Read Online Ollie Always by John Wiltshire - Free Book Online Page B

me.” As he’d predicted, Skint snatched back his hand as if bitten. “Of course, he’d confused me with Oliver.”
    Skint put his face in his hands, rubbing the stubble vigorously. “Jesus Christ. You said you weren’t gay.”
    “I’m not.” He was feeling generous, so he added, “I can be anything I want.” He chuckled. “I’m a character in a book, after all.”
    Skint lowered his hands enough to peer at Ollie over his fingertips. “You are seriously fucked up. You know that, right?”
    Ollie laughed, a short bark of disbelief. “Believe it or not, that’s what I’m trying not to be.”
    Skint suddenly rocked back in his seat. His gaze became searing. Ollie frowned, not liking the sudden intensity. “What?”
    “I think that’s the first truthful thing you’ve actually said to me.”
    “Whoops. I must be slipping.”
    Skint glanced around the darkness for a moment. “What a bloody fool I was to think I could do this.” Whether he was referring to Ollie or himself wasn’t clear. He suddenly pushed his chair away from the table. “Look, it’s late, so I would be very grateful for the hospitality if it’s still okay for me to stay. But I’ll get a taxi down to the town in the morning before you get up. I’m sorry, Ollie. I’m really sorry about all of this.”
    He walked in through the patio doors and, as good as his word, he was gone in the morning.

CHAPTER NINE
    Ollie had enjoyed a number of Mick Dundee moments since coming to New Zealand—that almost impossible, antipodean coincidence of meeting the same person over and over again. New Zealand was a very small country with fewer people in it than a good-sized town in England, and it was inevitable that you bumped into someone you knew wherever you went.
    So it wasn’t a complete surprise that he walked into Skint the following morning when he was about to stop for a much-needed cup of tea in a café by the lake in Queenstown. Literally walked into him. He’d been looking down at his list of things to do; Skint had been glancing back over his shoulder at the view. They collided.
    Ollie wasn’t embarrassed.
    He wasn’t the one who’d made a scene and stormed off.
    He smiled politely and sidestepped. Skint moved the same way. Immediately, they both shifted the other way, and suddenly Ollie laughed. He couldn’t help it, but it was a genuine sound of amusement, not a defence mechanism, not thought about for a while before he tried it out, not selected from a repertoire of delighted noises each as equally fake as the other. This was a truth, and the other man appeared to hear it as such. He suddenly grabbed Ollie, knuckle-rubbed his hair as he had once before and then lightly punched him in the stomach. “I’m sorry. I told you I’m a total prick. Can I buy you a tea as a grovelling apology?”
    Ollie agreed. He was still reeling from his slip with the laugh.
    §§§
    Skint came over to the table carrying two small cups of tea. Ollie peered hopefully at the display of cakes, but realised the other man had probably just recovered from the price of two tea bags and a slosh of boiled water.
    They sipped the scalding liquid for a while, playing with teaspoons and sugar packets until Skint broke the ice by saying in a rush, “You just make me so mad. I’ve only known you for three days, but you seriously already rank as the most irritating person I’ve ever met, and I’ve had people try to kill me.”
    “That actually doesn’t surprise me.”
    “In Afghanistan.”
    “You should choose your holiday destinations better then.”
    “There you go! That’s what I mean!”
    Ollie started to rise. He had enough criticism in his head; he didn’t need to listen to it as well. Skint caught at his hand, restraining him by the lightest of touches, and then he gave Ollie’s fingers a tiny squeeze. “Don’t go.”
    Ollie sensed people were staring at them, at the odd scene, so he sat as the path of least resistance. Skint clenched his jaw,