“I’ll handle it.” Devan picked up his phone before the policeman reached the car.
Devan let his window down.
“Merry Christmas.” Jonty beamed at the middle-aged guy staring in at them.
“Are you two having a problem?” the policeman asked.
“No,” Devan said as Jonty said, “Yes.”
Devan cast him a look of despair.
“Sweetie, we do have a problem,” Jonty said, and calling Devan Sweetie had added another one. “I know you’d rather gouge out your eyeballs with a spoon… Hmm… Maybe a fork, than admit you’re lost, but we’re lost. We were just checking the map.”
“I thought you were in trouble,” the man said to Jonty. “You looked in pain.”
“Because he’d shouted at me.” Jonty made his lower lip tremble. “He’s Mr Snappy when he won’t admit he’s wrong.”
“I didn’t think there was a driver in the car.” The policeman pinned Devan with his gaze.
“I was picking up my phone to check Google Maps and it slipped out of my hand into the passenger footwell.”
“Oh yes, that’s exactly what happened.” Jonty gave an energetic nod and Devan sagged. “He’s Mr Butterfingers along with being Mr Snappy, and Mr—”
“I don’t think the officer needs to know your long list of names for me.” Devan shot Jonty one of his looks that said shut the fuck up. Jonty sent one back that said fuck you, I’m enjoying myself. My last chance until we’re on our way home. Though Devan probably hadn’t got all that.
“Where are you trying to get to?” the policeman asked.
Jonty looked down to see that he’d opened the map book on the Welsh coast. He frantically turned the pages, then gave in.
“His parents’ house.” Jonty didn’t need to make his lip quiver, it did it all on its own. “They’re meeting me for the first time, and I don’t think they’re going to like me. I can’t keep my mouth shut. I’m going to blurt out something inappropriate, or drink from the finger bowl.” He looked at Devan. “Do your parents use finger bowls? I could have bought them some as a present.” Jonty’s cock was finally limp, which meant he could stop pressing down on the map book.
“Lower Wotton,” Devan said.
Oh God, don’t let the policeman ask for the map book.
“You need to turn around and go back to the main road. Another seven miles, a right-hand turn and you’re there. Why did you drive up here? The signpost at the junction says straight on.”
“Why did we turn?” Devan looked at Jonty.
“You want me to tell the truth?”
Jonty watched Devan’s Adam’s apple rise and fall, and wanted to put his mouth around it and suck hard.
“The truth is…” Jonty gave a heavy sigh. “I’ve spent the whole journey up to this point trying to think up ways to convince my boyfriend to turn around and take us home. This wrong turn was a last-ditch attempt to at least delay our arrival. I’m scared shitless of meeting his family. I’d given up on a zombie attack as an excuse and had one forlorn hope that we might get lost down here and end up in Narnia.”
“That’s the next junction on the motorway,” the policeman said.
Jonty beamed at him.
“You should get going. Better not be late. That doesn’t create a good first impression. And by the way, saying you’re lost when you’re heading for the family home, isn’t the best of excuses.”
“Would zombie invasion from France have worked better?” Jonty asked.
The policeman laughed.
“He’s lovely but clinically insane,” Devan said. “Who can resist him?”
“Be careful what you get up to in public, and Merry Christmas.”
Jonty and Devan watched him walk back to his car, while Devan muttered “Shit, shit, shit,” under his breath and Jonty thought nice arse, but wisely kept that to himself.
He slid the map book down the side of the seat and finished zipping himself up. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Devan gave a heavy sigh. “I know.”
“I was talking to my dick.”
“Oh God.” Devan did a three-point turn to head back the way they’d come. “Zombies?”
“Where?” Jonty shrieked.
When Devan laughed, Jonty knew they were okay.
The police car followed them back to the main road, then turned in the other direction.
“I really am sorry,” Jonty muttered. “And I’m not talking to my cock now. He’s not speaking to me anyway. Nor are my balls. They’re in a major sulk.”
Devan slid his hand onto Jonty’s knee and squeezed. “You’ll be fine. Everyone’s going to love you.”
No, they wouldn’t. Jonty knew he wasn’t much of a catch as a boyfriend. The more he heard about Devan’s family, the more inadequate he felt. How could he even have a conversation with these people?
Cato, Devan’s brother, was doing a PhD in astrophysics at Cambridge University.
Their eldest sister, Venice, was a consultant haematologist, married to a neurosurgeon called Nigel. They had three children. Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. Not really.
The other sister, Ellen, was a best-selling author of literary fiction, in other words nothing that Jonty would have read or want to read. Though he’d had a sneaky look online. She was married to a hotshot corporate lawyer called Owen, who was an equity partner in one of the magic circle firms. Jonty assumed that didn’t actually have anything to do with magic. Maybe he’d ask. They had two children. Buffy and Spike. Or something like that.
Then there was Griff, the baby of the family who was no longer working for the Shaw Hotel Group, but taking photographs for a living and had already won a fucking award. Griff was a lying, cheating, scumbag, but if he hadn’t been, Jonty and Devan wouldn’t be together. He wasn’t going to be there this Christmas. Griff was in America, working. Considering he’d been supposed to marry Devan’s ex a few weeks ago, it was just as well he wasn’t around.
Just to put very elaborate royal icing on the cake, Devan’s mother was a lecturer in nuclear physics and his father a high-up banker. What the fucking fuckity fuck? Jonty had thought Devan had been pulling his leg when he’d told him, but he hadn’t.
“Not far now,” Devan said.
“Oh good.” Not. “Can we say that I’m a zoologist?”
“What? Where did that come from?”
“Or a naturist naturalist?”
“No, you can’t. You’ll get caught out in a lie the moment they ask you what you specialise in. Probably even before that.”
“Marine biologist? I can do my whale song.”
Devan chuckled. “You could tell them you’re a comedian.”
Jonty gasped. “Which dooms me to not being funny and no one laughing.”
“Stop worrying. You’re a fantastic artist.”
Jonty tried not to slump, but he slid down in the seat. Sticking pieces of glass on a board did not make him an artist. He chewed at his nail as he thought about the presents in the boot. What if no one liked what he’d made for them? They weren’t going to say if they didn’t. They’d be too polite for that, but he’d be able to tell. There’d probably be a whole load of sea glass pictures in the next Lower Wotton church bazaar or in charity shops in towns where Devan’s siblings lived.