Boyfriend Material

by Alexis Hall

  “We’re going to have to give Eva another raise. Twin A went missing and she looked all over the house for him, and was about to call the police, when she glanced out the window and saw him in next door’s kitchen between the cooker and the knife rack.”

  “I take it he was fine?”

  “Sadly yes. Neighbours are a bit traumatised, though.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “We’ll send them a gift basket. You know, like the last three times.”

  We got on with eating for a while. Despite the warnings, the mushroom Wellington was honestly…fine? I mean, it would probably have been improved by the addition of beef but, then, most things are. Unfortunately, this also brought us to my least favourite part of the “meeting other people’s social circles” experience: the bit where they decide they’ve got to take an interest in you for the sake of their friend.

  “You’re,” Brian kicked off, “some kind of…rock star? Is that right?”

  I nearly lost a mouthful of Wellington. “No. Very much not. My dad’s a rock star. My mum used to be a rock star. I’m, like, the opposite of a rock star.”

  “A scissors planet?” suggested Amanda after way less thought than it should have taken.

  “Um. Yes? Or maybe…no?”

  “That makes more sense.” Brian gently shifted his beard braids away from the gravy. “I wasn’t sure what a rock star would be doing with Oliver.”

  “What is wrong with you this evening?” This was not Oliver’s “you are teasing me and I secretly like it” voice. This was Oliver’s “I am properly upset now” voice. “Are you trying to make me look as unattractive as possible in front of a man I actually like?”

  “Ignore him, Oliver,” said Jennifer. “He’s overcompensating for ten years of being the single one.”

  Oliver still had that prim, icy look about him. “I’m not sure that makes his behaviour acceptable.”

  “I’m sorry.” The table was too small for expansive movements, but it didn’t stop Brian from trying. “I really am. It’s just you’ve dated a lot of people and they’ve never been right for you and I want to know what makes this guy different before you get hurt again.”

  “I’m not your teenage daughter,” snapped Oliver. “And thinking about it, even if I were your teenage daughter, the way you’re acting would still be deeply controlling and weird.”

  “He’s right, dude.” Amanda gave her husband a disappointed look. “You’re being a prick.”

  “I … Sorry.”

  There was a long silence.

  Until Oliver eventually sighed and said, “It’s fine. I suppose it’s sweet that you care. In a profoundly unhelpful way.”

  I felt suddenly and intensely shit. Because I was sitting here, eating these people’s food and drinking their Bacardi, watching them be all excited and hopeful that their friend—who they obviously cared deeply about, and who’d apparently been more miserable than I’d noticed—was finally happy.

  And the whole thing sort of still had an expiration date.

  For a while now, I’d been living quietly with the knowledge that I was probably going to be a bit messed up when…if…this ended. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might mess Oliver up too.

  “So.” Sophie changed the subject with the poise and dignity of somebody who’d drunk entirely too much to give a fuck. “If not a rock star, what do you do?”

  “I’m a fundraiser for a charity.”

  “Oh, of course you are. Oliver, why are your boyfriends always so drearily ethical?”

  “Don’t worry.” I slanted a secret grin at Oliver. “I’m not ethical at all. I used to be in PR before I got fired for becoming the story. And now I work for the only people who’ll have me.”

  “That’s far better. Keep this one, darling. He’s a lot more interesting than the others.”

  “Yes.” Oliver lifted a brow. “Appeasing my evillest friend is exactly what I look for in a boyfriend.”

  “You joke, but it should be.” Her attention flicked back to me. “What’s your charity trying to save-slash-prevent?”

  “Um. Dung beetles?”

  She blinked. “Normally this would be obvious, but saving or preventing?”

  “Actually”—Oliver gave my knee a squeeze under the table—“they’re extremely ecologically important. They aerate soil.”

  “My children are six miles away, I’ve had an awful lot of wine, and Oliver seems to want me to care about dirt. I’m doing my best, but”—Sophie wafted her glass solicitously—“does anybody have a fuck I can borrow because I’m fresh out.”

