Page 101 of Short Stack 3

“No, your dad and stepmum. What did they think of me?”

He turns his head. “Were youworried?” he says in a tone of astonishment.

I huff. “Well, I do want them to like me. It’s important.”

“Why?”

I stare at him. “Because he’s your dad.”

“That’s just an accident of genetics.”

“Tell that to your mother’s womb.”

He grimaces. “Ack. I have dedicated my life to avoiding thinking about her womb, which has proved rather difficult since the momentous day my father wrote an ode to it and had that published.” I start to laugh, and he watches me, his eyes twinkling. “I have always been completely unbothered as to whether your stepfather likes me or not. Of course, it would be a rarity for someone to dislike me.”

“Not as rare as you’re thinking.”

“It seems that if he disliked me, it would provide me with immeasurable benefits.”

“Like what?”

“He wouldn’t speak to me again.” He gives a dramatic sigh. “How would I cope? Oh, woe is me at the thought of never again listening to him innumerate the ways in which his intellect is superior to everyone else’s.”

“Did you get frustrated because you were waiting to talk about yourself?” I say in a mock sympathetic tone.

His eyes continue to twinkle. “In answer to your original question, they did like you. I believe they were astonished, actually.”

“At my startling good looks?”

“No.”

“Ah, it must have been my towering intellect, then.”

“It would only tower if everyone else’s intellect lay on the floor.”

“Well, it must be the glad tidings of my sexual prowess.”

“Ah, I believe you failed to keepthata secret,” he says in a prim voice. “The whole world knows about that.”

“Are you calling me a ho?”

He makes a moue of distaste. “Such a dreadful word.”

“Alright, Samuel Johnson. So, they liked me?”

“Enormously. My stepmother thinks you are handsome and clever.”

“I knew she was an intelligent woman.”

“My father does not understand us. His perplexity pleases me. Well done, Laurie.”

“I’m not sure I did much, but you’re welcome.”

I think back to the dinner. It had been odd to meet his father — like moving forward in time and seeing what Mags will eventually look like. News flash — he’ll still be gorgeous. His dad blatantly adores his son but seems oddly incapable of expressing it. He’d been extremely garrulous at first, which appeared to confuse Mags, and then he’d gone quiet, and I’d caught him studying us a few times over the meal, his forehead pleated in concentration. It had been a bit like eating a roast dinner in an enclosure at the zoo.

“Why doesn’t he understand us?” I ask. “He doesn’t seem homophobic.”

“Of course not. He has had male lovers himself.”

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