Stand by Me Read Online Free PDF

have one or two drinks at the most and I don’t smoke at all. I don’t know what you’re worrying about.’
     
    Evelyn reminded her that it was easy to acquire loose morals and dangerous to drink too much because you never knew what it could lead to. It was, of course, she told Dominique, a sin to have sex before marriage, and no man would want her if she had a chequered past. Dominique looked at her mother in irritation and said that she didn’t think God spent his time keeping tabs on her sex life, but if He did there was something decidedly weird about Him, and besides, her past certainly wasn’t chequered. There were times when she wished it was, but so far, despite having snogged a number of men after nights in the pub, she hadn’t slept with any of them. No matter how irrational she told herself she was being, she still harboured images of a bolt of lightning striking her down if she lost her virginity to a man she hardly knew.
     
     
    She served Brendan Delahaye on the third Friday he came in to American Burger for lunch. She knew that he was a regular customer even though he hadn’t sat at one of her tables before, and so she smiled the smile that caused two dimples to appear in her cheeks and that did more for her looks than the new haircut and dramatic eye shadow ever could.
     
    ‘Mushroom burger, well done,’ he said in a soft Cork accent. ‘And I mean well done. Not just scorched. Cremated.’
     
    ‘Mushroom burger, cremated,’ she repeated.
     
    ‘An extra portion of chips and a glass of milk.’
     
    She stopped, her pencil poised above her notebook. ‘Milk?’
     
    ‘Yes, milk. Comes from a cow?’
     
    ‘Gosh, thanks for that information. Otherwise I mightn’t have known what you were talking about.’ She smiled at him, not intimidated by him as she sometimes was by her customers, because his expression was open and friendly, and because he was from the country after all, and everyone knew that people from Dublin were far superior to their culchie cousins. ‘You didn’t strike me as the milk type, that’s all.’
     
    ‘Oh.’ He sat back in the booth and looked up at her. ‘And what type do I strike you as?’
     
    She studied him thoughtfully. Even though he was sitting down, she could see that he was a big man. Older than her by a good few years, she reckoned; must be in his late twenties. Tall and broad. His face strong-featured and slightly weather-beaten. Light brown hair, gelled but curly. Deep blue eyes. Which were now regarding her equally thoughtfully.
     
    ‘A rugby player,’ she said eventually. ‘A pint drinker.’
     
    ‘Rugby!’ he snorted. ‘That sissy ol’ game! Gaelic football is the only game in the world for a man to play.’
     
    His accent had become a little stronger and Dominique stifled a giggle.
     
    ‘And milk is the only drink worth drinking?’ she suggested. ‘Preferably from your own cow?’
     
    He stared at her and then laughed, loud enough so that the people nearby turned to look at them.
     
    ‘When I’m working, yes,’ he said. ‘I like milk. But I don’t have a cow of my own. Not in Dublin, anyway.’
     
    ‘Where d’you work?’ She knew that she should be getting on with taking his order - the restaurant was busy and all her tables were full - but she was enjoying the banter with him.
     
    ‘On the building site the other side of St Stephen’s Green,’ he told her.
     
    She nodded. There was an office development being built on the site. She’d read in the papers that the economy was finally beginning to pick up and that there was a real need for office space in the city. She couldn’t quite believe it herself, because she still hadn’t got a better job offer, but she hoped it was right.
     
    ‘So you’re a brickie, are you?’ she asked.
     
    ‘Jeez, girl, you do know how to put a man down. You don’t have to use the term “brickie” as though I’m a no-hoper. I’m working on the site, yes. But when this job is over