I got that I’d let him down. And I got that he was trying to be reasonable. But this was becoming the kind of reasonable that was worse than angry. “She thinks her fiancé might be cheating on her. This isn’t an own-feet situation.”

“And you’re going to drop everything and run to her every time she and Tom are in trouble?”

“Yes. Because she’s my best friend and she’s always supported me and I’ll always support her.”

“There’s supporting”—Oliver’s tone was getting more restrained and less warm by the moment—“and there’s being codependent.”

“It’s not codependent to be there for your friends.”

“I just meant—”

“You just meant that you’re cross with me for bailing on you, which is fine. But you’re taking it out on Bridge, which is not. And also you’re doing it in a way that makes you sound weirdly like your dad.”

“I do not sound like my father. He’s never used the word ‘codependent’ in his life. He’d think it was psychobabble nonsense.”

This was beginning to feel nastily like a hole, and I should have stopped digging. “You know what I mean. All that ‘Let people stand on their own feet, stop mollycoddling’ stuff is pure David Blackwood.”

“I also never said ‘mollycoddling.’”

It was true. He hadn’t. And maybe I was just projecting. After I’d told the Blackwoods to go fuck themselves two years ago, we’d barely spoken, but occasionally Oliver would need to go do a family thing and then he’d come back and spend a couple of days being distant and irritable before we could get back to normal. “All right, perhaps that was unfair. But our mutual friend is really going through something right now, and you know being with her is the right thing to do. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I spoiled our evening, but I had to make a choice and I’m choosing to be a good friend instead of a good boyfriend.”

There was a long silence. I could practically hear Oliver’s brain clicking at the other end of the line. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m being selfish. I’ve just… You’ve been very distracted recently and I’ve been very busy, and this has all come out of… Go and look after Bridget. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” I said.

Because there was kind of nothing else I could say. And because I needed to get back to Bridge. And most of all because I wanted to believe him.

Chapter 6