This is Not a Love Story Read Online Free Page B

friends/brothers/whatever he wants to call it.
    Robyn and I used to be close too. More than friends once or twice. But it wasn’t like this. Nothing in my whole life has ever been like this.
    If I tilt my head back, his warm breath drifts against my throat, and I can pretend he’s kissing me. I can shift my body so his hands move lower down my stomach… but it makes me hard, and it’s frustratingly not right to behave like that with him, not when he doesn’t feel the same.
    Sometime before dawn I hear Cricket shout. A few minutes later, icy wind and rain whip around us as the tarpaulin is yanked off from around our bodies.
    Three police in thick stab vests stand intimidatingly over us. They look like bodybuilders.
    A boot presses against Julian’s stomach, pushing him farther back onto the wet ground. He looks at me and smiles tightly. Police, eh? Most of them are fucking jerks.
    “Didn’t we already move you lot on tonight?” one of them asks like he’s some sort of teacher questioning pupils over bad behavior, like we have a choice about sleeping out in the fucking rain.
    Julian shakes his head. He’s looking at the boot. His experience of police is worse than mine.
    Cricket and Roxy hang off to the side, watching.
    The smallest jerk of the lot crouches down and holds a hand out as if he wants to run it across the smooth shorn cut of my hair. Involuntarily, I shiver. Julian closes his eyes before shoving the boot off his stomach and pulling me up, close to him.
    They fold away our tarpaulin.
    “Confiscated.”
    Julian drags a hand through his wet hair. “It’s fucking raining,” he pleads.
    “Maybe it will convince you to get off the streets and into a shelter, then.”
    A shelter? What a fucking joke. So much violence and dealing go on in shelters, we’d have no chance. But there is no point in arguing this out. Julian glances over at Cricket, and we walk away.
    The police talk amongst themselves, their waterproof clothing rustling as they move off to dump our tarpaulin somewhere we won’t find it.
     
     
    C ASSEY OPENS the cafe at seven every day. It can’t be much earlier now as black-coated commuters are beginning to fill the gray streets in the hundreds. The idea of going there after Lloyd cornered me just outside fills me with dread, but we’ve got nowhere else to go.
    We walk side by side, heads bowed to the wind. Julian steals a sideways glance at me.
    “Are you still mad at me?” he asks quietly.
    I wait until he turns to face me, and then I shake my head vigorously. No fucking way.
    I’m sorry , I sign, because it’s easy to say now. I was upset.
    I wish I could have told him this last night.
    Before we get to Cassey’s, I tell him about Lloyd and his threat, the fact that he is coming for Julian. With a sickening sense of urgency, I realize we’re going to have to find somewhere else to go, somewhere far away, across the river maybe, or maybe just north, up toward the big parks.
    He watches me carefully, intently, as I sign. I love having his complete attention like this. When I’ve finished, he grips my fingers now cold from the rain.
    “Okay,” he says. “We get warm first, though.”
    We pay for our tea, but Cassey feeds us a sandwich each for free. She doesn’t mention her broken window. If she did, I might die of guilt, especially if Julian then actually offered her his money.
    “What happened to your pad, love?” she asks me halfway through the morning, passing me her order book to write on.
    I draw all the time. I guess she noticed I wasn’t.
    I push the book away and look at Julian. He tells her some kids nicked it.
    “All your beautiful drawings!” she exclaims.
    All gone , I sign before I can stop myself.
    I wipe my hand across my eyes and get up to walk around for a bit. Cassey feels sorry enough for me as it is. But Julian grabs my hand and digs around in his pocket. He pulls out a small clear plastic bag. He hands it to me, unwilling to meet my eyes.
    Cassey drifts