by Alexis Hall
“I don’t even know what I’m going to say to him,” I muttered, “and, Bridge, if you tell me to tell him I loooooooove him one more time, I will shove you out of this vehicle.”
That earned me a Level Seven Bridget Pout. “Don’t be mean. I’m supporting you. And, besides, ‘I love you’ is all you should have to say.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”
“It’s all Tom had to say to me.”
“For the record”—this was Tom—“I said quite a lot of other things. About how sorry I was for hooking up with your best friend—no offence, Luc.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s fine. Tell me to my face what a mistake I am.”
“Point is,” interrupted Bridget, “it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t listening to anything after the ‘I love you’ bit.”
Tom laughed and pulled her close. “I do love you.”
“Oi.” Priya banged the wheel. “The only person who’s allowed to fuck in my truck is me. I mean me, and whoever I’m fucking.”
“Yes, we’d inferred that, darling,” remarked James Royce-Royce. “Otherwise you’d just be lying in the back seat having a massive wank.”
Priya frowned into the mirror. “Thanks for that speculation into the scale of my masturbatory habits.”
“Would you rather I said a tiny wank? A micro wank? A wankette?”
I covered my face with my hands. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m walking to Durham.”
“There, there.” Bridget offered me a consoling pat. “It’s going to be fine. Oliver really likes you. And you really like him. You’ve just been really bad at making each other believe that.”
“Actually he’d done a great job convincing me. Right up to the point where he said it was over and walked out of my flat.”
“He’s scared, Luc.”
“Yeah, I got that. Credit me with some emotional intelligence.”
“But you’ve also got to understand that he’s spent his entire life trying to be the perfect son and the perfect boyfriend, and it never seems to work out for him.”
I made an angry noise. “Yes, I got that too. I did pay some attention while we were dating. The difference is, his parents are dicks. And his boyfriends, I assume, have also been dicks.”
“Some of them were quite nice. The boyfriends, I mean. His parents are awful and hate me.”
“Oh how could anyone hate you, Bridget?” asked James Royce-Royce, with an almost inhuman lack of sarcasm.
She thought about it for a moment. “They seem to get very cross when you’re late. And it’s not like I’m late on purpose. Things come up. And I once asked for a Malibu and Coke at a party, and they looked at me like I’d asked for a glass of baby’s blood.”
“Yep.” I nodded. “Sounds like them.”
“So you can see,” Bridge pressed on, “why he’s not very good at having relationships.”
Even though Oliver wasn’t here, and it was the mildest possible criticism, I still felt a strange need to defend him. “He was amazing at them when he was with me. He’s the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
“That,” offered Priya, “is because you’re a titanic romantic disaster with incredibly low standards.”
I gave her a look. “You know we really do only hang out with you for your truck.”
“Stop doing banter.” Bridge pounded her fist on the nearest solid object which was, unfortunately, me. “This is important. We’re sorting out Luc’s love life, and his low standards aren’t the problem.”
I was about to protest that I didn’t have low standards. But I was in this mess because I’d told my friends I needed literally anyone who would go out with me. “So what is the problem?”
“You can’t feel close to someone,” Bridge went on, “when you’re spending the whole time trying to be what you think they want.”
“But he is what I want.” Except then I remembered Oliver telling me he wasn’t who I thought he was. “Oh fuck. Isn’t he?”
Priya’s eyebrows did something very aggressive. “We’re about a third of the way to Durham, mate. He better fucking had be.”
I was so confused. Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe all this stuff about expectations and pretending and who people really were was so much smoke and bullshit. And maybe I’d just done a terrible job of showing Oliver that what made me happy wasn’t the V-cut or the French toast or the socially acceptable career: it was…him. Maybe it was that simple.
“Yeah,” I said. “He is.”
Chapter 51
It probably said something about Oliver’s sense of humour—even when he was apparently in the middle of an existential crisis—that he’d chosen to stay in a place called the Honest Lawyer Hotel. Going by my complete lack of historical knowledge or interest, it looked like a converted coaching house, all sash windows, sloping tile roofs, and chimney stacks. There was a blossom tree in full bloom out front, which made it, in theory at least, a great location to try and romance somebody back into your life. And, for that matter, county.
We stuck the truck in their carpark and piled through the front door, looking in no way suspicious.
“Um. Hello,” I said to the be-suited man behind the desk—who frankly, and fairly, already seemed to have had enough of my shit.
“Can I help you?” A pause. “Any or all of you?”
“I’m looking for Oliver Blackwood. I think he’s staying here.”
He got that weary expression that people in service industries got when you were asking them to do things that definitely weren’t their jobs. “I’m afraid I can’t give you information about guests.”
“But,” I pounced, “he is a guest.”
“I can’t give you information about whether someone is a guest or not.”
“He’s not a film star or anything. He’s just my ex-boyfriend.”
“That doesn’t make a difference. I’m not legally allowed to tell you who’s staying here.”
“Oh. Well. Please?”
“No.”
“I’ve come a really long way.”
