Tell Me It's Real by TJ Klune Read Free Book Online

bitch,” I told her once her adoring fans had gone out to the patio.
    She snorted. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” She grabbed my hand and started pulling me across the floor. I looked for the hot guy, but he was nowhere to be found. I knew I was sort of okay with that. He was probably out back with the rest of the crowd or at the bar. Hell, maybe he’d even left already with all his hot friends and they were going back to their frat to bang some hoes and brag about how they worked up the courage to go inside a gay bar. Whatever was going on with him couldn’t have been what I thought it was. I was just being stupid. Things didn’t work out like that for me.
    “It was like you flung battery acid at my face,” I snarled at her as I followed her back up the stairs.
    “You are such a drama queen,” she huffed. “It’s about fucking time something happened, and since you weren’t going to do it yourself, you left me no choice.”
    “Meddlesome homo,” I muttered.
    “Paul!” she snapped. She was a little pissed off, I could tell. Nobody can rage like a drag queen. “You need to come out of your shell or step into the light or whatever other clichéd metaphor you would like to use. It’s high time people got to see the real Paul Auster and love him for who he is.”
    I knew I was being a bit of a whiny ass, and I knew, of course, that Helena only wanted good things for me, but I couldn’t help but feel attacked, pushed outside of my comfort zone without my consent. It rubbed me the wrong way. “I don’t want to,” I sulked. “I don’t care about stuff like that. Why can’t you accept that? I like the way things are. Besides, I’m pretty sure you are overestimating what would happen if I did what you asked. It’d probably be like expecting a beautiful butterfly to emerge from a cocoon, only to have it actually become a mentally disabled giraffe with eczema.”
    Helena twitched her lips and I knew I almost had her. She’d break and laugh and hug me and tell me she loved me and then we’d go back to the way things were until the next time she got a bug up her ass. “Giraffe, hmmm?” she murmured.
    “Mentally disabled,” I agreed. I leaned over and rubbed my nose against her cheek and hummed. She chuckled.
    “What about that guy?” Charlie asked.
    Helena reared back. “What guy?” she asked, looking suspiciously excited.
    I whirled around and glared at Charlie. “I will put you in a retirement home and no one will visit you!” I hissed at him.
    “What guy?” Helena barked.
    “Some guy bought Paul here a shot and had Eric bring it up,” Charlie said casually, as if my threat meant nothing. Which it didn’t. “A very… fit -looking fellow.”
    “Ouch,” I said, my feelings slightly hurt.
    Charlie rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t a dig against you, boy. You need to stop thinking that everything is about you.”
    “Ouch,” I said again, my feelings more hurt.
    “Where is he?” Helena asked, looking down to the lower floor, where people were starting to trickle back in. “Seen him before?”
    Charlie shook his head. “Fresh meat, I think. Was hanging out with Darren and his group.”
    Helena looked at me, astonished. “You have a hunky jock wanting to jump your ball sac and you stayed up here ?”
    “He spit his shot down onto him,” Charlie said helpfully.
    Helena was horrified. “You did what ?” she shrieked at me, going all Xena: Warrior Lesbian on me.
    “It was whiskey ,” I said in my defense. “And it didn’t get on him. Mostly. It was all on Eric!”
    “I think that boy gave me crabs,” Helena muttered, scratching herself obscenely.
    “ That’s who you were doing last month?” I said with a grimace. “Ew. Show some respect for yourself. It’s fun to have standards .”
    “When was the last time you got laid?” she retorted. “Let’s go find this guy. I want to know who he is.”
    I took a step back. “Uh.” I looked down at my hands and blushed, my