  The part of my brain that had actually been showing up to work recently kicked in before I could stop it. “Look, I can absolutely help you find a fuck to give, but I’m very aware that I’m at someone else’s birthday party and probably shouldn’t be fishing for donors.”

  “No, please fish Sophie.” Jennifer flashed a smile at me across the table. “She’s got pots of money and doesn’t deserve any of it.”

  “Excuse me, I work very hard for my morally bankrupt clients. But go on, charity man”—Sophie propped her chin on her palm and gazed at me challengingly—“land me.”

  I gave Sophie a once-over. Remarkably together despite the truly stupendous amount she’d drunk. From her choice of dress, she liked people to underestimate her and, from the way she spoke, she liked to remind them that they had. There was a strategy that would probably work here, but it was risky.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m guessing that you donate to charity for exactly two reasons, which are tax breaks and sticking it to your do-gooder friends. I could try to explain to you why dung beetles are a vital part of the country’s ecology, but clearly you don’t care. And that’s okay. So instead I’ll tell you this: any arsehole with a credit card can give money to puppies with cancer or toys for sad children, but nothing says ‘I have thought about my charitable donations better than you have’ like giving your money to an environmentally vital but fundamentally unattractive insect. In the ‘who’s best at philanthropy game,’ the person with the most obscure charity wins. Always. And you do not get more obscure than us.”

  There was a pause. A deeply uncomfortable pause that lasted just long enough for me to wonder how badly I’d blown it.

  Then Sophie’s lips twisted into a gleeful smirk. “Sold. How much do you need?”

  Ben burst out laughing.

  And I wasn’t sure where to go from here. “Um. Great. That’s great. But given you’re really pissed right now, and you’re Oliver’s friend, and I don’t want him to be cross with me—”

  “I’m perfectly happy,” he interrupted. “Bleed her dry.”

  “Even so, I do actually have some professional ethics. You can ring me tomorrow if you want or I can call you or we can set up a lunch or, y’know, there’s a big do next week, where you can come and hang out with posh people and throw all your money at us if that’s how you’re feeling.”

  “You have a Dung Beetle Do?”

  “Yeah, we call it the Beetle Drive. Aren’t we adorable?”

  Another pause.

  “I feel compelled to point out,” said Sophie finally, “that you’ve just refused to take money from me now because I’m drunk. But you’ve invited me to a party where you presumably try to get a lot of people drunk and then ask them for money.”

  “Yeah, it’s not unethical if you print invitations.”

  “Then I suppose I’ll see you there.”

  The table broke into only slightly sarcastic applause.

  “Anyway”—Jennifer began to help Peter clear the table—“to bring things back to my birthday, do people need a pause before dessert?”

  Brian stroked his beard. “Very much depends on what dessert is.”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Does that mean it’s something we’re all going to hate?”


  “Ooh.” A thought struck Amanda. “Is it Angel Delight?”

  A different thought appeared to have struck Ben, who shuddered theatrically. “If it’s Black Forest Gateau, I’m leaving.”

  The frozen dessert banter looked set to continue for a while, which a couple of people seemed to read as a cue to stretch their legs and take bathroom breaks. I was more or less happy where I was, but then Oliver leaned over, and whispered to me that I should come outside a moment.

  Oh shit. I shouldn’t have tried to develop his friend. What the fuck was wrong with me?

  Feeling distinctly chastised, I trailed Oliver into the hall.

  “Look,” I started, “I’m sorry I—”

  At which point he pressed me against the wall and kissed me.

