“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “I barely knew him.”
“But he was quite a character.”
“I mean, as far as I can tell, his only interests were sex workers and dung beetles.”
One of Oliver’s eyebrows twitched wickedly. “So a typical British peer?”
“Apparently he died on a bouncy castle with three strippers.”
“So”—Oliver’s eyebrow remained wickedly in place—“a typical British peer.”
I loved Mean Oliver, and Oliver knew I loved Mean Oliver, which meant this was probably a deliberate attempt to cheer me up. “It’s also possible,” I went on reluctantly, “he didn’t leave a will. And if that’s the case, we might be kind of fucked.”
“It’s very unlikely.” Oliver had surrendered on the vegetable front, and I’d capitulated without a fight. He gathered up the bowls and took them into the kitchen, where he loaded them immediately into the dishwasher because of course he did. “This isn’t my area of specialisation, but even if he died intestate, his heir will probably let things carry on as they are. Deliberately dismantling the life’s work of a dead relative would be…how can I put this? A look.”
Having followed Oliver in the least puppylike way I could manage, I leaned against the doorframe. “Thanks for putting that in layman’s terms for me.”
“Anytime,” he said, smirking.
God, how had I slept two nights on the floor without this man, without his eyebrows, and the eyes beneath the eyebrows, and his smirking and the lips that did the smirking, and his hands, and his arms, and… Okay, now I was just listing body parts I’d denied myself access to.
“Listen,” I tried. “About…”
There was a pattering of paws, and the tiny, fuzzy elephant in the room poked his head between my feet.
“About him,” I finished.
“Mruff?” said Spud.
And I knelt down to scratch him behind the ears, where he liked it best.
“Hello, Spud.” Oliver came over to join in the puppy scritching. “Have you been a good boy today? A good boy for Daddy Lucien.”
Daddy Lucienwas sounding way less unnatural than I’d expected it to, but I protest-too-muched anyway. “Oliver.”
“Sorry.” He hid his laugh unconvincingly behind a cough and continued gently ruffling Spud. “Were you a good boy for Commitment-Phobic Dog Owner Lucien O’Donnell?”
I rose in order to escape Oliver’s entirely justified mockery and took up a serious pose with my arms folded seriously. “Oh, shut up. He was a good boy. He was and is the best boy. And that’s sort of what I wanted to talk about.”
“I don’t care how good a doggo he is,” said Oliver, working more gravitas into the worddoggothan I thought was humanly possible, “he’s not sleeping in our bed, and you can’t stay downstairs forever.”
“I know. But I do actually think there’s a compromise here.”
Oliver and Spud both looked up at me, Oliver with a touch of impatience, Spud just, well, like a dog. “We’ve been over this. He needs to learn and we need to be firm.”
“Right. But I’ve been doing some reading—” I broke off because Oliver looked unflatteringly surprised. “Hey. I can read.”
“Yes, but you usually choose not to.”
“Is this about my literacy or our dog?”
“Both, it seems.”
“Okay, well,” I ploughed on, “one of the books, the one with the puppy on the front—”
“Lucien, they all have puppies on the front.”
