Boyfriend Material

by Alexis Hall

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  * * *

  Dear Barbara,

  Yes. It’s where we’re having the event.

  Kind regards,

  Luc

  * * *

  Dear Luc,

  I’ve been thinking about that, and was wondering if it wouldn’t be more practical for donors to remain at home and contribute by telephone during a preapproved window.

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  * * *

  Dear Barbara,

  I appreciate your commitment to helping the Beetle Drive run smoothly. Unfortunately, the invitations have already been printed, and the event has been advertised as a “dinner and dance” and not as a “stay at home and phone us maybe.” The cost of the hotel should be more than covered by the ticket price.

  Kind regards,

  Luc

  * * *

  Dear Luc,

  Could we at least choose a cheaper hotel?

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  * * *

  Dear Barbara,

  No.

  Kind regards,

  Luc

  * * *

  Dear Luc,

  I consider your last email inappropriately curt. I would take this matter up with our Human Resources Department, but we do not have one.

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  PS—Thank you for raising a requisition request for a new stapler. This requisition request has been denied.

  * * *

  Dear Barbara,

  Perhaps you could ask the Office Manager if we could release sufficient resources to hire a Human Resources Department. Maybe I could also borrow a stapler from them.

  Kind regards,

  Luc

  * * *

  Dear Luc,

  There is no room in the workplace for facetiousness.

  I refer you to last month’s memo on the new paper-fastening policy. For financial and environmental reasons, we are requiring all documents to be bound with recyclable treasury tags. We expect these to be reused wherever possible.

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  * * *

  Dear Barbara,

  Please pay the hotel. The manager just called me, and we are at risk of losing the room.

  Kind regards,

  Luc

  PS—We have run out of treasury tags.

  * * *

  Dear Luc,

  If you have run out of treasury tags, please submit a requisition form.

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  * * *

  I was just composing a devastating reply, because I absolutely had one and it was absolutely a good use of office time, when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Oliver which, the preview helpfully informed me, began with the words Bad news.

  Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

  Without my telling it to, my brain started filling in a hundred different ways that sentence could end. And it probably said something about what a messed-up place I was in Oliver-wise that it went straight to “We’re breaking up” rather than “My grandma’s died” or “I have syphilis.”

  He was though, wasn’t he? I’d been a total maniac last night. He’d had to rescue me from reporters and then cuddle me until I went to sleep like I was a highly strung puppy. And in the morning, I’d woken up sprawled all over him, and made a huge fuss about him leaving, which had obviously been because I was still half-asleep and not thinking straight, but given how sleep-halved and not-straight-thinking I’d been, I remembered making some pretty forceful arguments. After all that, I wanted to break up with me, and I was me.

  In the end I did the mature thing: put my phone in my drawer without reading the message and went for coffee. Under normal circumstances, I would never have been relieved to see Rhys Jones Bowen doing anything, but the fact he was already installed at the coffee machine meant that this whole operation was going to take about three times longer than it would have otherwise, and that was exactly what I needed.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Luc,” he exclaimed. “I can never remember. Is it water in the front and coffee in the back, or the other way round?”

  “Coffee goes in the little basket that’s got leftover coffee in it. And the water goes in the bit at the back that’s already half-full of water.”

  “Ah, you see, that’s what I was thinking. But you know when you get one of those things and you always get it the wrong way round, and then even when you get it right, you trip yourself and do it the other way anyway.”

  I was about to say “no” in my most withering tone but actually, that was kind of a thing. I got it myself with the number of m’s in accommodation. And the number of c’s for that matter. Besides, Oliver would have disapproved. Oliver who’d just sent me a text saying he had bad news, which I was going to have to look at some point, and deal with, and probably be hurt by and—shit, what was the point of a displacement activity if it didn’t displace anything.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. And slid into a useful waiting position, while Rhys Jones Bowen navigated the intricacies of the, to be fair, somewhat complicated coffee machine.

  “Oh bother.” He knocked the back of his hand against the steamer nozzle. “I always forget that’s there. It’s going to blister now, and that’s my typing hand as well.”

  I stifled a sigh. “Why don’t you go and see Alex for some aloe vera. I’ll finish up here and leave your coffee on the desk.”

  There was a bewildered pause.

  “That’s very decent of you, Luc.” For someone paying me a mild compliment, he sounded worryingly surprised. “Is everything all right? Have you been visited by the ghost of office workers past?”

  “What? No. I’m…I’m a helpful person.”

  “No, you aren’t. You’re a total pillock. But I’ll take the coffee anyway, thank you very much.”

  He ambled off in search of a burn remedy, and I finished reloading the coffee machine. While I waited for it to percolate, I searched the sink, cupboards, and draining board for any clean mugs, and found none. This was the problem with good deeds: they escalated. I was in the middle of scrubbing a particularly stubborn ring from Rhys’s prized Welsh dragon mug when Dr. Fairclough stuck her head through the door and said, “Black, no sugar, since you’re making.”

  Gah. Except no, not gah. Perfect.