  It was fair to say we’d done a decent amount of kissing since putting it on the boyfriend menu, but it hadn’t been like this since my Guardian-related freak-out. I was beginning to think dumping him had put him off me somehow. And while I’d have really liked to get back to how things had been that night on my sofa—the sweet, sharp certainty of wanting, and being wanted—I’d been wary of pushing my luck. We hadn’t managed to see each other for most of the week, and it was hard to expect a guy to look at you as a passionate and intensely sexual being when your last two meetings had involved crying on a bathroom floor and an exhibition of glass sculptures. But, apparently, being moderately supportive at a party and trying to make one of his friends give money to dung beetles had done the job just fine.

  In any case, I was here for it. Very, very here for it.

  As, briefly, was someone else who told us to get a room on his way to the loo.

  But fuck it. These weren’t yeah whatever kisses. They weren’t take it or leave it, get your coat you’ve pulled kisses. They were everything I thought I could never have, everything I’d been pretending I never wanted, telling me that I was worth it, that he’d be there for me and put up with me, and wouldn’t let me drive him away.

  Oliver Blackwood was giving all that to me, and I was giving it right back. In the clutch of hands and the press of bodies and the urgent heat of his mouth on mine.

  And when it stopped, it still wasn’t over, because he sort of kept staring at me, his eyes all shiny, as his thumbs brushed lightly over my cheeks. “Oh, Lucien.”

  “I, um, I take it you’re not cross about Sophie, then?”

  “On the contrary, it was very impressive. I hope you’re not having a terrible evening.”

  “No, it’s…really nice..”

  “They like you, you know?” He kissed me again, more gently this time. “You can tell by the way they’re being total dicks.”

  I laughed. “I should probably introduce you to my total dicks as well.”

  “I’d like that. I mean, if you think…I’d reflect positively on you.”

  “Oliver”—I was feeling way too soppy to give him a withering look but I tried anyway—“my friends know who I am. Of course you’d reflect positively on me.”

  “Sorry. I just…I’m glad you came with me tonight.”

  “Me too. I haven’t had a Bacardi Breezer in years.” I paused, savouring his reaction. “And this bit didn’t suck either.”

  “Well, I’m glad I at least outrank the prawn cocktail.”

  Pulling him close again, I nipped playfully at the edge of his jaw, where he was all stern and square. “We should go back.”

  “Actually”—a faint flush darkened his cheeks—“I was rather minded to take you home.”

  “Why. Are you not feeling… Oh. Oh.”

  “I mean, if that’s agreeable.”

  It was the wrong time. But I had to. “I thought you said that wasn’t the title of your sex tape.”

  “I lied.” One of his little coughs. “Now, let’s see if we can make our excuses and leave discreetly.”

  Having met Oliver’s friends for all of ten seconds, I did not rate our chances of running home to shag without their knowing exactly what we were up to and commenting on it accordingly.

  And I was super right.

  Chapter 38

  The ethically sourced minicab that Oliver called to take us home took far too long to take us home. Partly because I was—to use the technical term—horny, but mostly because, the more I thought about it, the more nervous I was getting. Oliver had made it very clear that he did not take sex lightly, and I’d made kind of a lifestyle out of only taking it lightly. And, obviously at the back of my mind, I’d been hoping he’d eventually surrender to my naked, animal charisma and give me one, but now that it was happening…it didn’t feel quite like I’d thought it would. I mean, yes, it was exciting, and sexy, and he liked me, he really liked me, but what if I fucked it up? What if I wasn’t very good? I’d had no complaints but nobody looked a gift blow job in the mouth, so maybe—like every other aspect of my life—I’d just been coasting on other people’s low expectations.

  The thing about a hookup, the thing I liked about hookups, was that it was pretty clear whose job it was to get who off. Those ‘whos’ being “you” and “yourself” respectively. When you, y’know, cared about someone, you started caring about confusing nonsense like if it was good for them, and how they felt, and what it meant. And what if we got back to Oliver’s perfect house and we lay down on his perfect sheets and we did the sex and it was…fine? I’d told him before that fine was all he could expect from me and he’d said fine wasn’t enough for him, and now it wasn’t enough for me, either, but what if it was all I could manage?

