I was pretty sure keeping track of days when I’d have to do something miserable-making was above and beyond the call of duty for a kinky fuckbuddy. But then, George was kind of above and beyond in most areas. She’d even tactfully excluded me from the photoshoot so I wouldn’t have to carry things and be helpful while my ex-boyfriend looked happy and beautiful with his new fiancé. “Sort of a disaster,” I admitted. “But not in any way that will stop me writing a bunch of fluff about how lovely it is that rich gays can get married now.”
George gave a theatrical sigh. “Sometimes I think same-sex marriage is the worst thing that could have happened to us. It’s only been legal for ten minutes and already queer relationships are getting stuffed into all the same anodyne little boxes as straight ones.”
“And there was me, dreaming of the day you were going to walk me down the aisle.”
“How about”—she smirked at me—“I walk you to lunch?”
Tempting. Except I was a mature, career-minded adult who wasn’t going to run away from his own interview. “I’d love to, but I really do need to get on with this.”
“Your stapler will still be here when you get back. And taking some time to clear your head might let you actually do the job you’re currently pretending to do.”
“What if it just makes it worse? And I spend the rest of my life trying to write this article.”
“Then at least you’ll have had lunch.”
I drooped.
“There, there, Ardy.” Reaching out, she chucked me lightly under the chin. “I’m going to take you to my club. Which you’re going to like very much because it has panelled walls and a wonderful menu and very long tablecloths.”
“Why am I suddenly into tablecloths?”
“I’m implying something lewd. Do try to keep up.”
“Ohhh.You mean you want me to blow you under the table?”
She laughed. “No, poppet. I mean I willallowyou to blow me under the table if you’re good.”
Guess what? I was good.
***
Of course, when I got back—probably later than I should have—the recording was still waiting for me, but I felt altogether better about grappling with it. And the wine I’d had at lunch certainly didn’t hurt. I stuck in my headphones and got back to Nathaniel and Caspian. I’d expected only hearing their voices would give me a little bit of distance, but it didn’t at all. It took me straight back to the conference room but in this “freeze rotate enhance” Blade Runnery way that let me pick up on details I hadn’t been in any state to handle at the time. Like the fact they looked so damn good together. Elegant, sophisticated, but not too threatening: the gay couple you’d invite to your dinner party to prove you weren’t a homophobe.
In retrospect, it hadn’t been the perfect interview. But it wasn’t exactly a Frost-Nixon situation. It was mostly just,Gays can marry now, look how nice and handsome they are. Depressingly enough, I found it the easiest thing in the world to spin Caspian and Nathaniel into exactly the sort of story Mara was looking for. The ruthless billionaire and the passionate altruist. Just enough queer to be affirming but not so much it was challenging. A relationship that was aspirational and yet still accessible. I honestly couldn’t tell if I was rocking my job or destroying my soul. Maybe a little bit of both? And this beingMilieu, I managed to get at least five hundred words out of Caspian’s family, the aristocratic patrons of Nathaniel’s charity, and the jeweller behind their bespoke engagement rings.
By end of day, I’d drunk four cans of Diet Coke, spilled one, and eaten all the loose jellybeans I’d been able to dig out of the lining of my bag. But I’d also banged out a solid first draft. And y’know something, despite a faintly queasy feeling that could just as well have been down to the jellybeans-fluff-caffeine combo, I was calling that a win.
Chapter 13
Isaved the document eighty-five thousand gazillion times, just to be on the safe side, packed myself up, made sure my desk was pristine, and hurried off to meet Bellerose. What with being slap bang in the middle of Mayfair, the get-drunk-after-work options were plentiful but not entirely to my taste—chain pubs that tried to pretend they weren’t by making a big deal of their authentic Tudor fittings, and cocktail bars where you had to pay twenty quid for a martini. But make for Soho and you could find places like the Shaston Arms, with hanging baskets and fire-engine-red paintwork and, um, the two doors on account of the legit actual wall running down the middle of the building. It was also so dinky that in the summer and early autumn most of the patrons ended up spilling onto the pavement with their beers. Basically, it was a pub that was quirky beyond the point of practicality. Which, of course, meant I was way into it.
It was early enough that it wasn’t yet impossible to squidge in. And having squidged, I found Bellerose already occupying one of the booths—which were my favourite place to sit, because they made me feel like a ne’er-do-well in a Victorian novel.
“Hi.” I managed to put my shoulder bag down without spilling anything and slid in opposite.
“Arden.”
Bellerose was getting some attention—furtive, English attention but attention nonetheless. Partly, I think, because he looked too attractive to be real. But also because he was knitting.
“Can I get you a drink?” I asked, trying not to stare. It wasn’t that my mind was being blown by the sight of a man engaged in a hobby traditionally practiced by grandmas. It was more that we were in a pub and that it was Bellerose. I mean, he’d told me he knitted. But I’d found it impossible to imagine and, consequently, only half believed him.
He shook his head. “No thank you.”
“So, like, we’re in this place called a pub. And what pubs do is they own a building, and in that building they sell beer and other alcoholic beverages, and in return for buying the beer and other alcoholic beverages they let people stay, for free, in the building that they own. And from the money they make from selling their beer and other alcoholic beverages, the pub gets to keep their building and the people who bought the beer and other alcoholic beverages get to have fun, and everyone lives happily ever after.”
At this, Bellerose glanced up, though his needles didn’t stop moving. “I’ll have water.”
“Bellerose—”
