The Gospel According to Luke Read Online Free PDF Page A

listen to a couple of minutes of Ricky’s
I’m-so-fucking-hot-I-can’t-even-believe-it-myself
bullshit, but it was more than enough. By the time she got out, promising she would definitely call him, she was thinking that she would rather walk for a day in the blazing sun, vomiting the whole time, than be stuck in a car with Ricky ever again.
    Last year she had wanted to be stuck in that car with him more than anything, and now he made her sick,and nothing had changed about him at all. He wasn’t a bad bloke, really; it was just that she stopped liking him when she met Steve and now when she thought about the way Ricky’s sweat would drip onto her face during sex she felt grossed out. Honey wondered if one day she would look back at Steve and feel sick. She liked him so much, but she had to admit that it was a real possibility that certain things – his habit of spitting on the footpath, or the yellow-headed pimples on his back, for example – would one day make her shudder.
    But for now, he was still her man. She saw him waiting for her at the gate and felt a little shiver of fear. Not that he was scary or anything, just that he was always touching her, and this morning she didn’t feel like being touched. She hadn’t felt like being touched last night, either, but she’d let him, because it had seemed easier than to tell him about the exhaustion and soreness. He was already all tense about the throwing up.
    â€˜Hey, Stevo,’ Honey said.
    Steve was looking past her shoulder at the road, his face completely blank. Blank pale eyes, blank pale skin, blank chapped lips. Honey tried to kiss his cheek but he moved at the last second, still not looking at her or changing his expression.
    â€˜Did I just see you get out of Ricky Bashir’s car?’
    â€˜I missed the bus.’ Honey slapped her forehead. ‘Ricky was passing.’
    â€˜Right.’ Steve spat on to the footpath. ‘Did ya fuck him?’
    â€˜Yuck, no.’ Honey laughed.
    â€˜Well, what am I meant to think, you ridin’ around with that greasy wog? I bet anyone who saw youse would think you were fucking him again.’
    Honey rubbed his arm and smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t get a lift with him again. I didn’t think how it would look. I just felt real sick and –’
    Steve’s head snapped up. ‘You said you missed the bus.’
    â€˜I did. I threw up for like, twenty minutes, this morning.’
    Steve squinted at her. ‘You still got that stomach thing.’
    â€˜Yeah. Gross, huh?’
    â€˜How long’s it been?’
    She stepped away a little, but he moved close again. ‘How long?’
    â€˜I don’t know. A week or something.’
    Steve put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her hard. ‘You know what I noticed last night?’
    Honey tried to think. Last night they had hung out at Rex’s place smoking cones and drinking VB. Honey stuck mostly to the pot because it helped with nausea. If Steve noticed she drank less and smoked more he didn’t comment; he was pretty wasted himself. The only other thing that had happened last night was that they had stopped at the soccer field on the way home and had sex behind the toilet block, but there was nothing noteworthy about that.
    â€˜Whenever I touched you, you pulled a face. Like I was hurting you.’
    â€˜So sometimes you’re a bit heavy-handed. Sometimes you’re rough.’
    â€˜Rough like this?’ He squeezed her left breast.
    â€˜Stop being weird. It’s embarrassing.’
    Steve took her chin in his hand. ‘You’re preggers.’
    â€˜No!’ Honey jumped backward. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
    â€˜You’re the stupid one. It’s so fuckin’ obvious. It’s exactly the same as when Cassie was –’
    â€˜Right, you got one dumb slut knocked up and now you’re the expert.’
    â€˜Get a