Dream Guy Read Online Free Page B

this morning.
    “See you downstairs then.” She turned and went, closing the door with a businesslike click behind her. Joe had the quickest shower ever, threw on his uniform and clattered down the stairs three at a time. He wrenched the front door open and looked in the driveway. There she was—golden, glowing in the dull November dawn. She had been reversed into the drive and the first thing that Joe could see was the twin exhausts, one on each side of the car’s rear, positioned in the grill, and above, the neat cursive signature confirming that it was a Lamborghini. The first surprise was how small it was—low, with sweeping curves and a voracious, snub-nosed front. The second surprise was that the car had no number plates.
    Neither at the front nor at the back. He wondered where those should go and how to get them. But for now, he was content to walk around the extraordinary beast in the driveway—wondering, worshipful, awed. It did not take him long to start touching the metal, running his hands over the roof and the bonnet. He walked around again. It was left-hand drive.
    Presumably it was legal to use left-hand drive cars in the UK. Tourists from Europe did it all the time. But it must be a little weird. He stood by the driver’s door. He didn’t have a key, but there was no visible lock anyway. Presumably it was one of those flash electronic plip keys. He hadn’t thought about keys last night. He hadn’t thought about anything practical, because who would? He reached down and pushed at the latch. The handle made a solid, substantial sound, and the door eased open a little way then rose into the air. The scent of leather wafted upward and he gazed at the bucket seats with stitching, the bizarre seventies-style swirly carpeting, the handbrake and the range of dials—rev counter, tachometer, speedometer, temperature gauge, fuel gauge, altitude, latitude, longitude. The car seemed to have it all, but he’d have to climb in and check.
    He stretched his right leg in then folded himself up and levered his left leg in afterward. He’d have to practice so the maneuver was smooth and natural, a little less like an ostrich taking a seat. He closed the door. It gave a thick, dark clunk. He was enveloped in the black interior, adjusting his posture in the hard seat, stretching his arms out to grasp the wheel, seeking out the pedals with his feet. There were three.
    Accelerator, brake and clutch, he assumed. There was no key in the ignition. There was no gearstick either, just some weird additional levers sticking out from the steering column, which must be the famous robotized e-gear. There were buttons everywhere, a satellite positioning system, a CD sound system and really that was it. Not much more than Dad’s standard executive VW. Not even much more than Mum’s old Golf.
    The glove compartment was locked. He reached round the edge of the seats and under the carpets, but there was no sign of a key. Then the dream ended and the nightmare began, because Mrs. Knightley opened the door of the beautiful machine then leaning one hand on the roof of the Gallardo, said with quiet menace, “Joe, where the hell did this come from?”
    He looked up at her. She did not seem surprised or amazed or awed, just suspicious, verging on furious. He noticed her skinny eyes with wrinkles radiating along clearly defined paths, and she had a lipless mouth, like a lizard’s poised to eat a fly. This wasn’t just a morning mood. She was about two seconds away from a Grade-A tantrum.
    “I won it. I won it in that prize draw I entered at the airport when we went to Tenerife in the summer.”
    “You can’t have. You had to be eighteen to enter that. And you had to pay twenty quid. You didn’t have twenty quid.”
    “Ben entered it for me and I paid him back.”
    “Ben’s not eighteen either.”
    “He said he was.”
    “For God’s sake, Joe, we were in an airport. They were checking people’s passports. And they just drove it