  Oliver was far too dignified to actually run for the front door, but he certainly got his hustle on. And we’d barely made it into the hallway before he was on me like I was a vegan brownie, and I was pulling him close, and we were kissing again. Which was great—we’d definitely got the kissing down—but also took everything I’d been stressing about in the taxi and made it horribly real and immediate.

  After all, this was supposed to be my bag. I’d spent years getting my debauch on, in and out of the papers, and yet here I was with a guy I was really into and really really wanted to be into me, and I was reduced to the sexual sophistication of a teenager in a John Hughes movie. On the admittedly more than a few occasions I’d imagined getting to this point with Oliver, I’d been a creative and considerate lover, and blown his mind with my astounding array of sex moves. Instead, I was clinging and grinding and making, if I’m honest, slightly embarrassing moaning noises. Oh God. Help. This had no right to feel so perfect.

  Suddenly, Oliver’s weight shifted and, for a handful of awful seconds, I thought I’d put him off somehow. But then he hoisted me into his arms and I was such a weird combination of relieved and lust-addled that—rather than asking what the hell he was playing at—I wrapped my legs around him like a twink in a porno. With a strength I shouldn’t have found surprising given his commitment to a healthy lifestyle, he started carrying me towards the bedroom. It was this perfect magical fantasy moment, right up until he pitched forward and dropped me on the stairs.

  “Um,” I said. “Ow.”

  Looking flustered and adorable, Oliver reversed off me like a minibus in a cul-de-sac. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “No, no, it’s cool. It was briefly very sexy and romantic.”

  “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “I’m okay. Bit self-conscious about being too heavy to carry.”

  I’d been joking but, of course, Oliver got terribly serious in case he’d accidentally body-shamed me as well as accidentally body-slamming me. “It doesn’t reflect on you at all. I overestimated my ability to handle the stairs.”

  “Good to know. Now will you stop being reassuring and fuck me?”

  “I will fuck you, Lucien”—he’d gone all stern and, for once, it didn’t bother me at all—“in the manner of my choosing.”

  I stared at him wi
de-eyed and blatantly into…whatever this was. “Steady on, I didn’t sign up for Fifty Shades of Gay.”

  “No, you signed up for me. Now go upstairs and get on the bed.”

  I…went upstairs and got on the bed?

  A few seconds later, Oliver appeared in the doorway, dropping his coat on the floor. And, I mean, wow. I had never seen him not use a hanger. He must have been really into this. Into me?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, blushing a little. “I’ve never thought…I…that is…you…”

  “Don’t apologise. It’s, um, interesting.”

  He blushed even harder. “I’ve actually wanted to do this for rather a long time.”

  “Just throwing this out there”—I scowled at him—“you absolutely could have, at any point.”

  “I suppose I thought you were worth waiting for.”

  Shit. I hoped he was right. “I’m not the last After Eight mint.”

  “Well no.” He joined me on the bed, crawling across the covers like a tiger who’d been to Abercrombie and Fitch. “If you were, we’d all be too polite to take you.”

  “I’d have a witty comeback, but I’m kinda distracted right now.”

  “You do seem,” he said dryly, “to be markedly less intransigent when you have an erection.”

  “Yes, it’s my Achilles’ penis.”

  Laughing, Oliver started unbuttoning my shirt. Which was, on the one hand, good because it got me closer to naked and, therefore, closer to laid. On the other hand, I was about to be topless. And it wasn’t like Oliver hadn’t seen me topless before, but this was one of those context-is-everything situations. Being naked and being made naked felt distinctly and scarily different. Normally, I didn’t especially worry what my sexual partners thought about my body, but then normally my sexual partners were strangers.

  In an effort to balance the scales, I returned the favour and realised I’d made a tremendous strategic error. Because while I got by on genetics, height, and walking to work, Oliver bothered to take care of himself. It was the sexual equivalent of someone getting you a really thoughtful secret Santa gift when you knew you’d bought them a bath bomb.