“And”—to give the receptionist his due, he was being way more patient than I would have been—“you brought all these people with you?”
“We’re moral support,” Bridget explained.
“If you know this man,” said the receptionist slowly, “wouldn’t you have his phone number?”
“I guess I was worried he wouldn’t pick up.”
“But you thought he’d be fine with you showing up at his hotel with no warning and an entourage?”
I turned away from the desk. “Bridge, why did you think this plan would work?”
“It shows you’re going above and beyond.” She tripped forward to join me. “It shows how much you care.”
“Yeah.” That was Priya. “I’m coming to the conclusion that it mostly shows you didn’t think this through.”
“I have to agree,” said the receptionist.
Sheepishly, I pulled out my phone and rang Oliver. It went to voicemail, but since there was no message I could conceivably leave, I hung up quickly. “I think he might be screening me.”
Desk guy folded his arms in a smug, vindicated way. “You see, this is why we don’t give out information about guests.”
“But this is, like, love and shit,” I tried.
“This is, like”—the receptionist was still visibly unmoved—“my job and shit.”
“Don’t worry,” cried Bridge. “I’ll call him. Nobody screens me.”
James Royce-Royce struck a despairing pose. “I try to, pumpkin. But you never take no answer for an answer.”
“She once left me thirty-seven consecutive voicemails,” agreed James Royce-Royce, “about a shop she’d found that was still charging 15p for Freddos.”
“Really? Where?” asked the receptionist.
>
Bridge gave him a haughty glare. “I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to give that information away.”
“Can you please”—I tried very hard to sound calm and in control—“call Oliver for me.”
“Don’t worry.” Bridge was already rummaging in her bag. “I’ve got this. I’ll be incredibly subtle.”
“Well,” said Priya, “we’re fucked.”
There was a brief pause as Bridge unlocked her phone. And she’d been right—Oliver wasn’t screening her. Which was good under the circumstances but also made me feel like shit.
“Hi,” she trilled, not, I’ll be honest, entirely convincingly. “I just thought I’d check in for no reason… No, everything’s fine… No, no crisis… How’s Durham… What do you mean you’re not in Durham… Oh. That’s nice… Been lovely talking to you. Bye-bye.”
“Okay.” I stared at Bridget, reminding myself she was my best friend, and you didn’t wish your best friend would fall into an open sewer and die. “What was that about him not being in Durham?”
“Apparently”—Bridge squirmed—“he changed his mind. About the job. And, obviously, he must have cancelled his hotel room as well.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” put in the receptionist. “But please leave.”
Priya threw her hands in the air. “You fuckers owe me dinner. Or I’m driving back on my fucking own.”
“Can you at least stop saying ‘fuck’ in the lobby?” asked the receptionist in the plaintive tones of a man who, at this stage, would take what he could get.
“The restaurant here looks perfectly acceptable,” piped up James Royce-Royce. “All their ingredients are apparently sourced within twenty miles of the hotel, and I do like a good side of local beef.”
“Quick question.” I turned back to the receptionist. “Would our going and buying dinner in your restaurant make you less annoyed with us or more annoyed with us?”
The receptionist shrugged. “Right now, I mostly want you away from my desk.”
“Yay.” Bridge did an actual dance. “Food adventure.”
She and I ended up splitting the bill between the two of us since this had been entirely her idea and, theoretically, for my benefit.
After we’d had starters, mains, desserts, and Priya had made a point of ordering coffee, we bundled back into her truck and started the journey home—always the worst part of any road trip, especially one with a gigantic anticlimax in the middle.
“It’s a good sign really.” As ever, Bridge was the first to break a perfectly satisfying miserable silence.
James Royce-Royce lifted his head from James Royce-Royce’s shoulder. “Go on, darling. Spin this one for us.”
“Well, don’t you see? He was so sad when he broke up with Luc that he had to run away to the other side of the country. But when he thought about the reality of leaving you behind, he couldn’t do it.”
“Alternatively,” I said, “he was in a bad place because he’d just got out of a weird not-quite-fake relationship and his parents had been dicks to him so he thought about doing something dramatic. Then realised it was stupid, because his house, his job, and all his friends are in London. Where he’s perfectly happy without me.”
Tom had been half dozing in the corner, but now he sat up. “Is it at all possible there’s a middle ground here? Like maybe whether Oliver wants to get back with Luc has nothing to do with whether he wants to move to Durham?”
“So you’re saying”—I glanced at Tom over Bridge’s shoulder—“that Oliver isn’t happy or unhappy without me because I’m completely irrelevant?”
“No. I’m saying you might be irrelevant to one very specific set of decisions.”
“That’s not true,” protested Bridge loyally. “I’m sure Oliver wouldn’t have been looking for work on the other side of the country if he hadn’t broken up with Luc.”
I made a fuck-it-all gesture. “In any case, it doesn’t matter. I tried to do the big-gesture thing. And all I did was waste about ten hours of everybody’s time.”
“Time spent with friends,” opined James Royce-Royce, “is never wasted. And the beef was excellent, if a trifle under for my taste.”
