“Isn’t it, though?” I asked, hoping my double or nothing was going to come down double, not nothing. “It’s not like being gay—being the kind of gay where you don’t wear rainbows or go on marches—”

“I go on marches, Lucien. It’s parties I have trouble with, not protests.”

“Okay, but I mean, I don’t think being gay is more important to you than…” I waved my hands in a tight little circle “…all the rest of it. Like, you actually care about shit. Way more shit than I care about. And that doesn’t mean you’re letting the other side down or anything. It makes you like…like a thousand-piece Moomin jigsaw with a wolf in a wig.”

Oliver stared blankly at me. Which I probably deserved.

“Sorry. My mum’s randomly got into jigsaws and maybe the Moomins? I should have just said you’re complicated, but all the bits make a nice picture.”

He thought about this for a long time. Then gave up. “Thank you. I think?”

“Oliver, I’m sorry.” I tried again. “I never meant to make you feel that I thought you were, you know, doing gay wrong. Or that you had to be like me. Any more than you think I have to be like you.” I paused. “At least, I hope you don’t. Because if you do, you’re fucked.”

“I’ve never wanted you to be anyone but yourself,” said Oliver immediately because he was also way better at being reassuring than me.

“And I don’t want you to be anything but that either,” I told him. “So we’re good.”

He wasn’t giving me we’re-good face. He was giving me we-might-be-good-but face. Which was better than we’re-fucked face but not by much. “My lingering concern is that works in theory, but in practice you being who you are and me being who I am may not work.”

Shit. “Not work how? And if you mention the fucking balloon arch one more time, I swear I’ll—”

“You’re the one who keeps bringing up the balloon arch. But it is an appropriate example. If we get married underneath a rainbow balloon arch, we’ll be denying who I am, and if we don’t, we’ll be denying who you are. And while that’s a relatively trivial matter on its own, these things can add up. Over the long term they can add up catastrophically.”

“They haven’t so far,” I pointed out.

“No, but marriage can change things. That’s why the pictures from your bachelor party bothered me so much. You were so happy in them, but it was a happiness I don’t think I could ever share with you and, well, I suppose I wanted to make certain you knew that if you wanted to pursue it, I…well, I won’t stand in your way.”