Read Online Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 07] by Dates Mates, Pulling Power (Html) - Free Book Online

‘No, Luca, you sit, it’s quiet. Explain.’
    After she’d
disappeared, Luke sat opposite me. As soon as he looked into my eyes, I felt myself
getting hot and my insides felt like they were melting. He was amazing looking.
Sooooooo beautiful. I hadn’t imagined it. It’s a weird thing that when I first
meet someone, I can remember what they look like for about a day, then it
fades, like from sharp focus to blurry. Seeing him again was a real blast back
to picture perfect.
    Luke looked down at
the table. ‘I’m supposed to be doing an accountancy course.’
    ‘Oh… and?’
    ‘On
Wednesday
nights…’
    ‘Ah.’ Oh well done on
the brilliant conversation, Nesta, I thought. Oh. And. Ah. Yes, riveting stuff.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice.
    ‘Yeah. Ah,’ continued
Luke. ‘Dad’s in the restaurant business. He has three now. This one which has
been here for years, one in Soho and he’s just opened a third up near Harrow,
not far from where I go to school actually. It’s quite handy for popping into
at lunch-time. Anyway, my brother runs the Soho restaurant and Dad wants me to
be involved when I leave school after my A-levels, maybe oversee the Harrow
one. I want to act. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do but he’s dead against it.
So… I told him I was going to do accountancy to help with the business when, in
fact, I’m doing acting. That’s why I was late last week. Dad dropped me off at
the accountancy course and I had to dash like mad to get to the acting.’
    ‘But what will happen
if he drops you every week? You’ll never make it.’
    ‘It was just last
week. My car was being serviced, but I’ve got it back now and can drive
myself.’
    Hhmm. Is gorgeous
and
has own car, I thought. Not that I am influenced by things like that at all.
Not at
all
. I am
deep
and
beyond
material trappings.
But… hhmm… I wonder what kind of car?
    ‘But… what are you
going to do at the end of the course when you haven’t learned anything about
figures?’
    Luke laughed. ‘I shall
act dumb. By then, I should have the skills.’ Then he shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’ll
think of something.’
    After that, we chatted
for a while about acting and films and which he liked and which he hated. As we
talked I realised that he knew a lot about them. He mentioned films I’d never
heard of and he seemed to know who had directed them and who had produced them.
As I listened to him, I began to feel out of my depth, because I watch films
just for fun. That awful feeling that I might be shallow and boring came
creeping back and I resolved to swot up on who was who and what was what in the
film industry. Hhhmm, how can I impress you without revealing that I don’t know
half as much about films as you do, I wondered as I stared at his bottom lip
and tried to commit it to memory. Suddenly what to say was obvious. ‘My dad’s a
director,’ I blurted out. ‘Really? Wow!’ said Luke. ‘Lucky you. Films, TV or
documentary?’
    ‘TV mostly. Dramas.
But I think he’d like to do a film, you know, for the big screen.’
    Luke nodded. ‘Must be
amazing. And there was me rabbiting on about films when you’re the real expert
with your dad in the biz.’
    Yeah, right. Me the
expert, I thought as I gave him my lips-closed smile.
    ‘I wish my father did
something interesting,’ continued Luke. ‘I can’t tell you how much I don’t want
to be involved in his restaurant business.’
    ‘But involved how?
What does he want you to be? Chef? Manager?’
    ‘Bit of both. That’s
how it is in a family business.’ I couldn’t resist. I stuffed two big bits of
bread in front of my teeth in my lower cheeks then attempted my impersonation
of Marlon Brando as he was in
The
Godfather
. ‘So, Luca, de
family needs you,’ I drawled in an Italian accent.
    He laughed.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Marlon Brando.
The Godfather?’
    I nodded and
desperately tried to swallow the bread, praying that it hadn’t got caught in my
brace. How