Read Online Boyfriend in a Dress by Louise Kean - Free Book Online Page A

be a few of us though, Jake is in Parker as well.’
    ‘I meant now.’ Charlie stared me straight in the eye.
    ‘Sure, why not, I’ve had enough.’ I mustered all my confidence, flushed slightly, grabbed my coat and, with my head down, squeezed myself out of the bar, with Charlie breathing down my neck the whole way.
    It was cold as we walked towards the quad, which was the quickest way to get home. We chatted, nowhere near touching each other, and at points he even jogged backwards, trying to expel some of the energy that obviously whizzed around his body at all times. We joked, and made a vague date to see a film together that we both claimed to want to see, but no date was fixed as we passed the library. The cold had really started to set in, and I felt my nose turning red. In the dark I couldn’t make out his smile as readily, but I could hear his laugh, which sounded smaller out here, underneath the huge Illinois sky.
    ‘I’m surprised I haven’t met you before,’ I said, to fill asudden silence as we started to walk past the law buildings, towards the flower conservatory.
    ‘I’ve only met Jon a couple of times,’ Charlie said.
    ‘Oh, I thought you knew all those guys really well.’
    ‘No, I only met some of them for the first time tonight.’ He didn’t smile at this, but slapped himself to keep warm. I prayed inside I wasn’t boring him, that he hadn’t expected me to be a much funnier, livelier person than I was.
    ‘Who have you been hanging out with then?’ I asked, for something to say, boring even myself.
    ‘Oh, some fraternity boys – my roommate is in Pi Kappa Chi, so I kind of got in with them.’
    ‘Right, great – been to many parties?’ I sounded far more impressed than I had discussing them with Dale. In truth, I was massively disappointed – he wasn’t part of our gang, not really, our Brits-abroad gang, us against the world, failing to bond quite properly with our hosts.
    ‘A few, they’re all kind of the same. They aren’t great actually. They all act like they’re your best mate, straight away, just because you can play basketball or whatever.’
    ‘Maybe they just liked you.’ I don’t know why I was making excuses for the frat boys, something to say again, I suppose, and I couldn’t imagine anybody not loving him. I was actually sticking up for myself, in a twisted way.
    ‘Maybe,’ and he smiled again.
    ‘Just loveable, I guess,’ he said quickly, and then looked down, embarrassed at himself, at something he seemed to know about himself, that didn’t sit well with him. And instantly I knew that Charlie wasn’t quite as confident as I had first thought – but the world loved him anyway, and chose to overlook all the flaws he felt in himself, for the good stuff they could see. For the world, that smile was everything. For Charlie, that wasn’t quite right.
    ‘Well, it takes a while to get to know people, I suppose,’was all I could say. I felt desperate to let him know that I understood, and not to reveal that I too had instantly fallen victim to his smile as well. I didn’t want him to think of me as shallow as the rest of the world. I wanted him to know that I could go deeper, and that we wouldn’t be shallow together. Somehow, in my silent desperation, he understood.
    ‘Hold on,’ he said suddenly, and grabbed my arm.
    ‘What?’ I asked, surprised.
    ‘Look up,’ he said, and I had a sinking feeling that he was going to make me gaze at the stars. For somebody fighting for his own depths, it was a mistake.
    ‘What am I looking at?’ I asked, suddenly tired, and aware that maybe this wasn’t going to work out.
    ‘Whatever you want,’ he shouted, from a little way away, and I turned to see him dash behind a tree.
    ‘I had to take a … piss,’ he said weakly, walking back moments later. ‘I didn’t want you to see.’
    I started to laugh with relief, and chanced my arm.
    ‘Thank God, I thought you were going to start talking about the