Page 69 of Oyster

“Hah! So naïve, Étienne. Have you thought of the effect it’s going to have on us?” How people are going to laugh at us? Laugh at you?”

Éti scoffed. “Is that your biggest concern?”

“No, of course it isn’t but, for Christ’s sake!” Her father threw up his hands. “Why are you so set on doing this? Why can’t you stick to playing ‘let’s pretend’ at home? Why bring it out in public? Think of what you’re throwing away!”

“I’m not throwing anything away,” replied Éti, in a much more reasonable tone than I’d have managed. Her hands in her lap pressed down her on her legs as if to stop them jiggling. So full of colour and joy cooing over Fabien’s baby a few minutes ago, her face was now white and pinched. “I’ve literally won everything there is to win.”

“What about feathering your nest with a couple of lucrative seasons in the US before you retire? Or a season in China? We won’t see that money now.”

“We don’t need that money. We have enough.”

“You can never have enough.” I revised my poor opinion of him even farther downwards.

“Hashemade you do it?”

For the first time, M. Salvador’s gaze swivelled to mine, antipathy leeching through the screen.

“Hehas a name, Dad. Nico. And no, he hasn’t. I’ve felt this way long before I met him, and you know it.”

“Well, I’m disgusted. The shame you’re bringing on your mother and I, after all we’ve worked for.”

Raw anger shot through me. For all my dad's struggles to express himself—and mon dieu, I could relate—he’d would never have done this. He would perhaps have wished my life had taken a different path, if only that my passage through it might be more straightforward. But he’d never shun me. My Éti a disappointment? With her charm, her generosity, her achievements, and her courage? I could almost taste my rage. Andstillthe fucker hadn’t finished.

“You’re throwing everything away, Étienne. I’ll wager PSG will have dropped you by Monday morning. And good riddance. They won’t want a man like you disrupting the dressing room. And what about the Nike sponsorship?”

“I don’t need them,” Éti said listlessly, not bothering to correct the pronouns. Her voice had flattened, devoid ofinflection, never mind emotion. Dragging my eyes from the monster systematically belittling and overlooking her every accomplishment, I turned to my girlfriend to offer her what comfort I could. Except the person on the sofa next to me wasn’t my Éti any longer. Her verve had gone, her sparkle, her joyous zest for fucking life. And in her place, despite wearing a skirt and makeup, and having as many so-called feminine attributes as any woman I’d ever fucking encountered, slumped the dull, solemn, cardboard cut-out of Étienne Salvador.

“Shameful, that’s what you are,” her father continued. “People like you are a shameful aberration. Unnatural. I wish your mother and I had never… “

I balled my fists. “Mr Salvador. You daughter has done everything anyone has ever demanded of her. She has achieved beyond your wildest dreams. And yet you are still fucking disappointed. You know how crazy that sounds?”

“Daughter? Did you just saydaughter?” As he batted me away, Mr Salvador’s nostrils flared. He literally didn’t give a shit, like he was swatting flies. “Young man, step aside, shut the fuck up, and let me talk some sense into him. Instead of wasting your breath telling me how to behave, persuade Étienne here not to wash all our dreams down the plughole.”

Her eyes now wet with tears, Éti brought her knees up, hugging them, making herself as small a target as possible against the brick wall of this horrible man. As she did, her loose blouse slipped down her shoulder, exposing the edge of her fresh tattoo. A tattoo of her rescuer, her lover. Her guardian angel with oyster-shell wings.

It was time I lived up to it. Fumbling for her hand, I gripped it tight.

“No can do, I’m afraid. Call me an old-fashioned sort, M. Salvador, but no one incinerates my girlfriend for the fucking fun of it. Not even her father. She owes you nothing.”

“Hah!Heowes me everything, the fucking idiot. And on Monday morning, you’ll wake up and both realise that, and it will be too late. And he’ll be no child of mine.”

Blind fury rocketed through my gut, hot and unstoppable. “On Monday morning, I’ll wake up thanking my lucky stars I’m Éti Salvador’s boyfriend. And you’ll wake up knowing that in the pursuit of your dreams, you’ve lost the very person you created those dreams for. Say goodbye, Mr Salvador.”

Vibrating with rage, I smashed down the laptop lid, sending the computer skidding across the table.

The room filled with a stunned silence, as deafening as the flash heat of the argument.Ah, merde. Did I really just do that? Cut him off?Any second now, Éti’s phone would buzz with her dad on the other end, picking up where he left off. And Étienne would nod and listen and cooperate and regretfully inform me it was all a huge fucking mistake and sorry, Nico, but for the time being, Éti was going to stuff herself back in the jack-in-the-box. She sniffed, wiping her eyes, and I braced for it.

“Waouh.”

“Sorry, my love. Call him back if you want to. I don’t know what I was thinking. He pissed me off. I’m afraid I may have…ah… overstepped.”

Letting go of my hand, she traced a thumb along the stubbled line of my jaw, then across my bottom lip. If she thought climbing back inside the box was right, then I’d support her. Five or six years wasn’t so long. We’d cope. Our love was strong enough to weather the…

“Don’t be sorry, my angel,” she whispered.

I looked up to meet two bewildered grey eyes. Still in shock, we stared at each other. “Astonished face emoji,” she added, solemnly. “No one ever speaks to my dad like that.”

“No?”

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