed to be sensible in a sexy way, his suit over one arm and his shirt in his other hand. In a moment of panic, I threw a hanger at him and jumped under the covers.
I definitely wasn’t watching Oliver as he arranged his garments to his satisfaction and hung them up in my otherwise completely empty wardrobe. Fuck it, who was I trying to fool. I was watching because he was gorgeous and I totally wanted to do him and I’d totally wanted to do him even before I knew the V-cut wasn’t a joke.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
What felt like hours later, I was lying in the dark next to Oliver, not touching him, and trying not to think about touching him. Which meant, instead, I was thinking about everything else. Like how much he was doing for me, when he didn’t have to, and how badly I kept treating him in return. And how scary this could all get if I let it.
“Oliver,” I said.
“Yes, Lucien?”
“I really am sorry. For tonight.”
“It’s fine. Go to sleep.”
More time passed.
“Oliver,” I said.
“Yes, Lucien?” Slightly less patiently.
“I just…don’t understand why you care. What I think.”
The bed shifted as he rolled over, and I was suddenly very conscious how close we were. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, because you’re this…incredible lawyer-slash-swimwear-model guy—”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, metaphorically. I mean, not the lawyer bit. That is your actual job. Fuck. Look, I’m just saying, you’re conventionally successful and conventionally attractive. And you’re a good person. And I’m…not.”
“You’re not a bad person, partly because there are no bad people and partly—”
“Wait. What about, like, murderers?”
“The vast majority of murderers murder one person and either regret it for the rest of their lives or have a reason for doing it that you would probably sympathise with. The first thing you learn as a criminal barrister is bad things are not the exclusive province of bad people.”
I guess it was some kind of masochistic penance for having called him cheesy earlier, but I heard myself telling him, “You’re hot when you’re being idealistic.”
“I’m hot all the time, Lucien. As you’ve just observed, I look like a swimwear model.”
Fuck. No. Help. Now he was making me laugh.
“Speaking of which,” he went on, “you surely can’t doubt your own…” He wriggled nervously and I wished I could see the expression on his face, because lost-for-words Oliver was one of my favourite Olivers. “Appeal?”
“You’d be amazed what I can doubt.” This right here was why you had sex. So you were too tired to randomly tell people personal shit at three in the morning. “Besides, when all you see of yourself is what the tabloids show you, it’s hard to believe in anything else.”
I felt the faintest stirring of air close to my face, as if he’d reached out to me but thought better of it. “You’re beautiful, Lucien. I’ve always thought so. Like an early self-portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe. Um”—I practically heard him blush—“not the one with the bullwhip in his anus, obviously.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought Oliver Blackwood had just called me beautiful. I had to be gracious and calm and mature. “Pro tip: When you’re complimenting someone, avoid the word ‘anus.’”
He chuckled. “Duly noted. Now, seriously, go to sleep. We both have work in the morning.”
“You’ve met Alex. Consciousness is barely a requirement in my office.”
“Is there some reason you’re intent on keeping me awake?”
“N-no… I don’t know.” He was right. I was being weird. Why was I being weird? “Do you really think I’m beautiful?”
“At this very moment, I think you’re annoying. But, in general, yes.”
“I haven’t even said thank you for getting me away from those reporters.”
He sighed, his breath warm under the duvet we shared. “I’ll take your silence as gratitude.”
“Sorry… I…um…sorry.”
I turned onto my side. Then onto my other side. Then onto my back. Before flipping to the side I’d tried to begin with.
“Lucien.” Oliver’s voice rumbled through the dark. “Come here.”
“What? Why? Come where?”
“Never mind. I’m here.” Then Oliver folded himself around me, all strong arms and smooth skin and the thud of his heart against my back. “You’re okay.”
I lay still, my body not sure whether it wanted to run screaming for the door or just sort of…melt everywhere. “Um, what’s going on?”
“You’re going to sleep.”
There was no way that was happening. This was too much. It was far too much.
Except, as it turned out, he was right, and it wasn’t, and I was.
Chapter 20
“So,” I said to Alex the next morning, “I’m really sorry that I was such a dick last night.”
He gazed at me expectantly. “And?”
“Well, um, I should have been nicer to you.”
“And?”
“And…” Wow, he was seriously committed to holding this over me. “…I’m a bad friend and a terrible coworker?”
“Oh.” He frowned. “I’m afraid to say that I just don’t get it at all. I mean, the one about going to Wales wasn’t funny, but at least it made sense.”
“It wasn’t a joke, Alex. I was trying to apologise for last night. I thought maybe my use of the words ‘sorry’ and ‘last night’ might have clued you in.”
“In that case, think nothing of it, old boy. And, honestly, it’s my fault. I should have said something at the time. Because we skipped the fish course, you should have skipped the fish fork.”
I gave up. “Okay. Great. Glad we cleared the air. Sorry again about the fish fork.”
“Happens to the best of us. Why, once at high table I had a moment of mental abstraction and tried to use a salad fork to eat cooked vegetables. And everyone had a jolly good laugh at my expense.”
“Gosh. Yes. The mental image alone is hilarious.”
“Isn’t it? I mean the tine
s are completely the wrong length.”
“The tines,” I offered, with a confidence my history with Alex did not at all support, “they are a-changin’.”
He gave me a blank look. “I suppose so. That’s why you swap forks between courses.”
Back at my desk, I ran through what was becoming a slightly depressing morning ritual: drink coffee, worry about alienating more donors, check scandal sheets. As it turned out, I was barely in them, and not just because I was mostly hidden against Oliver’s body. Pretty much every article was about Miffy—what she was wearing, where she was going, when she and Alex might be getting married. Oliver and I were blissfully relegated to the “also withs” although some enterprising intern had managed to unearth the designer of Oliver’s coat. And you knew it was the right kind of press coverage when people wrote more about what you were wearing than what you were doing. I even got a glancing mention in Horse & Hound, despite being neither.
This just left me to deal with the endless stream of unnecessary crises that always afflicted the Beetle Drive, like the time Rhys Jones Bowen told me the venue was double-booked because he’d got the Royal Ambassadors Hotel Marylebone mixed up with the LaserQuest he was trying to arrange for his friend’s stag-do. Or the time the printed invitations went missing and we thought they’d got lost in the post, but it turned out Alex had just been using the box as a footstool for three months. And let’s not forget when Dr. Fairclough briefly cancelled the entire event because she decided that the term beetle was insufficiently scientifically rigorous, and backed down only when we reminded her that it wasn’t actually in the official name of the event.
Today, it was Barbara Clench, our dogmatically frugal office manager, questioning the necessity of releasing funds for the purposes of, y’know, operating our fundraiser. Which meant I was tied up with email for most the day, since our ability to successfully cowork was built upon a mutual understanding that we would never, ever speak to each other in person.
Dear Luc,
I’ve been looking at the costings for the hotel and am wondering if we really need it.