He had a point. It’s just his point was about him, not about me. And now he needed me to be all sensitive and shit. Poor bastard. Catching the waiter’s eye, I requested literally all the water and then turned back to Oliver. “I’m really sorry your dad, y’know, can’t. But my dad is not your dad. And my dad definitely shouldn’t.”

“I do know that,” said Oliver, with the air of someone who did not, in fact, know that.

“Look.” I slid a hand across the table to take his. “I was there at the funeral. I heard the…the everything. I get that it’s a headfuck and a half to have all these questions about who your father was and what he could have been to you and not have any answers.”

Oh God. Oliver was biting his lip and his eyes had gone soft in the bad tearsy way, not the good gazing adoringly way. Not only was I late and hungover to our superspecial emotionally resonant date night, I was going to make Oliver cry in a fancy restaurant.

“But the thing is,” I added, probably too quickly, “I have those answers about Jon Fleming. You were there when I got them. When someone drops you like a secretly recorded studio album the second they discover they don’t have cancer, you know everything you need to know about them. And one of the things you know is that you don’t want them at your wedding.”

Oliver blinked rapidly. “Of course. I just… It’s our wedding and I think it’s important that neither of us look back on it with any regrets.”

“Believe me, we’d both regret inviting Jon Fleming big time.”

“I’m sure we would have. I think I meant more…in general.”

“I’ve also come to terms with not having a DJ.”

He gave the sort of smile you gave because it was expected rather than because you really felt like smiling. “And have you also come to terms with…”

“The venue?” I asked. “No balloon arch?”

“It’s more everything the balloon arch represents.”

Oh no. We were back here again. Did we have to be back here again? “At this point, Oliver, I don’t even know what the balloon arch represents. Except for trapped air and arguments.”

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” he said. “And do you think it might represent, well, this?”

He passed his phone across the table, which was open at Bridge’s Instagram feed. And while the three most recent pictures were the book she was currently reading, her brunch, and a house in Knightsbridge with a pink door, there were about twenty shots from my non-gender-specific animal party. A lot of which were me. A fair few of which were me and Tyler.

I glanced from the phone to Oliver to the phone again. Surely he didn’t—

Fuck.