  Still waiting for the coffee to percolate, I went back to my office, really seriously intending to check my phone like an adult with a sense of proportion. But, fuck, what if bad news meant the papers had taken last night’s outing and spun it into something awful for both of us? Drunk Rock Kid Abducts Lawyer Shock. Or maybe one of Oliver’s exes had flown back in from Paris to say “Darling, I’ve just remembered you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, and I should never have left you. Let’s run away together immediately.” Well, I’d never know unless I looked.

  I didn’t look. The drawer sat accusingly shut while I fired up Outlook and through gritted fingers typed a much more conciliatory reply to Barbara.

  Dear Barbara,

  Please forgive my earlier rudeness. I’m making a round of teas/coffees for the office. Would you like one?

  Luc

  * * *

  Dear Luc,

  No.

  Kind regards,

  Barbara

  * * *

  On this one occasion, I’ll admit I deserved that.

  Olive branch returned to sender, I sloped back to the kitchen where I poured two coffees—black for Dr. Fairclough, milk and too much sugar for Rhys Jones Bowen—and went about my deliveries. I was holding out some hope that I could wring a few minutes of idle conversation out of them which, in Dr. Faircl
ough’s case at least, I should have realised was a hope so vain that Carly Simon could have written a famously enigmatic song about it. Normally, I’d have been able to count on Rhys Jones Bowen, but he was distracted getting a botanical burn treatment from Alex. All of which left me with no option but to read Oliver’s text. And when I put it like that, I felt really silly for reacting to it so strongly.

  Although not so silly that my phone didn’t sit on my desk for another five minutes while I started it. If, for whatever reason, Oliver had decided he couldn’t do this, it probably wouldn’t ruin my life. I’d had some good publicity already. And by the time the tabloids noticed they hadn’t seen us together for a while, it’d be too late for them to run the inevitable Gay Playboy Fleming Kid Drives Away Nice Lawyer Man headlines before the Beetle Drive. Besides, if Oliver was breaking it off, it said more about the situation than it did about me. And, honestly, we’d be both better off not having to navigate this whole weird pretending-to-be-going-out-with-each-other thing that I should never have agreed to do in the first place.

  This was for the best. Definitely for the best.

  I took a deep breath and opened the text:

  Bad news, it read. Big case. I’m afraid I’ll be quite busy for the next week.

  Oh, fuck me. What kind of technologically illiterate prick starts a message “bad news” when the news is average at worst? I was so goddamn relieved I was actually angry. Of course, Oliver had probably failed to factor in my deeply ingrained—and repeatedly validated—belief that everything good in my life was just waiting for the perfect moment to fuck off and leave me.

  There was also the slimmest of chances that I might have been being a bit of a drama queen.

  Once my hands had stopped trembling, I sent back: Is this just a polite way of saying you need time to recover from my flat?

  I won’t lie. It was fairly terrible. But there were some compensations.

  Like what? I asked.

  You.

  I stared at the word for a really long time.

  Remember this is fake. Remember this is fake. Remember this is fake.

  Chapter 21

  It was the longest week ever. Which made no sense because I’d only had a pretend boyfriend for ten minutes. And it wasn’t like I’d ever been Mr. Knows What to Do with Himself—it’s just that before Oliver came along, I’d been resigned to a lifetime of cruising Grindr, then freaking out in case I got recognised and ended up in the papers again, and deciding instead to spend my evenings half-dressed under a pile of blankets binge-watching Scandi-noir on Netflix and hating myself. And now I…I don’t know… I guess I wasn’t?

  He still texted because, of course he would. Though mainly he said things like, Grabbing a bagel. Case is complicated. Can’t discuss it. Apologies for lack of dick pic. Which was lovely for about three seconds, and then just made me miss him. And what was with that? Was my life really so empty that Oliver could just walk into it, sit down, and start taking up space? I mean, it probably was. But somehow, even after so little time, I couldn’t imagine anyone doing that but him. After all, who else could be that annoying? And thoughtful. And protective. And secretly kind of funny. And—bugger.

  At nine o’clock on Tuesday night, halfway through an episode of Bordertown, which I’d been paying no attention to, I came abruptly to the conclusion that all my problems would be solved if I tidied my flat. At nine thirty-six on Tuesday, I came abruptly to the conclusion that this had been the worst idea ever. I’d started trying to put things in places, but the places where I wanted to put the things were already full of things that weren’t the things that were supposed to go in those places, so I had to take the things out of the places, but there were no places to put the things that came from the places, so then I tried to put things back in the places but they wouldn’t go back in the places, which meant now I had more things and nowhere to put the things, and some of the things were clean and some of the things were very much not clean, and the very much not clean things were getting mixed up with the clean things and everything was terrible and I wanted to die.

  I tried to lie on the floor and sob pathetically, but there was no room. So I lay on my bed, which I’m sure still smelled faintly of Oliver, and sobbed pathetically there instead.

  Nice going, Luc. Very not a loser.

