Hell, I had a lunch date. With a barrister. A fake lunch date, admittedly. But a real barrister.

And suddenly my job didn’t look quite as crap.

And my flat didn’t look quite as impossible.

And I didn’t feel quite as hollow.

Grabbing my phone again, I jumped into the WhatsApp group, which was currently called All About That Ace, and sent out a quick cry for help: Have been too bad at adulting for too long. Flat is unliveable in. Fake boyfriend horrified. HLEP!

Priya was the first to respond with Luc, do you only ever message us when you want something?

Followed by Bridget. ILL COME HELP YOU. JUST SAY WHEN WHERE. HOW IS FAKE BOYFRIEND?????

Oh dear. So much for not telling all my friends. Maybe I could ask them to keep extra special double quiet about it. What was that saying? Three can keep a secret if two of them try really, really hard.

My flat, I typed. This weekend. I’ll pay you in pizza. Though frankly that might make things worse

Do NOT order pizza! Somehow James Royce-Royce sounded camp even in text. The big chains are all run by Nazis. And also the pizza’s terrible. I will make a picnic and bring it with me.

TIDY PARTY!!!!!!! Bridge, of course. I think she’d had her caps lock stuck on since 2002. IM SO EXCITED!!!!! HOW IS FAKE BOYFRIEND?????

Then Priya: You just want me for my truck, don’t you?

I bet, I couldn’t help myself, you say that to all the girls

HOW IS FAKE BOYFRIEND?????

What I say to all the girls is that’s my sculpture. Wanna fuck?

LUC IM GOING OT KEEP ASKING YOU HOW THINGS ARE WITH OLIVER UNTIL YOU ANSWR OR MY THUMBS FALL OFF

I took pity on her. Or maybe on everyone else. It’s wonderful. We’re getting married. Why do you think I need to clean my flat?

YOUR BEING SARCASTIC THAT MEANS YOU SECRETLY LIKE HIM!!! SEE YOU ON SAT CANT WAIT!!!

From there the conversation moved on to other things, and I stuck it out for long enough to prove that, whatever Priya said, I didn’t only talk to my friends when I needed something from them. Then a bit longer to prove that I wasn’t just sticking around to prove I didn’t only talk to my friends when I needed something from them. Then a little bit longer than that because I realised Priya had been right all along and I was a bad person. And, besides, it was nice. I hadn’t realised how far I’d drifted from them, because they’d kept sculling towards me anyway. But I had. And I shouldn’t have.

Chapter 22

Pictures of me and Oliver having lunch on a bench near a statue of Gladstone didn’t exactly make headlines—Two Men Eat Sandwiches was never going to get the traction of Minor Celebrity Vomits on Other Minor Celebrity—but they were out there, showing me off in all my nice-boyfriend-having, nonthreatening glory. We did lunch again on Friday, without much expectation of anyone caring, but we felt we should keep up appearances anyway. And also I, y’know, liked, y’know, seeing, y’know, him. And stuff. True, it wasn’t going to last because come a discreet time after his parents’ anniversary, we’d be going our separate ways with no need to ever speak to each other ever again, but maybe that was…a good thing? It turned out that there was way less pressure when it was all just pretending. And for now I didn’t have to think too hard about what I’d do when the pretending stopped.

Saturday rolled around and, despite Bridge’s all-caps assurance that she couldn’t wait to come and tidy my flat, I wasn’t entirely surprised to get a call from her at nine in the morning.

“Luc,” she wailed. “I’m so sorry. I super wanted to come round for the tidy party. But you will not believe what’s happened.”

“Tell me what’s happened.”

“I can’t really talk about it, but you know The Elf-Swords of Luminera? Robert Kennington, series of twenty-something fantasy novels that’ve been going since the late ’70s.”

“Didn’t he die?”

“Yes. Back in 2009, but he gave his notes to Richard Kavanagh, and he was going to write the last three books in the series. But then the first one had to be split into three other books for publication, and the other two have been broken into a quadrilogy and tetralogy—”

“Aren’t those both sets of four?”

“There’s a technical difference, but I don’t have time to go into it right now. Anyway, the point is, it was all going really well, and Netflix was interested in optioning books three, seven, and nine, and we were trying to get them to look at one, two, and six and I think they were about to pick them up. But now Kavanagh has also died. And Raymond Carlisle and Roger Clayborn are both saying that he wanted them to take over, and they’re refusing to collaborate with each other.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that sounds…complicated.”

“I know. And I’m probably going to be on a conference call all day. If I can’t get them to work it out, I’m definitely going to get fired.”

I rolled my eyes, only because she couldn’t see me. “You’re not going to get fired, Bridge. You never get fired. They keep getting you to deal with this sort of nonsense because you’re actually fantastic at your job.”

There was a long silence. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Fine. Why?”

“I can’t remember the last time you said something nice about, well, anything.”

I thought about this for slightly longer than I was comfortable having to think about it. “When you got that new haircut. The one with the cute fringe. I told you it looked really good on you.”

“That was three years ago.”

I gasped. “It was not.”

“Luc, I can remember when fringes were in.”

“Jesus.” I sank down onto the arm of my sofa. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’m saving these stories for when I’m best man at your wedding.”

“You might be saving them for a long time.”

“Then it’s going to be a very long speech. And I have to go. But please tell me how much you like Oliver first.”

“Nothing,” I insisted, “is happening with Oliver.”

She squeaked happily. “Ah, but you’re not complaining about how pompous and boring he is. That means it’s going exactly according to plan. Must dash. Ciao, darling.”

She was gone before I could ciao back.

Twenty minutes later, the James Royce-Royces appeared, James Royce-Royce with an actual picnic basket.

“Oh, Luc.” He gazed around in dismay. “I hadn’t realised it had got this bad. I’m not sure I’ll feel safe eating in here.”