One True Theory of Love by Laura Fitzgerald Read Free Book Online

having father issues, Amy looked up from the carrot she was slicing. “Did he ask to see Jonathan?”
    “No!” Meg said. “God, no!”
    Amy rolled her eyes. “You say that like it would be the worst thing in the world.”
    “Hell will freeze before Jonathan gets near my son,” Meg said.
    Amy arched an eyebrow. “Henry’s his kid, too.”
    “Can you say unwitting sperm donor ?” Meg said. “No, Jonathan had his chance to be a dad and chose not to take it. Thankfully, he has no interest in Henry, so it’s a moot point, anyway. But no—we met this guy yesterday, this very sexy guy, and Henry basically threw himself at him. I felt sorry for him, actually.”
    “For Henry or for the very sexy guy?” Amy asked. “And what made him sexy? Give me some spice. My life is sorely lacking in spice.”
    “I meant the guy. Ahmed.” Meg looked out the kitchen window at Henry, who was playing some sort of fetch game with his cousins. “ Should I feel sorry for Henry?”
    “Of course not,” Amy said. “It just wasn’t clear from how you said it.”
    “Let’s see,” Meg mused, “what made him sexy? Well, his looks, of course. His father’s Iranian, so he’s got those nice dark features. Thick black eyebrows. He looks like a prince. But that’s only part of it. He had this really hard life growing up—his mom died when he was six and he got sent to the U.S. from Iran when he was ten, all alone, and he . . . I don’t know. He has this sensitivity to him that’s really charming. And he doesn’t shy away from opening up, which you don’t often see in guys unless it’s some sort of get-you-into-bed strategy, or unless the guy’s an emotional basket case. He was just, like, open, and okay with himself, and, I don’t know, even-keeled in a way I found very calming.”
    “Because you’re so not even-keeled,” Amy said, laughing.
    “Hey!” But Amy was right. Meg sometimes thought she was just a grown-up version of Henry and that was why she understood him so well and forgave him so fast. They were mother-and-son bobbleheads, springing this way and that as their passions seized them. “I’m working on it,” she said.
    “This guy’s your yin,” Amy said. “Or your yang. You know—your complementary thingamajig.”
    “It felt that way,” Meg mused. “It was the oddest thing, but I felt that if I could just tuck myself into him somehow, everything would be okay.”
    Amy stopped chopping the celery and gave Meg a long look. “Don’t freak out, but that’s exactly how I felt when I met David. Remember? Didn’t I tell you that?”
    Meg shrugged. “I was in the midst of crashing and burning while you were falling in love with David.” Even now, ten years later, she flinched as she remembered how bad it had been.
    “That was so rude of me, wasn’t it?” Amy joked.
    “Yes,” Meg said. “It was.”
    Amy grinned. “He was wearing this crisp white dress shirt and he’d come into the bank and he was all fresh for the day and I just wanted his arm around me. Literally, that white-shirt-sleeved arm. I swear, I must have missed half of what he said, because all I could think of was how to get it around me. It was weird.”
    “I was all shaky,” Meg said.
    “Me, too,” Amy said. “Shaky’s good.”
    “Shaky’s very bad, actually,” Meg said.
    “Come on. You’re ready,” Amy said. “When do you see him again?” She sounded out his name. “Ah-med. Ah. Med. Ahmed.”
    “I don’t,” Meg said. “We didn’t exchange phone numbers. That was another problem. Henry liked him too much.”
    “Come on, go out with him,” Amy said in a pleading tone. “For my sake. I need some vicarious romance in my life. My love life’s the pits.”
    Meg laughed. According to Amy, since having kids, her sex life had trickled to near-drought status. David had recently suggested they mark on a calendar two days a week to have sex. Amy refused. You need to woo me, she’d told him. Do the laundry once in a