“You’re sure Bridget’s all right?” Oliver asked.
“Yeah. She went a little bit into labour but”—I arse-pulled some unconvincing confidence—“you know it’s not like in the movies, where it’s ‘Whoosh, scream,woowoowoo, pant, baby.’”
“Why, Lucien. I had no idea you were such an expert.” It was Oliver’s dryest voice.
Something stronger than gravity was pulling me down into my seat. Probably shame. “I really do think she’s okay. We would have heard if she wasn’t.”
“I,” began Oliver, squeezing the bridge of his nose, “I really don’t know what to say.”
“That I’m a terrible person? That I should go to my room and think about what I’ve done?”
“Since we share the same room, Lucien, I think that would just be annoying.”
“I’m really sorry?” I tried.
“There’s no need to apologise.” He paused. “Well, Tom might feel differently. Bridget is pathologically incapable of blaming you for anything.”
“Look,” I blurted out. It wasn’t a particularly apology-compatible blurt, if I was honest. “She’s really hard to say no to.”
Oliver turned his head towards me, and to my immense relief it was in a reassuring way, not in aGet your fucking shit together, you utter fuckupway. “I’m aware of that. Although for what it’s worth, onecanlearn to do it.”
“Youcan. I can barely say no to those people who call up and ask if you want to change mobile providers.”
On anybody else, his smile would have been condescending. I hoped I’d never get bored of Oliver’s look of indulgent affection because if I did, I’d be in real trouble. It was the one he needed most often. “Bridget is an adult woman and can look after herself. But Idowish you’d talked to me instead.”
“She’s my best friend,” I replied instinctively.
“And…” he prompted.
“And…and”—the words tumbled out in a horrible torrent of inconvenient facts—“I was afraid that if I brought up the dog thing again, you’d be all, ‘Lucien, I thought you’d got over being a selfish insecure narcissist, but clearly you’re just as bad as you were five years ago. I’m dumping you.’”
Oliver’s lips twitched. “That does sound like something I’d say.”
“You say it in my head all the time.”
“As a barrister, I can confidently inform you that I am notlegally liable for the words or actions of the version of me that lives in your head.”
“I know.” By this point I’d slid so far down the seat that my shoulders were in my bum divot. “But sometimes he seems so much realer than you. Because you’re, you know, so great and everything.”
“Lucien, you’ve been with me long enough, and seen me through so much, you must know that isn’t true.”
Giving up on the seat as a bad job, I collapsed into a not-exactly-kneeling position in front of him. “Youareso great and everything.”
“And you make me happy. And you will continue to make me happy, whether or not we get a dog, and no matter how many times you wake me up to tell me you’re not sure about getting a dog.”
“I’m really not sure about getting a dog.”
“Yes.” His fingers lightly pushed the hair back from my brow. “I gathered that when I woke up without you.”
“People who make their best friends get cabs to the Millennium Bridge at three in the morning on a semi-regular basis shouldn’t have dogs.”
“Those feel like non-overlapping magisteria.”
For a moment I could only stare at him. “Stop trying to turn me on in a hospital.”
He laughed. “You know as well as I do that managing your neuroses and looking after a pet are different things.”
“Are they, though? What if I pass my neuroses onto the dog? What if my neuroses stop me taking care of the dog? What if—”
