Read Online When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon - Free Book Online Page A

came on and Neil smiled when he saw Bono and B.B. King appear on the numerous screens. If only they knew the type of pubs they were frequenting.
    The gutsy vocals, ripping guitars, and pounding drums filled the pub, much to the delight of the three young dancers. It was obviously a pub favorite.
    When love comes to town, I’m gonna jump that train
    When love comes to town, I’m gonna catch that flame
    The barman gave Neil a friendly wink as he left the two pints down on the counter. Sugar Daddy took his bulging wallet from his tweed jacket, peeled a tenner from a bundle of notes, and paid the barman.
    Pathetic attempt to impress , Neil thought as he thanked him. The guy in the tartan jeans was right, the pub was beginning to fill up. All arriving under cover of darkness. Neil told his elderly suitor that he was twenty and had just finished his second year of science at Trinity. Another two pints followed, and when Neil made a feeble attempt to pay, good old Sugar Daddy wouldn’t hear of it.
    “I was a student myself once upon a time,” he said, patting Neil’s arm, signaling to him to put his money back in his pocket.
    Just as well, Neil thought, he didn’t have enough to buy a round.
    He was more relaxed now, he knew that Sugar Daddy was trying to get him drunk, and he was succeeding, but he didn’t feel threatened. The drink had lessened Sugar’s inhibitions, and every so often he would drape his arm around Neil’s shoulder, or touch his bare arm, and once when Neil said something witty, he leaned over, kissed his cheek, and told him he was great company.
    The bristle of stubble reminded Neil of the bedtime kisses his dad used to give him as a kid. “Night now, Neiley Nook,” he would say, leaning across his bed and tucking him in. But what would his dad say if he saw him now? What would Gary and the others say? What would Mal and Tony say? Or Father Donno and the other priests in Rock? And Gary’s mum and the rest of the tongues on the road? There was such a thin line between respectability and disgrace, he reflected. But what the hell, he didn’t care now, he was enjoying himself, and Sugar Daddy wasn’t such a bad type.
    The pub was definitely one of the most exciting and different places he had ever been in. It gave him a sense of freedom, a feeling that he could behave as he wanted to at last. Still, a part of him didn’t want to be there. What was he doing with this crowd of strangers? he asked himself. Bad and all as the rhyming couplets were, at least they were his friends. They were the people he had grown up with. Like it or not, they were his life. Maybe he should just get off with Yvonne Lawlor and forget about being gay. They could go to the movies together, he could bring her around to the house on Sunday afternoons, and then they could go to the beach with all the others. But not for the first time, his gaze was caught by one of the numerous photographs of scantily clad guys hanging on the pub walls, and he knew that Yvonne Lawlor would have to take a backseat for the time being.
    When he looked around, Sugar Daddy was chatting to one of the many friends he had in the bar, all of whom had lingered in conversation long enough to get a good look at Neil. This is how girls feel when guys ogle them , Neil thought, meeting all the lecherous looks with his best glare of disdain. But his thoughts were interrupted when Sinead O’Connor came on the video screens, singing “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
    “You obviously like this song, Gary,” Sugar Daddy said, smiling as Neil sang along quietly with the words.
    Neil started to sing louder, much to Sugar Daddy’s amusement. When the song finished, he wished he had the nerve to put the video on again. But there was a crowd around the jukebox, and drunk as he was, he still felt shy in these new surroundings.
    “Will you have one for the road?” Sugar Daddy asked, and Neil swayed, steadied himself, then shook his head, aware that his indifference was