Erotic Refugees Read Online Free Page B

that big,
and it won't be for long, just until she gets a job and finds her
own place.”
    “ Her own place? Mom, this
is Stockholm, not Bally Go Backwards! You don't just buy the paper
and call the ads, it's not like that here! It's really hard
to—”
    “Robert,” his mother said, switching to her
rarely-used but brutally effective matriarch voice. “If your sister
wants to come over then I think you should be happy about it. I
mean, it can't be easy over there, having no family.”
    He sighed. “When?” he said.
    “ In a month or two. She's
already talked to some companies in Stockholm. I think she has a
few interviews fixed.”
    “ What, in a month or two?
But—”
    “ I'll get her to call
you, Robert. And I want you to take care of her. She is your little
sister, after all. And I'll be checking up on you to make sure you
do.”
    “ Right then,” Rob said
through gritted teeth. “Fine.”
    His mother rounded off the
conversation and Rob, with a sigh of relief, put down the receiver.
He scratched his head as he allowed the news to soak in.
    Karen? Looking for a job in
another country? And she had already fixed interviews? He just
couldn't grasp it.
    Could this be the same sister
who regularly lost her shoes at the swimming pool? Who'd managed to
drop her library books in the fire on two separate occasions? And
who could never manage to be less than thirty minutes late for
anything, including weddings, funerals and her own eighteenth
birthday party?
    Rob realised he had very little
room for manoeuvre. His mother still swung the heavy fists in the
family and although she didn't put her foot down very often, when
she did they made a deep and resounding boom and there was nothing
at all that could be done about it.
    Having Karen in his place also
meant that there would be even more washing—vastly more if his
experience of living with women had been anything to go by. He
glared at his washing pile and tried to imagine it twice as large.
No, three times as large, with the added complexity of things that
were pink, and things that needed hand-washing, and things that
could not be tumble dried, and things that required gentle
scrubbing in unicorn spit in a forest glade at midnight.
    Well, there was nothing for it
except to start planning. He needed to work out the quickest way to
find a flat—or a room, or a cupboard, anything at all really—for an
over-enthusiastic nineteen-year-old fresh from the dales of Ireland
before she informed his whole family that he was the Swedish King
of the Slackers.
    He glared at the washing pile
once more and decided that there was nothing else for it. He would
have to give the whole thing a miss and head into town early. That
was the only feasible solution. Maybe then, after a bracing stroll,
a cappuccino, a platter of spare ribs, and a refreshing Guinness at
Malone’s, he would decide what the hell he was going to do about
the whole bloody unnecessary mess.
    Although it might take more
than one Guinness.

Chapter
5
     
    Eoin was early for The Big
Date, and he was a crackling ball of nerves. There were forty
minutes to go until he was supposed to meet Rebecka and he was
already in town, slouching around shops and trying to keep his
hands busy so they didn't keep on sliding up his sleeve and feeling
for his watch.
    This Rebecka was obviously
interested. She'd chatted enthusiastically for a week before asking
him out, so he had no reason to be nervous. That didn't matter
though, as finding reasons to be nervous was what Eoin was best
at.
    He checked his watch and
decided it was probably time to head for the Old Town, and made
some frenzied calculations about how fast he should be moving and
what route he should be taking in order to make it to the pub on
time, or at least not appallingly early.
    After a long and complex stroll
he reached Malone's, only four minutes early. That was fine surely,
somewhere between eager and nonchalant. He straightened his
shoulders, arranged his hair