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. Fairclough’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.”