Love Lessons by Heidi Cullinan Read Free Book Online

they’ll fry for buying beer for you.”
    “With your fake ID?”
    “Actually, it’s my real ID. I’m turning twenty-two next month. And yes, before you do the math, I’m older than most college juniors. I believe I mentioned my parents’ divorce? Well, let’s just say my mother did not take it well. At all. I was enrolled at Northwestern, and I got about a month in before I withdrew and went home because I had no idea what was going to happen. She did go to the hospital for a while, so it’s probably good I pulled out when I did. I have no idea who would have kept my sister from foster care or worse.”
    Kelly looked at him like he’d confessed to pulling his family from the ocean in some kind of hi-res film moment. “Wow.”
    “Not even close to wow. Anyway, when it was all sorted, they asked me where I wanted to go. At that point, nowhere, because I felt so old, but my best friend was here, and she loved it, and I’d visited her and thought it wasn’t bad, so I said this joint. Which brings us to now.”
    “Is your friend still here?”
    Walter shook his head. “Graduated in August. I’m two years behind my high school peers. Cara and I rigged ourselves a room together midway through my freshman year, and last year I lived with her and her fiancé off-campus, which was great. I was supposed to stay in their place this school year, but the landlord fucked that up. It’s too bad. It’s a great place. I should take you by to see it, since I still have the key.”
    “Who’s living there now?”
    “Nobody, and nobody will. Bank will try to sell it, which they won’t be able to do because it’s too close to campus. They’ll probably make it a parking lot eventually. Crying shame.”
    “Couldn’t you lease it from the bank?”
    “Yes, but the college didn’t like that it wasn’t a year lease, which is part of their ‘protect the family’ bullshit, which is really them playing Big Brother. Every now and again when the crazy right-wingers bitch about socialist lefties, they get it right. This would be one of those cases.” He let out a breath and gave up. “Okay, I have to ask because it’s making me nuts. You’re not Republican, are you?”
    Kelly looked surprised and a little amused. “Does that matter?”
    “Oh fuck, you are.”
    Now he laughed. “No. I’m not anything. Neither is my family. We vote in whatever way works at the time. Or rather they do, I haven’t voted yet. Though I know the last few times my family have voted Democrat because of LGBT rights.”
    “Because now it’s personal?” Walter sipped at his beer. “Sure, I get that. Well, are you going to hold it against me for being a card-carrying member of the radical left?”
    God, the kid had a cute smile. It made his eyes twinkle and made Walter want to suck on his chin. “I think I can live with it.”
    “What about religion? I have an atheist card too, and I use it.”
    Kelly didn’t seem moved. “I’m Lutheran, but I don’t care what other people believe, or don’t.”
    “You going to go to church on Sunday mornings?”
    “Probably not, but don’t tell my mother.”
    “Fair enough.” God, Walter felt a lot better. He nudged Kelly’s beer at him. “What about wild sex parties? I assume those are on the menu, if we can figure out how to stack people into our—shit, you’re white as a sheet. They slipped an almond into your burrito, the bastards. Where’s that EpiPen?”
    “No—” Ducking his head, Kelly stared hard at his plate, color coming back to his face. “I’m fine.”
    Kelly was, Walter realized, mortified. Oh. That pale expression was extreme embarrassment. “So no sex parties, huh? The room really is too small anyway, and we’d have to smuggle them into Porterhouse first. Do we go with the old towel-on-the-door routine, or in this century, text message? I’d crack a joke about liking an audience, but I don’t want to see you pass out.”
    Kelly pursed his lips, then sighed so hard his