Reversing Over Liberace Read Online Free Page B

both nostrils. “I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of weirdo, stalking girls I used to have a thing for. It was completely accidental, but I’d been thinking of you a lot. After so long away, I guess, all the old gang were on my mind.”
    A sudden, grim thought struck me. “You aren’t confusing me with someone else, are you? I mean, we didn’t really move in the same circles much.” And every time I saw you, you completely ignored me. And I’d noted the words “used to”.
    Luke gave a grin so hot that diamonds would have gone runny. “Oh now, let me see. You had longer hair, love the new cut by the way, read English, rode around on a bright red bicycle like you thought you were at Cambridge, wore possibly the biggest boots on campus and hung out with Katie somebody.”
    â€œO’Connor,” I supplied.
    â€œYeah. I was so crippled up with shyness that I could hardly even bear to look at you.”
    Now our eyes met properly. His gaze was level and steady. The stomach churning was becoming unignorable and my throat began to constrict, but the eye contact was luscious with promise. If I ran for the toilets now I might never see a look like that again.
    I made a quick decision—pulled my jacket towards me and pretended to be having a coughing fit, searching for a handkerchief whilst in reality I was throwing up the grapefruit juice into a pocket. It was short, sharp and nasty, but Luke thankfully didn’t seem to notice.
    â€œSo then. Would you like another drink? Or”—he waved a hand at the crowded bar—“would you rather go on somewhere else?”
    I would have toured the inner circles of hell to keep Luke Fry’s attention focussed on me. I mean, how much would it take to make you vomit in your own pocket? We ended up walking through the darkening streets, and before I knew it, he was walking me home. It had started to rain at some unnoticed point and umbrellas were erupting around us. The streets shone, colours bleeding into one another as my eyes glazed with sheer happiness. Our heads bent together in introspective conversation, what with the twirling parapluies , the neon shimmer and the encroaching hush of Sunday night falling on a suburban area, it was like the closing scene of a Jeunet film. Luke bid me a decorous goodnight. (Although I noted, when he leaned against me to give me a peck on the cheek, the bulge in his trousers indicated that he would have gone for something a lot less chaste.) I did the cliché thing of closing the front door and leaning against it breathing heavily. This ended swiftly in a very unclichéd rush to the bathroom, where I stripped off all my clothes from which a slight smell of sick was beginning to waft.

Chapter Four
    â€œNo, I’m sorry, Luke. I can’t make it tonight. I have a very important meeting to go to. Perhaps some other time?”
    â€œWhat’cha muttering about? You goin’ bloody loony on us then, Will, or what?”
    I looked up from my computer screen to see Neil and Clive, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the front office, hanging over my desk. “What?”
    â€œAll this chuntering away to yerself, soundin’ like you’re as barmy as”—a gesture—“the Lady of the Lake down there.”
    The lady in question, namely Katie, could be heard singing a Killers track from the filing room, which was meant to be soundproof but wasn’t because the boys hosted farting competitions in there and the tiles had fallen off. “No, I was just…”
    But Neil and Clive had lost interest in me and my amusing foibles and were taking themselves off to annoy Katie. She gave much better value in the irritation stakes since she had a far wider vocabulary of expletives and, because of the twins, was always slightly sleep deprived.
    â€œNo, really, Luke,” I continued to myself as I absentmindedly typed in the wording for a badly