  What was wrong with me? Why was I putting myself through this? This was all Oliver’s fault with his you-are-special eyes and his you’re-beautiful-Lucien bullshit, half convincing me I was worth something. When I knew exactly what I was worth down to the nearest fucking penny.

  Then my phone rang, and I was in such a mess that I accidentally answered it.

  “Is that you, Luc?” gravelled my fucking dad.

  “Um.” I bolted upright, wiping away snot and tears and trying desperately not to sound like I’d been crying my eyes out. “Speaking.”

  “I’m sorry about Reggie. He has to deal with a lot of shit for me.”

  That made two of us. “It’s fine. I…”

  “I’m glad you reached out to me. I know this is difficult for you.”

  No shit. “Yeah, but I probably shouldn’t have told you to fuck off and literally die.”

  “You’re right to be angry. Besides”—he gave a ‘I have lived and experienced and discovered where my joy is’ laugh—“it’s what your mother would have done when she was your age. It’s what I would have done too.”

  “Stop that right now. You don’t get to look for any of you in me.”

  A moment of silence. And I honestly wasn’t sure I was hoping he’d push it or not. That he’d fight for me.

  “If that’s the way you want it to be,” he said.

  “It’s the way I want it to be.” I took a deep breath. “So what happens now?”

  “Like I said at your mother’s, I want to get to know you. How that happens, if that happens, is up to you.”

  “Sorry. Since I never intended to meet the father who walked out on me when I was three, I didn’t have this planned out in advance.”

  “Well, how about this. We’re filming at the farmhouse in a couple of weeks. Why don’t you come down on the Sunday? We should be done by then, and we’ll have time to talk.”

  I was vaguely aware my dad had an absurd rock-star farmhouse-slash-studio-slash-creative-retreat somewhere in Lancashire, near where he grew up. “Fine. Send me the details. And,” I added, quite aggressively, “I’ll be bringing my boyfriend. Is that a problem?”

  “Not at all. If he’s important to you, I’d like to meet him.”

  That kind of took the wind out of my sails. I wasn’t exactly hoping my dad would turn out to be a homophobe, but I’d got really comfortable believing bad things about him. “Oh. Okay.”

  “It was good to talk to you, Luc. I’ll see you soon.”

  I hung up. It was the only power move I had left, but I was going to use it. Unfortunately, using it left me so exhausted, especially after my utter failure to make a meaningful difference to my existence, that I just pulled the duvet over my head and passed out in my clothes.

  The next time I looked at my phone, it was a hell of a lot later, and I’d slept through twelve texts from Oliver and my alarm. The texts said:

  I miss you.

  Sorry. Was that too much?

  I know it’s only been a few days.

  Maybe this is why people don’t want to go out with me.

  Not that you’re really going out with me anyway.

  I hope I didn’t sound presumptuous.

  I’m probably sounding really weird now.

  I’m assuming you’re not texting back because you’re still asleep. Not because you think I’m disgustingly clingy.

  If you’re awake and think I’m disgusting clingy, could you at least tell me?

  Right. You’re probably asleep.

  And now you’re going to wake
up and read all this and I’m going to die of embarrassment.

  Sorry.

  And the alarm said “You’re going to be late for work, cockface.” But I still paused long enough to reply to Oliver.

  I was missing you too but then you sent me a million texts and it was like you were in the room

  Also. Still no dick pic?

  Also we’re meeting my dad Sunday after next. Hope that’s okay

  Somehow, despite my flat still looking like a bomb had thought about going off but got too depressed and just sat in the corner eating Pringles and crying, I was in an oddly good mood. I think maybe I just liked waking up to Oliver.

  As usual, showing up late at the office didn’t exactly mean much except I was conscious of the smallest pricklings of guilt, and I missed my telling-a-joke-to-Alex window, which was sort of a disappointment and a relief at the same time. Throwing myself into what I laughably called my work, I was…cautiously pleased to discover an email from a pair of donors who had previously withdrawn their support from the Beetle Drive.

  Dear Luc,

  Thanks so much for your email. Adam just heard today that our Johrei retreat has fallen through so we might be able to make the Beetle Drive after all. We’d love to take up your invitation for lunch and catch up.

  Namaste

  Tamara

  Oh God. I didn’t really have favourite or least favourite donors because, and I’m aware I say this as someone who’s lived his whole life on the royalties from an album his mum wrote in the ’80s, rich people are pricks. Adam and Tamara Clarke’s particular flavour of prickishness was that they had got richer than any human being had a right to get while constantly banging on about how fucking ethical they were and glossing over the fact that they got their start-up capital because he was an investment banker in about 2008. They ran this chain of vegan-lifestyle whole-food eateries called Gaia. Because of course they were called Gaia.

  And, now I thought about it, it also meant I had to work out somewhere to take them that not only would Barbara Clench release the funds to pay for, but that didn’t serve animal products, wasn’t owned by the client, and wouldn’t look like a pointed attempt to support their competition.

  I heaved a despairing sigh. “Well, fuck me sideways with a baked aubergine.”