“I think,” he went on, “we both said some things that we shouldn’t have, but perhaps they needed saying anyway.”

I couldn’t tell if that was ominous or comforting. “Needed saying?”

He gave a sad little shrug. “This may be just another habit of mind I’ve inherited from my parents, but I tend to believe that the things which feel worst are the things which feel truest. That doesn’t mean they always are. But…I’ve been thinking about what you said and…”

“And?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.

“And”—his face got all blank and exhausted again—“I don’t have any answers.”

“That’s okay,” I said quickly.

“I confess, it bothers me somewhat. But I’m also aware that now is not the best time for me to be interrogating my values for authenticity. I should probably bury my father first.”

I felt beyond bad for him. I mean, we’d had an argument over something that, in retrospect, was completely fucking trivial. So what if I liked rainbows and balloons and he liked podcasts and hanging out with straight people? All that mattered was that we loved each other and his dad was dead, and here was Oliver still steadfastly trying to become a better person because of some bullshit I’d yelled at him a week ago. I gave a kind of can-we-hug-now flail. “I’m really glad you came back.”

“I wasn’t going to live at my mother’s.”

“I meant emotionally, you doink.”

Crossing the room, he pulled me into his arms and we hugged for an embarrassingly long time. “I missed you,” he whispered.

“I missed you too,” I whispered back. “And I’m so sorry things are shit for you.”

He pressed his face against my neck. “I-I can’t think about it anymore. At least not right now.”

“You don’t have to,” I told him. “We can do…whatever.”

“Would it”—his voice wavered—“resurrect your belief that I’m the most boring man in the universe if I said I wanted to go to bed?”

“Well, I had got us tickets to Alton Towers, but I can move them to another day.”

This time he did laugh, although it had an edge of my dad’s still dead to it. So I took his hand and led him through the bedroom.

“Also,” I added. “The advantage of me practically living at your place is that my sheets have barely been slept in.”

He shrugged off his jacket and flopped otherwise fully clothed onto the bed. “At the moment, Lucien, all I care about is being with you.”

Which was convenient because, while there weren’t many things I was confident I could do well, being me was one of them.