With or Without You Read Online Free PDF

ancient artefacts? Aside from me, and maybe fourother intellectual snobs on the planet, who would want to read about that?
    There was a grunt from Nora’s bedroom, and she got up and quietly closed the violet-shellacked door to the hall. ‘Dean and I were up far too late,’ she explained. ‘Or far too early.’ She gave me a little half-smile that managed to look slightly guilty and devilish at the same time. ‘We’ll just let him sleep in before turning him loose.’ She spoke as if he were some wild animal she had taken in and fed. And then I remembered meeting Dean at the club one night and seeing him play in his band One Plus None, and I realised that description suited him. On stage, he was an animal – and I’d seen for myself that he was also one in bed.
    ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I said, gesturing to the hall, letting her know how awkward I felt for having watched her.
    ‘Don’t worry about it. I’d never have heard the front door bell.’
    I nodded. I knew that. I’d tried that first.
    ‘Still,’ I said, thinking I should at least attempt an explanation, but Nora held up her hand. She didn’t need any more from me. I could tell from the look in her eyes as she stared at me, running a hand through her short electric blue-tipped hair as she did.
    ‘So what are you going to do?’ Her voice was kind, her jade eyes sad.
    I gazed down again at my mismatched shoes, then polished off the glass of whisky. Yes, this was the good stuff. So smooth I could hardly imagine the type of hangover the amber liquid would leave behind as a memory.
    ‘I mean, aside from moving in with me.’
    ‘No, I can’t.’
    ‘Of course you can,’ she insisted. Another grunt came from down the hall. ‘Besides, where else are you going to find all the excess men you’ll need to sleep with in orderto erase the very existence of Byron from your mind forever?’
    I smiled at her. Nora always knows the right thing to say.
    ‘You think I’m kidding.’
    ‘Nora,’ I started, ‘you know me.’
    ‘I do know you. I know that you’ve been wasting yourself on an unappreciative numbskull for four years. The man wasn’t even worth a second date, Eleanor. I don’t know why it took you so long to see that. He was jealous of you, hated when you succeeded.’
    I started to try to explain, to defend myself but Nora interrupted.
    ‘And I also know that the best way to get over heartbreak is to fuck the pain away.’
    She was quoting one of her favourite songs, and I knew it. But still I was unprepared for her taking me by the hand and leading me towards the hallway door.
    ‘Come on, Nora,’ I told her, starting to feel nervous. ‘I can’t.’
    ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she said. ‘You just have to relax. And trust me.’
    As she spoke the words, she led me down the hall to her bedroom. Dean was still sprawled on the mattress, but his headset was off and he looked at us expectantly as we entered the room. His hungry look made me think that he was expecting some sort of room service, arriving right on time to bring him breakfast.
    ‘You remember Eleanor,’ Nora said in a perky playful voice, as if she were steering me around at a cocktail party rather than introducing me to the man I’d just watched poised over her in bed. ‘She just broke up with her steady,’ Nora continued, handing me my glass of whisky – I hadn’t even seen her bring it, or refill it – and motioning for me to drink up. ‘And she’s at a bit of a loose end.’
    Dean nodded and gave me a knowing smile, as if hecould read my thoughts. I hoped he couldn’t, because at the words ‘loose end’ I’d just had an unexpectedly sexy vision, one that involved Nora’s recently discarded wine-hued stockings and my own willing wrists. Christ, where were these images coming from? Unplanned, unbidden, I saw myself starring in an X-rated movie – co-starring, actually – with my best friend and her favourite bed-mate. One of her favourites,