Page 21 of Read My Lips

“Is that a bit harsh? It feels a bit harsh⁠—”

“ —it does not follow that the general public will prefer our narrative. Unless they’re given no choice about it.”

Oh god. “...What does that mean?”

“It means, Sunshine, you need to convince everyone you’re so besotted with each other the dental health of the nation will suffer. There should be a run on emergency cavity interventions because you are so sweet together. Americans who haven’t even heard of Richard Whittaker and don’t give a shit about his divergent sexuality infiltrating the peerage will need to feel compelled to ship you, even though they don’t know why.”

I paled. I think I paled. It felt a lot like all the colour spontaneously drained out of me.

“Isn’t that sort of... overkill?” I really, really hoped it was overkill.

Simon shrugged like it was inevitable at this point. “No loopholes, no loose threads, no Trojan bloody Horses.”

Mel Booker’s tagline echoed the halls of this building. It was in italic neon writing on the wall in all of the loos, but never had I ever envisioned a scenario where I’d be the focus of it.

I didn’t want to be the focus of it. I was only trying to stop Simon losing his job.

“Come on.” The squeeze of his fingers on my shoulder barely registered. “You look like you could use a decent breakfast. Let me treat you.”

“Right. Thanks.” But my feet refused to move. The rubber of my soles must have bonded to the rooftop in the pale gold light of this alternate reality. Couldn’t we rewind and go back to kissing? I could do that bit for days.

“Ben?” Simon held the firedoor open, waiting. For me. “Relax. We’ll come up with a plan. Sev is excellent at this kind of thing.”

“Okay.” I nodded, stepping forward, swept up in his confidence. Then I stopped. “Hang on a minute. Excellent at what kind of thing?”

CHAPTER

SEVEN

Turned out, in the whole of London, there weren’t many options for breakfast at half four in the morning, but two of them were in Bishopsgate.

From the pictures on Google, one of them artfully smeared colourful splotches of pureed carrot on the side of your plate, garnished everything with pea shoots and charged for the privilege of sitting inside a goldfish bowl, where anyone walking past could see you burning money to share air with a batch of B-list celebrities. According to Sev, who declined to join us.

The other place did, you know, actual breakfast. So I put my foot down, and we went there.

And stood outside the narrow black-painted frontage with helpful 24/7 sign dangling above the entrance, squinting past a tray of cakes shoved up against the glass, camouflaging the absolute carnage inside.

Simon glanced at me. “Are you sure you don’t want to try Possimus?”

At the largest of the tables, surrounded by a sea of pint glasses, a red-faced hairy bloke bulged out of a PVC ‘sexy bride’ outfit. A lot more Rugby Team Hazing than Rocky Horror Picture Show. He appeared to be shovelling mouthfuls from a stack of burgers into his face, while two of his mates bellowed encouragement at him like he was Olympic weight-lifting.

They all had matching t-shirts on.

They said Lash. And Banter.

And ALEX’S STAG DOOO!!!!

“Positive.”

No way was I dealing with pea shoots and smeared puree at this godforsaken hour. Not after I’d blundered into the biggest mistake of my life. Dealing with this lot was miles better than the head-fuck that would be.

Snorting like a bull, Stag-Do Alex semi-regurgitated a mouthful, and kept going anyway. Simon grimaced.

Okay, maybe not miles better. But definite kilometres.

“Do you think,” Simon asked, “this is where all the straight boys who never picked me for their team in PE wind up in life?”

“At least they’re preoccupied. Didn’t Richard Whittaker have a stag-do like this?” Maybe all this was forgivable behaviour if your house used to have a moat around it.