Room for Love by Andrea Meyer Read Free Book Online Page A

’cause he’s cute and I like sleeping with him, not to mention the pure drama of it all. Courtney, where would I be without the crying and screaming and showing up at your place in the middle of the night to sob on your shoulder?”
    â€œOh, honey,” she says, defeated. “Let’s go get you a drink.”
    The first person we see inside is Alicia, who’s holding her long, straight black hair in her fist while pounding tequila with her friend Claire. Alicia scrunches up her dark eyes and lets out a whoop, slamming the empty shot glass onto the bar, then bites a wedge of lime and grimaces before throwing one arm around Claire’s shoulder and the other around me. I hug them and in return get the requisite “happy birthdays” and free drinks, mixed by my bartending friend Johnny, a naughty Irishman who gets a thrill out of turning my brain into mush.
    â€œHappy birthday, gorgeous! Love the polka dots,” he calls from the other end of the bar. “Next one’s on me.” I pull myself onto the bar to give him a smooch.
    By midnight, forty of my friends and acquaintances have taken over the place, one group playing a game of advanced quarters at a big table in the back. I haven’t turned into a pumpkin, but I have marinated my brain in mojito, which makes the conversation I’m having with Stefan, a onetime boyfriend who’s trying to persuade me to go home with him, almost bearable. Jake still hasn’t arrived. Courtney keeps looking at her watch, throwing menacing looks at Alicia, and making ever-so-subtle comments like, “I’ll strangle him,” under her breath.
    My lanky gay boyfriend, Jeremy, dances in, wearing an off-white puffy jacket and matching ski cap, high from a successful first date.
    â€œWell, where is he if it was so great?” I ask him.
    â€œHe had drinks plans after dinner, but it was magical, really. We’re going out again this weekend.”
    Jeremy’s always getting his heart busted by some guy he’s supposedly going out with again this weekend, so I’m skeptical. Gay Boyfriend and I met at the dog run. I don’t technically have a dog, but I do have dog envy that drives me to hang out at the dog run and flirt with other people’s. I used to fantasize about meeting a handsome dog owner and knocking out the desire for canine and desire for canine-loving beau with one stone. Unfortunately, the only person I ever fell in love with there was Jeremy.
    One blissfully balmy summer night, Jeremy’s Chihuahua got spooked by the unsavory advances of an enormous Rottweiler named Ralph and ran away so fast that he slipped right out of his tiny collar. Jeremy was chasing him through the park, shouting, “Napoleon!” when the little guy came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Larry, the mini-mutt I was babysitting while his mom (my neighbor) was out of town. It was homosexual puppy love at first sight for Napoleon and Larry.
    While they sniffed each other’s butt, barked gleefully at big dogs, and got their leashes adorably tangled, I was busy falling for Napoleon’s dad. He was tall and masculine, with a smile that reminded me of Robert Redford circa Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
    â€œHe has a little dog?” my sister said when I called her later. “He either has a girlfriend or he’s gay.”
    I wasn’t aware of that rule—or maybe I was in denial. I could have noticed he was a little too well-dressed and -behaved when we met in the park, but who stops to ask if someone’s gay when you just don’t want him to be? As the sky drained of its color and we chatted as if we’d always been friends, I envisioned myself on a deserted beach, barefoot in a simple yet striking white dress—like Katharine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story, only sexier and shorter and sleeveless—clutching Jeremy’s hand before a female justice of the peace, our three scrappy