Priya’s eyes flashed in the mirror. “My time’s been wasted. As has my petrol.”
“I’ll reimburse you for the petrol.”
“And what about the sex I could be having right now?”
“Well…” I blinked. “I’d reimburse you for that as well, but I’m not really qualified. This was your idea, Bridge. Over to you.”
She squeaked. “I don’t think I’m qualified either.”
“Yeah,” said Priya, “can we stop talking about my sexuality like it’s an entry level position at Deloitte?”
We apologised. After which, Bridge transitioned seamlessly back into my love life. “You’d better not be giving up, Luc.”
“He wouldn’t even answer my call.”
“Yes. That’s another good sign. If he didn’t care, he’d be fine to talk to you.”
“We’ve been through this. I didn’t know what I was going to say in a hotel in Durham. I don’t know what I’d have said if he’d answered the phone. And I’m not going to know what to say if I suddenly show up on his doorstep at ten o’clock at night.”
“Oh,” Bridge gasped. “That’s a wonderful idea. Priya, drive to Oliver’s house.”
Priya scowled again. “Sure. I’ll just type ‘Oliver’s house’ into my satnav, shall I?”
“It’s fine. I’ve got his address.”
“This is my truck. Not a fucking Uber.”
“Oliver didn’t like using Uber,” I heard myself say. “He thought their business practices were unethical.”
“Y’know what else is unethical?” Priya shot back. “Making your only South Asian friend drive you everywhere.”
“Ooh”—James Royce-Royce started—“I hadn’t thought about the optics of that. I could take a turn at the wheel if you’d like.”
Priya shook her head. “Nobody has sex in my truck but me. Nobody drives my truck but me.”
“Then stop complaining that we make you drive us places,” I complained.
“You could, for example, get your own cars.”
“With the congestion charge?” James Royce-Royce looked genuinely shocked. “And parking would be a nightmare. Besides, dear heart, you’re the one who chose a career carting scrap metal around.”
“I’m a sculptor, not a refuse collector.”
I closed my eyes. They could go on like this pretty much indefinitely. And I’d had, to put it mildly, a long day—made longer by its absolute futility. I mean, it was probably for the best that Oliver wasn’t randomly upending his entire life in a moment of…whatever it had been a moment of. And, actually, I’d had those kind of moments myself, and they were never a good sign. But, in terms of my relationship, fake or otherwise or lack thereof, it did leave me sort of nowhere. At least if we’d found Oliver in Durham, I could have been all “No, please don’t go, come back with me.” Whereas if I tried to talk him now, I’d just have be like “hi.” And I couldn’t quite see that being a love story for the ages.
Wow. This sucked.
Resting my head against the window, I let myself doze to the humming of the engine and the comforting white noise of my friends bickering.
Chapter 52
“We’re here.” Bridget poked me excitedly.
I rubbed my eyes, very glad to be home. “Thank fuck. I’m knackered.”
“I feel sooooo sorry for you,” drawled Priya. “Having to sleep in the back while I ferried you to and from Durham on a wild-goose chase.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Next time you have something heavy to lift, I’ll make far fewer excuses about helping you.” I plopped out of the truck, fumbling in my pocket for my keys. Then I realised I was in Clerkenwell. “Hey, wait. T
his isn’t where I live.”
Bridget yanked the door closed again and locked it before winding the window down just far enough that I could hear her. “No, this is Oliver’s. Don’t you remember? We said we’d take you here.”
Yes. Yes, they had. “I did not agree to this.”
“Tough. It’s for your own good. You’ll thank us when you’re eighty and have a million grandchildren.”
I banged on the side of the vehicle. “Let me in, you abject fuckers. This is not funny.”
Priya cracked the front window. “You’re right. It’s not. Hands off the paintwork.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I waved my arms, not quite daring to further risk Priya’s wrath. “I’m pretty sure this is legally kidnapping.”
“Oooh,” cried Bridget. “Oliver’s a lawyer. Knock on his door and ask him.”
“I am not going to wake him up in the middle of the night to ask a spurious question about whether my friends have committed a felony against me.”
“I was just trying to give a plausible cover story you could use to segue into telling him you want to go out with him again.”
I was still gesticulating. “Oh so many…many things. Firstly, it is not a plausible cover story. Secondly, it doesn’t make up for the fact you’ve dumped me on the street halfway across London from where I actually live. And, thirdly, most importantly, he doesn’t want to go out with me.”
“You were willing to do this in Durham. Why aren’t you willing to do it here?”
“Because,” I yelled, “I’ve had time to realise what a terrible idea it is. Now let me the fuck back into this van before Oliver’s neighbours call the police.”
Priya began winding her window back up. “Don’t you dare call my truck a van.”
“I’m so sorry. Clearly that distinction is what matters most in this moment.”
“Lucien,” said Oliver, from behind me, “what are you doing?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I turned, trying to look normal and nonchalant. “Just passing? On my way back from…a trip?”
“If you’re just passing, why are you standing outside my front door, screaming your head off? And why is there a truck full of people watching you do it?”