“How about”—oh, I was so fucking grown-up—“I compromise. I’d like the eel to start for old time’s sake. And I’ll join you for a vegan main.”
Oliver’s lips twitched. “So, I’ll order for you, but you’ll tell me what to order?”
I grinned at him, getting my own metaphor on. “Kind of the best of both worlds, don’t you think?”
This seemed to be going better. It was definitely going better. I’d managed to avoid throwing up in the bread basket, Oliver had nearly smiled, and here we were in our first-date restaurant, not having any awkward conversations about anything.
At least until I popped the last piece of eel sandwich into my mouth.
“Lucien.” It was like someone had flicked a switch and put Oliver in serious mode again. “I do need to talk about last night.”
“I told you nothing happened.”
“And I told you that wasn’t the problem.”
The biley panic was rising again. “Oliver, there shouldn’t be a problem. It was one night, I went a bit wild, I overslept, I showed up here with a headache, and I’m sorry.”
“But are you sure you…” Oliver began. Then stopped again. “It doesn’t have to be one night if you…if you don’t want it to.”
I reached for my water glass. “Honestly, I’m not sure I could take another one.”
“No, but…but you’ve made it quite clear that you…that you value that way of expressing yourself?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “A balloon arch is just a balloon arch. It doesn’t mean anything except that I like rainbow balloon arches and you don’t.”
“I don’t think that’s actually true, and I don’t think you do either.
And it concerns me that we’ve had such difficulty designing a wedding that we feel represents us both equally.”
This was supposed to be an evening for us. Our special evening.
Our last special evening. And all we’d done was talk about my dad and wedding shit. “Oliver, I’m sick of the fucking wedding.”
I’d said that way too loudly and way too emphatically.
“And you don’t feel,” asked Oliver calmly, “that’s a rather telling statement to be making a week before you’re getting married?”
“It’s not about the marriage. It’s about the”—I waved my hands about—“the everything else. I just want to be with you like we used to before everything was about place settings and table confetti and never knowing which one of us is being the arsehole.”
“What worries me is that it might be neither of us.”
I glared at him across the table. “Only you could find that worrying.”
“On the contrary”—he was still doing that slightly detached rational thing he did when things were a bit too intense for him—“if one of us is being an arsehole, then everything is simple. That person just needs to stop being an arsehole, and we’ll be fine. But if neither of is being an arsehole, then that implies that we might have —and forgive the strong language—fundamental incompatibilities.”
In any other context, I’d have found the fact he called the phrase fundamental incompatibilities strong language kind of endearing.
This—our special, emotionally resonate date I’d been late for and hungover at—was not any other context.
So I was fucking terrified.
"WHAT KIND OF FUNDAMENTAL INCOMPATIBILITIES?" I definitely did not screech. “Because it feels like you’re blowing the balloon arch up out of all proportion. Which is, I suppose, at least appropriate for a balloon-based structure.”
“It is not,” said Oliver tightly, “the fucking balloon—” He broke off abruptly as the waiter set down our pea-and-broad-bean rotolos.
“Thank you very much.” Then unbroke equally abruptly. “Arch.”
“I know, I know. It’s what…” I made the air-quotiest air quotes that ever air-quoted. “‘The balloon arch represents.’ Which doesn’t have to be anything, Oliver. It’s fucking balloons.”
Oliver took a deep breath. I had a sinking feeling this was going to be logical and wordy. Which was sad because I usually found Oliver being logical and wordy very hot. “I realise you would prefer this to be simple, Lucien. But it isn’t. Over the past year, you’ve said some things to me that have required me to do a certain amount of self-reflection, and I need to know the conclusions I’ve reached are acceptable to you, especially if we’re going to spend our lives together.”