You, Me and Him Read Online Free PDF

the gruff response.
    Another of the waiters, Mikey, came to the table and examined it carefully.
    ‘Take a look at the coasters,’ Momo commanded, his breathing fiercer than usual.
    Momo had just been to Italy and had returned with new coasters depicting Italian scenes. The Ponte Vecchio graced this table, as did the gondolas of Venice.
    ‘The leaning tower of Pisa is upside down!’ he said, gesticulating vehemently. ‘Don’t laugh.’
    ‘There, it’s tilting the correct way now.’ Mikey winked at me. He was a year older, had worked at Momo’s for six months and liked to look out for me.
    ‘Very good.’ Momo nodded his head, tension gone, before he started to inspect the other tables. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’m having a meeting any minute. Some student wants to rent downstairs for his music.’
    ‘His music?’ I was interested. ‘What do you mean?’
    He shook his head stubbornly as if to say, don’t ask questions, wait and see.
    *
    A group of students piled through the door. I was in the kitchen operating the cappuccino machine. It loved to break down just before the lunch rush.
    Chairs were scraped back. I peered through the crack in the door and saw one of the boys who’d just entered taking a wooden chair, turning it round and sitting on it back-to-front. He was wearing a dark hooded top with jeans and trainers. I wanted to see his face. Take your hood off, come on, what have you got to hide? And it was as if he heard me because he did, before briefly turning around as if aware of someone watching him. Momentarily I edged back from the door before leaning close to it again. He had dark brown hair with a shock of peroxide blond falling across his forehead. He was wearing dark jeans that showed off the top of a pair of checked boxer shorts and a patch of bare skin. He waved one arm expressively, saying that Momo’s was perfect for what he had in mind.
    Through eavesdropping, I established that these students were in their second year and all thought that Cambridge’s nightlife needed a serious boost. The man in the hooded top was called Finn. ‘There’s only one disco in this town,’ he complained, ‘and not even a good one at that. I don’t think we’d have any trouble pulling a crowd in here, Momo.’ His voice was authoritative; his manner persuasive. He circled the Pisa coaster with his fingers before tossing it into the air like a pancake. I wanted to warn him to put it down. ‘Keep still, boy, and give me that,’ Momo demanded.
    Finn started to tap his foot under the table instead. They wanted a venue with a liquor licence, he explained. They had their own decks, just needed to hire someone for the door, to take the money and the coats. They wanted the club to operate once a week, on a Thursday night. Entry to be three pounds for the Cambridge students, five for anyone else.
    Momo took them downstairs. It was a dingy, dark-walled space; at a pinch you could fit in about one hundred and twenty people. Cobwebs hung from the ceilings and the room smelled musty but it had definite potential. The idea excited me; every Thursday lots of students coming in here, grabbing a pizza and something to drink and then going downstairs to dance.
    *
    ‘Mikey, one lasagne, one pizza with mozzarella and tomato, one pizza with anchovies and olives.’ I gave him the order while fetching drinks from behind the bar at the back of the restaurant, just in front of the kitchen. I could now see all the students properly. There were two boys, one of them black with dreadlocks. His name was Christian but they called him Christo for short; his profile was handsome and strong. He looked as if he played hard gruelling tennis matches on clay courts every day. Finn was taller but more fragile in physique. He looked as if he dipped in and out of exercise, like flicking in between television channels. A stylish blonde girl dressed in black sat next to him. She was pretty in a polished way; the kind of woman who would