Almost Like Being in Love by Steve Kluger Read Free Book Online

entirely unnecessary staged reading of a lousy play you wrote in college just so you can invite him to it.

    7. When he shows up at the staged reading, don’t be surprised if he introduces you to his fiancée. What the hell did you expect?!

    8. Consider telling him the truth. But not while he’s holding a drill.

    Then disregard rules 1–8. Carpe diem.

    The only practical reason for living by the beach in Santa Monica is the view from the balcony when your heart’s been shattered. As you watch the angry surf pounding the foamy sand in the orange-and-pink glow of sunset, it’s a lot easier to think about drowning yourself.

    Oh, Zack.

    I suppose there were subtle hints right from the start: the engagement ring, the wedding invitation, and the thirty-eight pictures of the same woman plastered across his office. But Ryan was misleading too—and look how that turned out.

    TRAVIS PUCKETT’S BOYFRIEND CHECKLIST

    Name: Ryan Duration: 7 weeks

    Occupation: Bartender
    Where we met: West Hollywood

    BEGINNER LEVEL

    Can say “I love you”

    Isn’t hiding another boyfriend

    Thinks kissing is sexy

    Has a glowy smile

    Is at least marginally sensitive

    Will probably remember my name the next morning

    INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

    Can say “I love you” without my saying it first

    Likes me enough to tell me I’m special

    Trusts me enough to tell me I’m wrong

    Always lets me pick the first fortune cookie

    Teases me when I need it but knows when to stop

    Pursues making me laugh as a hobby

    Pretends to like the same things I do even when he doesn’t Misses me when we’re apart

    Isn’t afraid to fight with me

    Allows me to drive him crazy

    Would rather do nothing with me than something by himself Can fall asleep in my lap while I work—and still call it a date TOP-OF-THE-LINE LEVEL

    Can say “I love you” with his eyes

    Never lies (except to spare my feelings)

    Doesn’t worry about losing me because he knows he can’t Forgets there was a time when we didn’t know each other Kisses me for no good reason

    Celebrates my faults

    Sighs when I hold him

    Knows all the lyrics to Flora, The Red Menace (optional)

    Strong Points : I could definitely spend the rest of my life with him.

    Shortcomings : He killed his last boyfriend (acquitted: involuntary manslaughter).

    Comments : The knockout blonde he kept having lunch with wasn’t his lover—she was his attorney. Serves me right for spying on him.

    I should have known it was going to be an uphill battle right from Gate 3: Adolescence. First there was a Craig, then there was a kiss, then there was a goodbye, then there were the letters, then he stopped writing to me, and then there was Cardinal Rule Number 1: Never Fall in Love When You’re 17. Not unless you want to spend your entire freshman year at USC learning how to sleep by yourself again. If it hadn’t been for Adam-Down-the-Hall-with-the-Sky-Blue-Eyes, I might have been playing Camille until I was a junior. As it was, I managed to hit the dirt running: before I’d even hung up my Camelot and Fade Out, Fade In posters, I’d inadvertently discovered (through some carefully orchestrated eavesdropping at the Coliseum urinal) that he was a wannabe actor from Chicago. So I wrote my one and only play—a shamefully melodramatic character study about seven ballplayers stuck in the Cubs dugout at Wrigley Field during a rain delay—solely as an excuse to (a) cast him, and 'b( meet him. He didn’t get the part 'much to his boyfriend’s disappointment), but at least I had half a dozen other men in jockstraps to choose from. That was my preliminary encounter with Puckett’s Curse: I wound up with the only all-heterosexual all-male cast in the history of World Theatre. And from there, it really turned ugly.

    1. Gregory . We met at my Harvey Milk vigil in November. I was 18, he was 33—an ex-Marine who still wore a high-and-tight, with a chiseled body that didn’t know when to quit. How did I get so lucky?