A Boy and His Dragon by R. Cooper Page B

because not even dragons could tell what a person dreamed of, and in Arthur’s dreams, Bertie meant exactly what he’d been saying, and Arthur wasn’t too scared to take him up on his offer.
    If Bertie had meant what he’d been saying outside of Arthur’s dreams, then he was interested, but he was leaving it to Arthur to make a move if he wanted to. Which was stupid, as Arthur always told Bertie in his dreams. Of cours e he wanted to. He wasn’t blind and he wasn’t immune to all that attention focused on him, but when he woke up from dreams of Bertie’s mouth, of that tongue at his ass, of Bertie fucking him, it never felt real, and so Arthur just worked and turned his head whenever Bertie called him a pearl so Bertie wouldn’t see his blushes.
    R. Cooper
    74
    It was better that Arthur didn’t do anything about his fantasies.
    Arthur realized that all over again as he got to Bertie’s house and heard his phone beep with a new message.
    Bertie trusted him, he thought again as he reached for his key to the house and then for his phone. The message was from Dante.
    He had asked Dante for information a few weeks ago, but seeing that name lit up, Arthur shoved his phone back in his pocket without reading the rest.
    Dante was a wealthy professional student, well known around the school as the go-to guy for anyone looking for drugs, term papers, or fake IDs. Not that he dealt with any of that himself, he just always knew a guy. Dante knew everyone, including the kind of human magicians with means enough to buy their way to greater magical power. It was the only reason Arthur had contacted him or had anything to do with him.
    He felt sick, the internal warmth at the thought of seeing Bertie this morning all gone. Bertie had probably made scones again. He wanted to feed Arthur, and here Arthur was, about to find out if there was anyone out there interested in buying a dragon scale.
    Of course there would be. The power in those scales, even in a scale that fell off naturally as opposed to one given freely or one removed by force, was legendary. Arthur had thought… he thought when he asked Dante that it was only a possibility he might come across one. He might find a scale in the garbage or lying around or something, an unneeded, forgotten scale to take home and sell to get creditors off his back and maybe help with the rent until he could afford someplace better.
    He hadn’t had the job then. Hadn’t known Bertie. Hadn’t been fed and called a pearl. He’d assumed Dr. Jones wouldn’t even miss the scale, and though it felt wrong to have even a small ulterior motive in taking the job, he told himself it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t stealing to take someone’s trash.
    Stealing or not, however, it was dishonest. It felt dishonest. He knew it even then. He’d be looking his employer in the face, and instead of just being grateful for an incredible job opportunity, he’d be thinking about taking something from his home.
    A Boy and His Dragon
    75
    He scowled and reached in to turn his phone off. It worked for bill collectors, it could work for Dante. Then he looked around again, at his bike resting against the wall and then at the key in his hand.
    Arthur was the only one locking and unlocking the door.
    Bertie certainly wasn’t doing it. Maybe Arthur should just accept that even almost stealing wasn’t for him. To take anything of Bertie’s, much less sell it for money, made him close his eyes to fight off a wave of sickness.
    Of course, the creditors would keep calling, even if Dante didn’t. There were medical bills and student loans and an old credit card needing to be paid off, to say nothing of the cost of living, food, rent, clothes.
    Arthur inhaled and pushed the door open, hoping the air that swept in with him would disguise the guilt twisting his stomach if Bertie should scent the air, but if Bertie noticed anything other than his arrival, he gave no sign.
    “Arthur!” he called out, moving across the