Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t bring any shoes.”
    “Well. It gets you out of having to hike up the hill to the station.”
    “True. Hey, do you have a Band-Aid I can borrow?” Now this is going to sound insane, but a part of me was surprised that Gideon Van Deusen, who traveled the world for a year before starting college, who questioned the teachings of his Sunday school back in ninth grade, who played guitar badly and didn’t mind being bad at it, who folded his laundry so neatly, who had been class speaker at Tate Prep the year he graduated and who obviously spent quite a serious amount of time doing sit-ups—I was surprised that Gideon Van Deusen, who seemed so well-balanced and comfortable in himself—would need a Band-Aid.
    He seemed so perfect to me, I guess. An older guy who’s got it together. A guy so confident in himself that it seems impossible he’d have a hole in his skin.
    A hole that might actually be bleeding.

    “You can’t borrow one,” I told him. “But you can have one to keep.”
    He laughed and I showed him into the houseboat.
    Polka remembered him from the one time he’d been over to visit and slurped Gideon’s hands.
    I went to the bathroom to get Band-Aids, but before I went back to the living room, I stopped and put on lip gloss. I thought:

    1. What? I have no lip gloss on. My lips feel dry.
    This lip gloss has nothing to do with Gideon.
    2. Oh, fine. There is a shirtless college boy bleeding in my living room. I want lip gloss.
    3. I can still be in love with Noel and want a shirtless college boy to think I am good-looking, can’t I?
    4. Or maybe I can’t.
    5. Maybe if you’re really in love, you don’t care if anyone thinks you’re good-looking besides the person you’re in love with .
    6. Maybe it’s deranged to want college boys to think you’re hot when you already have a boyfriend.
    7. Maybe I am a sex maniac slut like everybody says.
    8. And then again, it’s just lip gloss.
    I brought out a box of Band-Aids with pictures of sushi on them, along with some antibiotic ointment.
    Gideon showed me a spot on his calf where the wakeboard had flipped and sliced him. It wasn’t big, but it would need two Band-Aids to cover it.
    “Are you a sushi fan?” Gideon asked.
    “No,” I said truthfully. “I just like silly Band-Aids. I got these at Archie McPhee. They have pirate ones and bacon ones, too.”

    I squeezed some ointment on my finger.
    Gideon looked surprised. “You don’t have to do that,” he said.
    “Oh,” I said, embarrassed.” You’re probably capable of putting a Band-Aid on yourself, aren’t you?
    “I am experienced in that department.”
    “It’s an impulse left over from babysitting.”
    “Okay, go ahead.” He stuck out his leg. “So. You babysit?”
    “Not anymore. I couldn’t take it. The kid I used to sit for was like a blood and vomit machine.” Gideon laughed. “A patent on that idea could make a fortune.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Or his parents could just rent him out. Like whenever anyone needs blood or vomit, they could just come over and rent out Kai.” All this while I was dabbing ointment on Gideon’s calf, which was tan and covered in light brown hair. I thought:

    1. His skin is surprisingly soft.
    2. But also hairy.
    3. Gideon is practically an adult. I think he’s at least nineteen.
    4. Is it horrible that I want to touch his leg?
    5. I mean, Doctor Z says it’s completely normal at my age to have this level of Rabbit Fever, but what I really want to know is, am I being disloyal?
    6. It is only ointment, after all.
    7. And a Band-Aid.
    8. Then again, I wouldn’t like it if Noel was spreading ointment on the bare calves of Ariel Olivieri.
    9. Especially not if Ariel was wearing nothing but a bathing suit and a bead choker.

    I was just putting a second Band-Aid on Gideon’s leg, and enjoying it more than I should have, when Hutch walked in from the greenhouse. I jerked back guiltily.
    “Gideon Van Deusen,” Hutch announced, barely making