Erotic Refugees by Paddy Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

raised his
pint. “I guess we'll have to take the man's word for it. Here’s to
things taking off any day now!”
    Andy and Eamonn lifted their
pints. Rob smiled and clunked his glass against each of them before
taking a creamy swig. He put the glass down and kept his smile in
place, while behind the foamy moustache and bravado he was fully
aware that he wasn’t quite as far along as he should be.
    In fact, he hadn't done
anything at all on his killer site, beyond making a few lists with
ideas, most of which he had lost. Being behind in this race was an
understatement. Rob was still only lacing up his shoes at the
starting line.
    He would get down to it,
though. Immediately, if not sooner. It was becoming too much work
to lie to people about his progress. It was just a series of basic
steps, to be taken in a certain order. First, find an idea that
resonated. Then find somebody willing to work on it with him. Then
program it and get people to actually use the thing. Finally, he'd
need the users to somehow pay him to use it, and all that in only
seven months.
    Andy launched into a story
about a girl he was dating, and Rob nodded along, laughing with the
others at the sleazy bits. His grin was still pasted in place and
he took another sip of his Guinness just so he could relax his
mouth for a moment.
    He seriously had to get this
project moving. Otherwise all this smiling would end up giving him
a heart attack.

Chapter
7
     
    Eoin arrived at the door to
Rob's flat at ten minutes to one on midsummer afternoon. He was
carrying, as instructed, a bottle of red wine, a nice bunch of
tulips and a fat wedge of Danish Blue. He pressed the bell and
stood back.
    Rob opened the door wearing
nothing but a threadbare blue bathrobe and a look of blurry
confusion. “What, already? Yer kidding me. Shite.”
    Rob charged back in and Eoin,
not knowing what else to do, followed him. He watched as Rob began
extracting clothes from unlikely locations and throwing them on,
removing wrinkles, crumbs and stains on the fly.
    Eoin found a corner to stand
in, feeling very much out of place. This whole thing had been a bad
idea, and he'd known it all along. He didn't know Rob's
neighbours—or Rob either, for that matter—and he wasn’t good with
new people, especially in a party environment. But Alice had got it
into her head that this would be good for him, and things that
Alice got into her head usually got out of her head and into
reality fairly quickly. That's just how it went, and so here he
was.
    His gaze drifted to Rob's
computer. There were several windows open and the main one
displayed code that he recognised as CSS. As small talk went,
programming was fairly rubbish but it was better than nothing.
    “ So you're making a
website then?”
    Rob glanced over. “Yeah, well,
I have a few ideas.” He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful.
“Ever do anything like that yerself?”
    Eoin shook his head. “A bit. I
mean, I work as a technical project leader, so I know the basics.
Big systems though, business support and—”
    “ Ah, right,” Rob said,
now busy flattening sections of his dark brown hair with globs of
wax. Once that had been applied, he dashed out to the hall where he
opened and closed a few doors, making a great deal of noise about
it. He stepped back into the room, buttoning a shirt, all ready to
go.
    Eoin looked at his watch and
saw the whole process had taken Rob about seven minutes. That was
how long it would take Eoin to just pick out his socks.
    “ Well come on then,
what're ye waiting for, a taxi?”
    Eoin followed him into the
hall. “Right then,” Rob said, and held up a straining purple bag
filled with clinking bottles. “Here's the drink and some of that
fish-in-a-jar stuff, and you've got the rest. So let's get out
there and meet the ladies, yeah? Are we ready?”
    Eoin blinked, worried for a
moment that he was expected to deliver a high five, or a fist bump.
Thankfully it didn't happen, and a nod