Read Online A Boy and His Dragon by R. Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

the air had been that hot and still, Arthur’s mother had used to call it earthquake weather, which Arthur had never understood. Not as a child anyway, though he was getting it now. At this exact moment, he suddenly understood how the potential for a disaster could be felt in the air. It was almost as if the house itself was watching him.
    “I’m sorry. I don’t… I haven’t read your books yet.” Actually, the two he got from the library didn’t seem to be about dragons at all, and what he looked at on the library computers hadn’t said A Boy and His Dragon
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    much. The information on trolls and werewolves and demons was far more complete. He supposed they were a bigger threat and had needed to be studied more. Dragons… no one knew for sure how to classify them: lucky protectors or fearsome beasts. Maybe both. “I don’t know about dragons. Are you… typical?”
    “Are you typical for a human?” Bertie idly picked up the grapes and dropped them onto the table behind him without looking to see where they fell. Arthur couldn’t read his expression and tell if he was angry or disappointed or teasing him again.
    “That…. I know there’s no such thing as typical.” He’d never tripped over his words so much but he never meant to hurt anyone.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk, it’s just that I’ve never met anyone like you.”
    There was no change in Bertie’s face, but something in his posture seemed to ease. He melted back into the velvety cushions.
    The air around them no longer seemed to portend disaster, but Arthur wasn’t breathing any easier yet.
    “Do you mean someone who doesn’t like watching a person suffer needlessly?” Bertie sat up just for a moment to twist around and flick open the silver chest so he could take out a cigarette. “That is sad, Arthur.”
    Arthur’s mouth opened and closed for a moment.
    “That isn’t what I meant,” he protested, but of course Bertie had known that. He’d said it too pointedly for it to be a mistake.
    “Ah, so you mean someone who flirts outrageously with you?” Bertie stuck the cigarette in his mouth and winked at Arthur’s slight squirm and subsequent frown. “Or do you mean a Being? Surely you must have met a few.”
    “There was a fairy in one of my classes.” It just came out.
    Arthur wasn’t sure why, because Bertie and Clematis weren’t alike at all, and Bertie was hardly going to be interested in a fairy Arthur had known once.
    “A fairy?” Bertie instantly proved him wrong, settling in on the couch again to study Arthur. He seemed to know the whole story R. Cooper
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    already, and it made him frown. “And did he or she like you?” His voice deepened.
    “Yes.” Arthur wasn’t sure where this was going and answered as carefully as he could. “Yes, he did.” Clematis had eyes like a cappuccino, swirling shades of warm brown, and long wings like green Depression glass, and the broad shoulders of a swimmer.
    Despite his muscle, he weighed almost nothing at all when he pounced on Arthur for that first kiss. His glitter rained gently down on Arthur, his come tasted sugar sweet, and his body felt almost fragile under Arthur’s clumsy human fingers.
    Then he was gone. Arthur frowned and focused back on Bertie.
    It wasn’t that he wanted to make his orientation clear, to let Bertie know he was available and possibly interested. Even if both of these things were true. He hadn’t been planning to talk about himself at all, but after being so insensitive, it only seemed fair to offer Bertie something of himself in return.
    He didn’t think it was that big a deal, not with Bertie admitting that he’d been flirting, though Arthur still didn’t know whether his flirting was personal to Arthur or just a habit. This was a college town after all, and Bertie was a man of learning and intelligence and unlikely to be a bigot about Arthur being gay. Anyway, dragons, like many other Beings, didn’t have the same