“Well?” demanded Next Door’s Kid’s Dad.
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “I’m rather flattered you think Spud is so well trained.”
I honestly thought Next Door’s Kid’s Dad was going to have some kind of haemorrhage. “Oliver, this is serious.”
Oliver nodded. Then he looked back down at Next Door’s Kid and said, almost casually, “Do you know what I do for a living, Colin?”
“Banker?” offered Colin. I couldn’t help assuming he’d wantedto say a different-ankerword but remembered at the last minute that he was currently mask-on.
“I’m a lawyer. People lie to me alot. I don’t like it, but it’s usually very easy to spot.” He half smiled. “It’s not that I have any special technique, you understand. It’s simply that some things are just very, very obviously not true.”
“Are you calling my son a liar?” demanded Next Door’s Kid’s Dad, still looking like his blood vessels were in for a bad time.
“Just making conversation.” And now Oliver went from half smiling to full smiling. Full, it-was-so-lovely-of-you-I-shall-be-sure-to-write-a-thank-you-letter, nicely-brought-up-middle-class-boy smiling. “You see, the thing is, when people tell me these stories that are very, very obviously not true, I can never really blame them. People don’t start out bad, after all. Sometimes they’re victims of circumstance, or they’ve been let down by the system.” He looked at Next Door’s Kid’s Parents, still smiling. “Or they just have bad parents. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, Richard, Jacqueline,” he said, nodding. “You can rest assured I’ll give it the attention it deserves.”
Before they could say anything, he shut the door in their faces.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m pretty sure that counts as using your powers for evil.”
“I’m trying extremely hard,” Oliver replied, “to avoid using either Jaz or Colin as playing pieces in petty games of status with our neighbours. But Isuspectthat in this context, the fastest way to end that particular game is to win it.”
I gave him a supportive nod. “Also. Fuck them.”
“And also that.”
One of the bad habits I’d picked up during the dark days of my mid-twenties was leaving off counting my chickens until they’d not only hatched but also grown up and been carried off by foxes. And Oliver wasn’t the only one trying to do better, so I let myselfbelieve that this really was Team O’Donnell-Blackwood-Johnson getting back together at last. “You’re hot when you’re laying the middle-class smackdown.”
Oliver’s lips twitched. “You should see me in Waitrose.”
“Oh really?” I pushed him back against the wall. “Are you like, ‘These carrots aren’t even heritage.’”
His breath was coming a little more quickly as he struggled to strike a balance between bantering and letting me blow him in our hall. “Very much so. The last time I was there, the free coffee they gave me didn’t even have oat milk in it. I was livid.”
There was a clunk as I whipped off his belt and azzzzpas his zipper came down.
“Lucien.” One of Oliver’s hands curled in my hair, half tender, half commanding, just the way I liked. “Is this a good idea?”
I was already on my knees. “It’s a great idea.”
“But—”
“She’s out with Spud. We’ve got at least ten minutes, and we know I can do this in five.”
“Does that reflect well on you or poorly on me?”
“I think,” I said, “it reflects the fact we’re often quite busy and I really want to suck you off.” I shot him a lovingly frustrated look. “Do you mind if I get on with it?”
“What if we get a delivery?”
“Then they can leave it with a friend or neighbour.”
“I’ve just made our neighbours hate us.”
I nipped at his still gym-honed thigh, well aware that, for some reason, raising prissy objections to getting off was a kind of Oliverian foreplay. “And, as you’ve pointed out, they’re too repressed to admit it.”
“Good point.” There was a tremor of laughter alongside the desire in Oliver’s voice. “Commence.”
So I commenced. I commenced the house down.
