In the end I served up a kind of vegetable gruel with bits of either burned or raw crust floating in it like incredibly shit dumplings. Oliver seasoned his liberally and tucked in.
“Are you okay?” he asked once he’d managed to swallow a particularly tricky lump of chard. “This is fine, but from the mess”—he indicated the carnage that still filled the kitchen—“it seems like you were more than normally distracted.”
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be a big deal. I wasn’t going to let this be a big deal. “It’s Miles.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realise seeing him shook you up that much.”
“No, I mean, it’s Miles again. Like, he came to see me.”
Between his training as a professional barrister, a lifetime of nodding and smiling for his judgmental parents, and two years of pretending to like my cooking, Oliver had one hell of a poker face, but I thought I saw a flattering hint of jealousy creep into his eyes.
“When?”
“Today. At work.”
Oliver frowned. “That seems inappropriate.”
“Yeah, Miles has never been big on appropriate.” To be fair, neither had I.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to say, ‘I made a terrible mistake, run away with me,’
and I said, ‘Of course I will, big boy.’ I’m packing my bags this evening.”
Oliver put down his fork and gave me a stern look. “Lucien.”
“He wanted to invite me to his wedding.”
“Ah.” For a moment he was quiet. “Do you want to go?”
I was a bit surprised he’d even asked. “Of course not. It would be fucking weird.”
“Well then.” He reached across the table and took my hand. I thought it was meant to be affectionate, but he probably also wanted an excuse to stop eating the pie. “That seems to be a problem with a very simple solution.”
“It’s just…” Fuck. He’d done that thing where he was all supportive of my choices to make me confront the fact that I wasn’t actually sure about them. “I keep wondering if it might be good for me maybe?”
His thumb traced gently across my knuckles like we had all the time in the world and nothing mattered more than this conversation right now. “Good in what way?”
“I dunno. Sort of…closure-y? Like it might help to be able to stand up and say, ‘Hey, you totally destroyed me that one time, but I’m fine now, so I wish you well.’ Also, I’d really like to show up at his wedding with my gorgeous, successful boyfriend and rub it in his stupid, smug, beardy face.”
Oliver laughed. “Should I feel flattered by that or exploited?”
“Oh, we’re too special for a bit of exploitation now, are we?”
“Depends on the situation.”
It was nice to be able to have this, just sitting with Oliver being very slightly flirty, even while I was having a mini-crisis. But that didn’t make the mini-crisis less crisisey. “I keep going in circles,” I told him. “One moment I’ll be all Why are you even considering this, fuck him, and then I’ll be like But isn’t that giving him more power over you, then I’ll be back to Or maybe that’s what he wants you to think, and—gah.”
“You’re a complicated man, Lucien O’Donnell.”
“Thanks, I try.” I sighed. “I guess the whole let-us-reconcile-even-though-I-shafted-you thing is bringing up a lot of stuff, and I’m not sure where I want to…well…put the stuff it brings up.”
Oliver gave me a reassuring nod. “That makes sense. But for what it’s worth, I don’t believe this is as much like your dad as you might be thinking.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Even if I hadn’t put it into quite those words. “Isn’t it, though? Aren’t I just setting myself up to go through life with people shitting on me and then saying, ‘Hey, remember that time I shat on you? It’d be great for me if you could put it all behind you and say we’re cool now’？”
“I think, or rather I hope”—he gave me earnest eyes over the remains of his bowl of non-pie—“that the difference is you’re not invested in Miles. He’s not trying to be a part of your life; he’s only asking you to come to his wedding. And he’s probably asking for selfish reasons. I don’t doubt that it’s about making him and his new husband feel better rather than making you feel better. But he’s not asking you to commit to anything.”