When we got home that night, at the door to the guest room, he said, “It’s yours for as long as you need it.”
I hugged him, holding on tighter than usual.
“I honestly don’t know where I’d be without you,” I told him.
“Hey, everything will work out,” he said.
I wasn’t so sure.
After washing up, I crawled into the bed. The sheets felt like worn T-shirts, and Fiji water bottles lined the side table like a small army. A flat-screen TV was hidden inside a cabinet. It felt like a posh hotel. There were two framed pictures on the wall, both tasteful female nudes. I lay on the bed, staring at the curve of a breast, the soft blonde hair on a forearm.
As I closed my eyes and let my head sink into the luxurious pillows, I briefly wondered if Jack would call and say it was all a mistake. Then I fell into a deep margarita sleep.
CHAPTER 4
HOLY BANANA REPUBLIC
Preston took a long drag from his vape pen and waited for me to answer the dog question.
“I don’t have a dog, actually.”
There. I said it. And it didn’t seem that strange. It was a park for dogs, but it was also a park.
“For real?”
I nodded my head. “For real for real.”
“So wait, how do you know Sumner?” he asked.
“I come here a lot. I like dogs.”
For Preston, that sufficed. He acted normal, like coming to the dog park without a dog was entirely acceptable. Then he launched right into another tirade.
“I can’t stand spoiled dogs. Sumner gets on my last gay nerve. The dog is so entitled and barks nonstop the minute he’s not being treated like the only living creature in the universe.”
As if Sumner knew exactly what Preston was talking about, he let out a short succession of barks that might have meant, you’re the one who needs all the attention.
“See?”
“Well, you have to admit he’s cute.”
Preston looked at me, and his face fell a little.
“But so are you,” I added.
He smiled, then his expression turned back to neutral. He had pale-blue eyes and fair brown hair that was clearly highlighted with streaks of surfer-blond. From afar, one could call him an angel. But up close, there was a desperation about him, a need to be adored that was slightly off-putting.
“Thanks, girl. BT Dubs, what’s your name?”
Well, that was a first. I hadn’t actually properly met anyone (except canines) at the EDP.
“Page. I moved here from New York after I got fired and my boyfriend dumped me.”
“What was his name?”
“Jack.”
“I thought you were going to say Chad. I don’t know about Jacks, but Chads are bad news.”
“Good to know.”
I flashed to Jack’s face the last time I saw him, looking at me like I was just holding him back. Deadweight.
“I’m sorry about Jack, but welcome to DC! It’s fun here. Colorful.”
“I want colorful.”
“We can be colorful together. Taste the rainbow!”
Now the desperation was gone from his eyes, and we were fast friends. Maybe I was the one who was desperate, and Jack was right—I’d dragged him down. I did feel that during my time in New York I was sliding off the surface of things, never really digging in. Before that, my passion in life had always been not having a passion. Although I did act and sing in a short film in college that won an award. But for the most part, I was an alienated art history major with questionable bangs.
“So what do you do here?” I asked. Then I added, “God I hate that question. And now I just asked it.”
“It’s fine. People think I’m a kept boy or whatever, but I’m not. I mean, I live in Barkley’s house, but I’m a designer, working on my own fashion line.”
“Wow!”
He saw me notice some grease on his hands and added, “Oh, I’m also an amateur plumber.”
“What?”
“I worked with my dad when I was young, learned a lot. So I fixed the sink in the laundry room this morning, and Barkley almost shit a brick.”
I laughed. “You never know when you’ll need a plumber.”
“I’m going to install a new toilet in the powder room too. That should really throw him for a loop.”
“A man of many talents.”
A lull came over us. Preston looked off into the distance. Then he abruptly turned and put his hand on my thigh. “So are you on the market now?”
“I guess.”
“Honey, you’re beautiful, and you’re funny. We can definitely find you a man.”
“A straight one?”
“That would probably be best. Let’s see.”
We both scanned the park. There was Umbrella Woman with the greyhound, the perpetually smiling woman with the chubby Yorkie-poo, and someone I hadn’t seen before on the far side of the park. A tall man in a black windbreaker, his hair a little wild and multicolored, just like his two Bernese mountain dogs.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I found myself blushing. A handsomely rugged guy with two big dogs?
“Banana Republic. Three o’clock,” Preston said.
“His dogs are gorgeous.”
“Honey, forget about the dogs. He’s a super snack.”
Preston was certainly right about that, although snack wasn’t what I was thinking. More like five-course meal.
“What am I supposed to do, walk over to him and go, ‘Hi, I’m a loser who has no life and no dog’?”
Preston pursed his lips, calculating. “How about you take Sumner over there? You can pretend he’s yours! But don’t tell him you’re unemployed and undateable.”
“What? Who said that I was undateable?”
“Well, why were you dumped?”
It was a good question.
“I’m not even sure, really. A switch went off inside him. And me, I guess. We just didn’t fit anymore. But sometimes I think I still love him. Like you can’t just stop loving someone.”
“Honey, I hear you, but you gotta get into the headspace of being single and raring to mingle.” He handed me Sumner’s leash. “Now go over there and work those J Law legs of yours.”
When one has reached the lowest of lows, things like walking over to a stranger with a borrowed dog from a gay amateur plumber seem actually doable. I literally had nothing to lose.
So off I went, and Sumner seemed happy to follow me. As I got closer, I realized Preston was spot-on. He literally looked like he had just stepped out of a Banana Republic ad. Slightly wrinkled khakis, a royal-blue button-down under the windbreaker, and an assured but not too cocky look on his face. Big hazel eyes and full lips, a whisper of salt-and-pepper stubble.
I walked right up to him and said, “Hello there.”
“Oh, hi,” he replied. “Wow, he’s a winner.”
Sumner barked as if in response to the compliment.
“He’s kind of moody,” I said.
We looked around the park. His two BMDs were bumbling around, their torsos trying to catch up with their limbs, chasing a miniature pinscher.
“What are their names?” I asked, pointing in his dogs’ general direction.