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

season, but there is nothing I love more than the sudden burst of color as flowers pop out of frozen, scraggly trees in New York City after months of cold. Okay, the one thing I love more is running around in a skimpy dress and flip-flops on a balmy, New York summer night that will never cool down.
    I’m not a regular morning caffeinator, but today I need a boost, so I stop at my favorite corner café. The adorable barista smiles when he sees me and I stiffen, afraid he’ll sense that I imagined him doing naughty things to me last night.
    â€œCiao bella,” he says, still clinging to a slight Italian accent, even though his family moved from Sicily when he was fourteen.
    â€œNot bella today,” I say.
    â€œYou’re the best thing I’ve seen this morning.” That makes me feel a little better.
    â€œThank you,” I say. “But my head is pounding and my stomach is queasy. Think a latté and a croissant might help?”
    â€œLet’s give it a try.”
    I watch his arm muscles bulge in all the right places as he twists the espresso into the machine and foams the milk. “So, what did you do last night?” he asks.
    â€œIt was my birthday. I drank too much.”
    â€œHappy birthday!” he says, reaching into the pastry display to pull out a cookie. “For you.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œPlease smile. I can’t make it through the day without seeing you smile once.”
    I grimace at him and he flashes his lovely white teeth in response. He doesn’t let me pay for my coffee and croissant. Creeping up St. Mark’s Place, I try to pick up my pace, knowing I have a magazine to ship. The sun is shining much too brightly. I wonder if sunglasses stop working at some point—mine don’t seem to be doing their job today. This particular block is never calm; even before the rows of dirty T-shirt and hat shops open, there’s a certain noise and griminess to it. A pile of dejected Gap underwear is lying on top of a Dumpster—the ones that say, “I love you, I love you, I love you…” in different fonts and sizes and the ones covered in red hearts on a navy background. Some poor kid whose girlfriend dumped him must have trashed them last night. A band of skinny boys in tight, leather pants, who are probably crawling out of their K-holes, shiver around greasy slices of pizza on the corner. A homeless guy is sprawled facedown on the curb, covered in a kid’s sleeping bag with cartoon bunnies and pink flowers on it. I take in the detritus of the night before, barely able to muster a smile when a bouncy girl with a shaved head skips by with a waddling corgi on one leash and a dappled dachshund on the other. They’re wearing matching orange parkas.
    â€œHey, precious,” I manage. They grin up at me in unison. Their mommy throws knives at me out of her eyes before continuing to bounce. Mean people should not be allowed to have dogs.
    Impinging on my space, a cell phone rings. The lounge lizard walking in front of me still decked out in last night’s purple, shimmering three-piece suit yanks out his phone, at the same time as the annoying girl behind me screeches into her phone, “Where are you?”
    â€œI’m on St. Mark’s?” says the lounge lizard. I’m surrounded.
    â€œWhere on St. Mark’s?” says the girl behind me.
    â€œI’m on St. Mark’s,” says the guy, louder now.
    â€œNo. Where on St. Mark’s,” the girl screams.
    â€œOh, where on St. Mark’s!” the guy screams back.
    I stop in my tracks, causing Annoying Girl to bump into me. I turn around to face a teenage toothpick sporting a checkered minidress under fake white fur, and a bleached-out hairdo two feet high. “He’s right there,” I say, pointing at her buddy prancing three paces in front of us.
    As I continue walking, she shouts, “Oh! My! God!”
    â€œThat’s, like,