He pours us both a glass of wine. “So,” he says, “tell Uncle Craig about Tesco Mary.”
I tell him all about running into him by the harbour, our long walk together. Craig listens with a grin that grows in increments, like a loading bar for gossip. When I get to the part about the offer of a drink, he claps once, delighted.
“And then,” I add, trying to sound casual and failing, “he told me he’s married.”
“Oh.”
“Polyamorous.”
Craig’s eyebrows lift but he doesn’t miss a beat; he moves the pan off the heat with the kind of smooth economy that probably terrifies criminals. “Ah.”
“Ah,” I echo. “I know. And I did the thing where I tried to be very cool and adult and ended up saying something about schedules and laminating. I think I compared myself to a depressed Shetland pony?”
“On brand,” he says.
“I just… I don’t know.” I pick at the label on the wine bottle. “It was such a nice moment. And then — thud. Married. Husband. Boyfriend. And yet he was so kind about it. Upfront. Honest. Are people allowed to be genuine and married to other people, while also asking me out for a drink?”
Craig waves his wooden spoon around like a magical wand. “I mean, hello!”
I snigger. “Yes, obviously you and Phil are both wonderful and sensational.” I sigh. “I think we need to talk through this open relationship thing again. We’ve not discussed it for at least a year.”
Craig plates up with theatrical flourish. He’s one of those cooks who moves like he’s also conducting an orchestra: a little toss here, a squeeze of lime there, a drag of spoon to make a sauce swoosh. “Come sit,” he says. “Let’s talk.”
We eat at the little round table by the window, where you can see the dusk pressing its forehead to the glass. Craig forks rice into his mouth, nodding at my plate. “You will compliment the aubergine. I don’t make the rules.”
“It’s very aubergine,” I concede, and he accepts this as the highest praise.
“Right,” he says, settling back. “Polyamory. You know how it works for us.”
“I know some of it,” I say. “I know Phil texts when he goes out and you colour-code your calendars like a gay air traffic control tower.”
“True,” he says. “It’s… not complicated, but it is layered. Like lasagne. Or trauma.”
“Don’t say trauma and lasagne in the same sentence,” I say. “I’ll never be able to look at either again.”
He kicks my shin lightly. “For us, the big things are boring but important: communication, consent, kindness. We tell each other what we’re doing because it prevents game-playing and late-night catastrophising. We set boundaries. They aren’t punishments; they’re seatbelts.”
“And jealousy?”
“Still exists,” he says easily. “I’m not Buddha. Sometimes Phil goes on a date with someone shiny and my stomach tries to invent an emergency. We talk about it. We don’t treat jealousy like a crime; it’s just honesty. Why are you spiralling? What do you need? More reassurance? Different boundaries? A hug and a biscuit?”
“A biscuit seems vital,” I say.
“And compersion is real,” he adds.
“Which is…?”
Craig sips his wine. “It’s that ridiculous joy when someone you love is lit up by someone else. It’s not immediate. It’s a muscle you build. But when it kicks in? It’s magic. Like watching your favourite person discover a new favourite song.”
I try to picture it: the man beside me, and the man he loves, both living in a world where joy isn’t a finite resource you have to ration like butter in wartime. I’ve spent years slicing myself thin to make love stretch. A greedy part of me leans toward the idea of abundance like a houseplant swivelling to the light.
“I mean, you make it sound so normal and healthy,” I admit. “But I still don’t get why you would want to be in this kind of relationship?”
Craig pushes his fork into the rice, thinking for a moment before answering. “Look, it wasn’t because monogamy was awful, or because either of us was desperate to shag half of Bristol. We loved each other, still do. But we both kept bumping into the same itch — this sense that love was bigger than the box we were trying to stuff it into. We wanted the freedom to admit when we connected with someone else, without it being treated like a betrayal.”
“But it wasn’t from day one, right?” I ask.
“No, true. We had been together for at least three years before we even dared to talk about it.”
