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He’s got annoyingly nice eyes, actually. Or maybe they just stand out because the rest of him’s such an acquired taste.
For a while we avoid having to interact with each other by hiding behind the floppy, freshly printed A3 menus they’ve given us. The selection’s pretty small which, from watchingRamsay’s Kitchen NightmaresI take as a good thing because it means they’re specialised and should screw up less, but it does really cut into the amount of time I can spend pretending to read through it.
“I’m almost tempted,” I tell him when it starts feeling like the silence has gone from polite to the opposite of that, “to go for the Wagyu beef, just because I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to have a Wagyu beef pizza again.”
Jonathan lowers his menu slightly. “Would you want one?”
The trouble with Jonathan’s unrelentingly negative attitude is that it can be quite fun when it’s directed at things that aren’t me. He’s not a man whose glass is half empty, he’s a man who wants to know why you’ve given him a glass when he ordered the bottle. “Well no, but that’s sort of why I might get it.”
“I’m beginning to see why I—” He stops himself, and I’m about ninety percent sure he was going to saywhy I fired you,then remembered that I’m not supposed to know about that. Also, maybe he realised it’s not an appropriate thing to say to a person in a bijou pizza restaurant in Shoreditch.
“Why you what?” I ask, because I like to torture him sometimes.
“Why,” he finishes valiantly, “I was concerned about giving you control of the party budget.”
“Because I’m open to trying new kinds of pizza?”
“Because”—he’s leaning forward over the table now—“you’ll spend thirty-two pounds on something you don’t even think you’ll like just for the experience.”
“Sometimes, though, when you try things you don’t think you’ll like, they’re not as bad as you thought.”
“And sometimes,” he says brusquely, “they’re exactly as bad as you thought.”
I’ve lost track of whether we’re talking about pizza anymore, but every time I try to have a conversation with Jonathan Forest I’m reminded why not having friends is a vicious cycle. “Look, I’m getting it anyway.”
“You realise these pizzas are twenty inches each. Are you really going to eat a twenty-inch pizza for lunch?”
Fuck. We’re going to have to split it. We’re going to have to Lady and the Tramp a twenty-inch Wagyu Beef pizza that neither of us actually want to eat. “What if we go halves?”
“I’m not having half a Wagyu Beef pizza.”
“Oh come on.” I do my best coaxing voice. “It’ll give you something to complain about. You love complaining about things.”
“Sam, you’re living in my house, trying to organise Christmas for my family. Do you really think I’m short of things to complain about?”
“You see,” I point out, “most people’d be grateful for that.”
“No, most people would pretend to be grateful for that while secretly hating you.”
A week ago this would have really pissed me off, but now I just find it slightly funny. Double fuck, maybe I do have Stockholmsyndrome. “Well, you’re not pretending to be grateful, so you must not hate me either.”
“You’re right, I don’t hate you. Let’s get married.”
It probably says terrible things about me and Jonathan both that I can’t tell if he’s trying to flirt with me, trying to make me laugh, or just being really fucking insulting. Either way, before I can come up with a good counter-burnflirt, the waiter comes over and asks us if we’re ready to order.
“We’re having the Wagyu Beef,” I tell him. “One between us, like.”
“We are bloody not,” says Jonathan immediately.
“Ignore him, he’s having a funny turn.”
Still on that weird boundary between peeved and joining in, Jonathan glares at the waiter. “Do Ilooklike I’m having a funny turn?”
The waiter steps back with an apologetic half-smile. “If you were in my position, how would you answer that question?”
Jonathan sighs. “Fair point.”
“What a lot of other couples do,” the waiter goes on, “is get a half-and-half.”
