“It’s bedtime. I’m going to read and then go to sleep.”

“Again, starting to see why people don’t stick around.”

“For God’s sake, Lucien,” he snapped. “We’ve made an agreement to be useful to each other, I have work in the morning, and you’re in my bed, wearing rather skimpy hedgehog boxers. I’m trying to maintain some sense of normalcy.”

“If it’s upsetting you that much, I can take my skimpy boxers and leave.”

He put the book on the bedside table and did that massaging-his-temples thing I was seeing way too often. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to leave. Shall we try to sleep?”

“Um. Okay.”

He flicked the light off abruptly, and I tried to settle myself down without impinging on his personal space or sense of propriety. His bed was firmer than mine, but also way nicer, and probably way cleaner. I could just about catch the scent of him from the sheets—fresh and warm, like if bread was a person—and I could just about feel the shape of him beside me. Comforting and distracting at the same time. Damn him.

Minutes or hours crept by. Determined to be a good sleeping partner, I was assailed by a thousand itches, niggles, and a terrible fear of farting. Oliver’s breath was steady enough that I became hyperaware of my own, which was on the edge of going full Darth Vader. And then my brain started thinking stuff, and wouldn’t stop.

“Oliver,” I said. “My dad’s got cancer.”

I was fully prepared for him to tell me to shut up and go to sleep, or to kick me out entirely but instead, he rolled over. “I imagine that’s going to take some getting used to.”

“I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want to know him at all. And if I do have to know him, it’s deeply unfair I have to know him as a bloke with a cancer.” I snuffled in the darkness. “He opted out of being my father. Why does he expect me to opt in just for the shit bit?”

“He’s probably scared.”

“He was never there when I was scared.”

“No, he was clearly a bad father. And you can punish him for it if you want to, but do you honestly think that will help?”

“Help who?”

“Anyone, but I’m thinking mainly of you.” Under the plausible deniability of the bedclothes, his fingertips brushed mine. “It must have been hard to go through life after he abandoned you. But I’m not sure it’ll be easier to go through life after you’ve abandoned him.”

I was silent for a long time. “Do you really think I should see him?”

“It’s your decision, and I’ll support you either way, but yes. I think you should.”

I made a plaintive noise.

“After all,” he went on, “if it goes badly, you can walk away at any time.”

“It’s just…it’s going to be all hard and messy.”

“Lots of things are. Many of them are still worth doing.”

It was a sign of quite how fucked up I was feeling that I didn’t try to make a joke out of hard, messy or, indeed, worth doing.

“Will you,” I asked, “will you come with me? If I go.”

“Of course.”

“You know for…”

“Verisimilitude,” he finished.

He still hadn’t moved his hand. I didn’t ask him to.

Chapter 15

“Okay, Alex,” I said. “How do you get four elephants in a Mini?”

He thought about this for longer than it should have required. “Well, I mean, elephants are very big so normally you wouldn’t expect that even one of them would fit in a Mini. But if they were very small—if they were, for example, baby elephants—then I suppose you’d put two in the front and two in the back?”

“Um…y-yes. That’s right.”

“Oh good. Have we got to the joke yet?”

“Nearly. So how do you get four giraffes in a Mini?”

“Once again, giraffes are very large but we seem to be ignoring that for the purposes of this exercise. So I’d expect two in the… Oh no, wait. Of course, you’d have to take the elephants out first, assuming it was the same Mini.”

My universe was imploding. “Also right. Okay, final question.”

“This is splendid. It’s making a lot more sense than the jokes you usually tell me.”

“Glad to hear it. Anyway. Final question. How do you get two whales in a Mini?”

Another pause. “Gosh. It’s not really my area of expertise, but I think it’s up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge. Maybe you should check with Rhys, though, because he’s from there.”

I was about to say something along the lines of “Well, this has been fun,” meaning, of course, “I don’t know what’s just happened” when Alex cupped a hand theatrically round his mouth and shouted, “Rhys, can we borrow you for a second?”

Rhys Jones Bowen poked his head around the door of the glorified cupboard that we called the “outreach office.” “What can I do you for, boys?”

“Luc wants to know how to get to Wales in a Mini,” explained Alex.

“Well, I don’t see why it matters if you’re in a Mini or not.” Rhys Jones Bowen had even more of a look of perplexed helpfulness than usual. “But usually you’d go up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge. I mean if you were going somewhere in south Wales, like Cardiff or Swansea. But if you were going somewhere in north Wales like Rhyl or Colwyn Bay, you’d be better off going up the M40 via Birmingham.”

“Thank you?” I offered.

“Are you going to Wales then, Luc? Best country in the world.”

“Er, no. I was trying to tell Alex a joke.”

Rhys Jones Bowen’s face fell. “I don’t see what’s funny about wanting to go to Wales. I’ve known you for a long time, young Luc, and all these years I’ve never had you pegged for a racist.”

“No, it’s a pun. It’s a series of jokes about trying to get incongruously large animals into a small car, and it ends with how do you get two whales in a Mini.”

“But we’ve just told you that,” complained Alex. “It’s straight up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge.”

“Unless you’re headed north,” added Rhys Jones Bowen, “in which case you take the M40 via Birmingham.”