What Love Looks Like Read Online Free

bottle. The
atmosphere was that of an old Chicago-style steakhouse. I often suffered pangs
of jealousy seeing people night after night out on fancy dates and enjoying
their lives while I worked hours on end at their watering hole. The “poor me”
broken record kept repeating in my head, and I just wanted someone to stop it.
    I found Jenna seated
alone at the bar, silently working on what looked like a server floor plan. The
restaurant wasn’t open for lunch except for when we had special private events,
so we’d have the space all to ourselves for our weekly meeting. I was fortunate
to have another wonderful work friend in Jenna. In addition to being my
occasional drinking buddy, she was also my shopping partner. We met most Sundays
for mimosas and perused the downtown boutiques. On paper, neither of us could
afford to buy in such exclusive shops, but thanks to good credit, we usually
each went home with at least one new item.
    Jenna was my only
newlywed friend who still envied the single lifestyle that I had (and no longer
wanted). Occasionally, she’d invite me over for dinner and, right in front of
her husband, grill me on what I’d done the night before. This inevitably led to
a disappointing story of how I’d taken my dog to my parents’ house and watched
TV while drinking wine with my sister, or killed three-quarters of a bottle of
red wine by myself while watching Real
Housewives . Jenna’s eyes would roll at my uninspiring tales of singledom.
Then, when her husband wasn’t in the room, she’d explain that I was wasting the
best years of my life. I guess the grass really was always greener on the other
side.
    “Hey, how’d it go
last night?” Jenna asked. She was no doubt hoping for the details of a
salacious hookup.
    “Hi, Jen.” I grasped
my color-coded stack of folders; each folder contained information for the
following week’s events at the restaurant. I took a seat next to her at the
elegant bar. I always found it ironic that I conducted work meetings in a place
where people got drunk, celebrated milestones, and fell in love. It was the
story of my life.
    “So? How did it go?”
Jenna asked again.
    “Nothing happened. We
had a drink and then went home.” I was lying, again out of disgrace. “I’m here
to go over next week with you.”
    She rolled her eyes
and glanced down at the event calendar for the upcoming month. “Damn, you’ve
been busy. This is a pretty eventful week for this time of year.”         
    “Businesses have new
budgets out and know how they want to allocate their funds for the year, so dinner
meetings should start really picking up now. And some of this is just holiday
overflow. Certain companies are busier during the holidays, so they hold their
Christmas dinners after New Year’s.” Suddenly, I felt nostalgic for the
holidays.
    “What’s wrong?” Jenna
asked. She must have seen a subtle shift in me.
    “I’m just sad it’s
over.”
    “New Year's? It’s,
like, the worst night of the year for us.”
    “No, Christmas. I
love it. It’s my favorite time of year.”    
    “But you complained
that you were lonely for the entire month of December,” Jenna said. How
embarrassing.
    “Well I got through
it. I had Luna.”
    Jenna smiled, a rare
display of warmth for her. “You need to date more.”
    “What’s the point? Do
you know how hard it is to actually find a stand-up guy anymore?”
    “There’s no way for
you to know who's a stand-up guy and who’s not because you give every guy you
meet the cold shoulder.”
    I wouldn’t tell her
that I'd given a lot more than my shoulder to one-night-stand-Josh, but I saw
her point nonetheless. I was becoming increasingly pickier the older I got.
“Let’s talk events,” I said.
    “Wait, shouldn’t we
get Ryan to go over this with us?”
    “Oh. Yeah. I guess we
should.”
    Ryan Adler was the
general manager of the restaurant, and a favorite of both Penny and the corporate
bosses. Jenna was fond of him