The Waiter by Bradleigh Collins (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

Katie said. “It’s like the Bible for what’s happening in the city. And oh my god, if you worked there, you would get free tickets to everything.”

“Well, my boss in Atlanta is friends with one of the editors, and when I told her I might be thinking about moving, she mentioned Time Out.”

“Wait,” Lucy said. “Your boss is trying to help you find another job?”

“She’s moving to Chicago in a couple of months. I love her. She’s my mentor.”

“If you moved here, my life would be complete,” I said.

“Well, apparently Time Out is always looking for really good PR people. And there are no PR people as good as me, so there’s that.”

“What about Simon?” Katie asked.

“Simon would move to New York in a fucking heartbeat. Are you kidding?”

“My life is made,” I said. “My life is made right now.”

A little while later, the waitress was back with our food. She put the plate of blueberry pancakes with fresh whipped cream down in front of me. They smelled like heaven. And I felt like I’d just had a divine intervention. The fact that Dana was sitting next to me and the thought of her and Simon moving to the city was a bright spot in a dark day.

“Where are you staying?” I asked her.

“With you, of course,” she laughed. “My stuff is at Josh and Katie’s. Josh met me at the airport this morning.”

“How long did you guys have this planned?”

“A couple of weeks,” Lucy responded. “We knew this day was going to be tough for you.”

“I love you guys so much.” I started crying again. “I assure you, these are happy, grateful tears.”

“Well, I think Mr. Obvious over there would be happy to come over and wipe those tears,” Dana said, motioning over to the bar. “That guy’s been staring at you ever since you walked in.”

I looked over at the bar. There was a relatively attractive man sitting there, and he was indeed staring at me.

“Not interested,” I said. I then proceeded to stuff a huge forkful of pancakes into my mouth.

“Yeah, he’s totally not your type,” Katie said.

“My only type is Dominic,” I replied, speaking with my mouth full.

“Remember when you thought your only type was Dalton?” Dana asked.

“I’m eating here, Dana. Don’t make me puke blueberries on you.”

“Well,” Lucy said, “eventually, you’re going to see other people.”

“I’m seeing other people right now. I see you and I see Katie and I see Dana. See?”

“Very funny,” Lucy laughed. “It’ll take some time, but someday you’ll be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“For all those firsts. The first look. The first date. The first kiss. I mean, I love my husband more than anything in the world. But sometimes it makes me sad that we won’t get to experience our first kiss again.”

“I want my first kiss with Dominic to be my last first kiss.”

“You say that now,” Dana said, “But believe me. One day, some really cute, really sexy guy is going to smile at you, just like Dominic did, and you’ll smile back. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

“And then what?”

“Then it goes wherever the universe wants it to go. I think eventually you and Dominic will be back together here in New York.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do. But here’s the thing, Sam. There are a lot of exciting moments to be had between now and eventually. Do you really want to miss out on all the moments in between?”

I thought about it for a second.

“No, I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “I’m just saying, give yourself time to heal, but then you need to go out there and grab those moments.”

Katie held up her mimosa.

“To grabbing the moments in between.”

The four of us clinked our glasses together. To the moments in between.

CHAPTER 39

◆◆◆

Three weeks after Dominic moved to California, I was home on a Saturday afternoon, doing what I always do on Saturday afternoons. Cleaning my apartment. In two days, it would be the first official day of Spring and I felt the need to spruce things up a bit.

A lot of his things were still in the apartment, and I found that comforting. At any moment, I could open “his” closet and climb inside one of his coats, sweaters, or his Mark Messier jersey. He’d also left the big television in the living room along with a fancy stereo system. His new apartment already had both. I made him leave a bottle of his Aveda hair gel because it smelled like him. It was on my bedside table.

We’d fallen into a new routine. He would call me in the morning when he woke up, which was usually around ten my time. I’d call him in the evening before I went to bed, which was usually around eight his time. And there were always random ICQ chats and funny messages throughout the day. He would be back for a visit at the end of the month. This would be the longest period of time we’d gone without seeing each other. Four weeks. I was doing everything possible to keep myself busy.

I went down to the basement and started a load of laundry. I stopped and picked up my mail in the lobby on the way back up. There was a thank-you card from George. He had an apartment-warming party last weekend and I’d gotten him an antique mirror from the GreenFlea. It looked exactly like the one the queen from Cinderella used to ask who was the fairest of them all. He loved it. I also gave him a framed photo of all of us from the night we went to Potion and danced to Prince. I think he liked that even more because Dominic was in the photo looking all sexy, which was the way Dominic normally looked. Being back in Dominic’s apartment, even though George had completely redecorated, made me miss him so much I could barely breathe. Jackie was there, and she noticed.

“Sam,” she said to me that night. “I know