Page 22 of Glitterland
“No chance,” I growled.
“You did last time. It was well nice.”
“This is this time. Now shut up and stop ruining my afterglow.”
He was still and quiet for fully ten seconds. Then he tipped his head back and twisted it this way and that, looking at my study. “’Ave you really read all them books?”
“No, I just like the way they look on the shelves.”
“No, but seriously. ’Ave you?”
“Well…yes.”
There was a pause. Then he said, “I reckon you’ve gotta be so clever.”
“Yes, I am. Terribly.”
“’Ow’d you find the time?”
“It just comes naturally.”
“Ha-ha, no. The books.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I was suddenly tired, not just in the expected physical sense, and it soaked through me like rain. I was tired of talking, tired of thinking, tired of him, and tired of me. “I suppose I used to like reading.”
He nodded, as if this was a perfectly reasonable answer. “So what else you into, then? I mean, except reading and writing, talking like the Queen, and dressing like my granddad?”
“I doubt your grandfather frequented Savile Row.”
“Naw, mate, ’e nevva left Romford. No, but seriously, what are you into?”
“Well, between reading and writing and talking like the Queen, I don’t have a lot of free time.”
“No, but seriously,” he said again.
It was becoming a plaintive refrain, but what was I supposed to say? That I enjoyed long walks on the beach and occasionally trying to kill myself?
“Tea,” I said desperately. “I really like tea.”
I cringed into him, hardly knowing what kind of response such an answer deserved.
“Aw, you’re so right, babes,” he said. “My nan loves a good brew.”
Suddenly I could breathe again. “Will you stop comparing me to your grandparents? Or I’m going to think there’s something peculiar in your continued interest in sleeping with me.”
He laughed his heedless, happy idiot laugh. “That’s summin else you can add to the list of fings you’re into.”
“What? Being like your grandparents?”
“No, you donut, being wif me. I nevva met anyone who gets into it like you do.”
“Trying to make me blush?”
“No, I just like it, is all.”
He squirmed suddenly, and I peered up into his face. “Areyoublushing?”
“No. Well. Maybe. Fank God for fake-bake.”
