Unleashed (A Sydney Rye Novel, # 1) - By Emily Kimelman Page 0,2

mean.” He really didn’t. He was very tall but painfully skinny. I could see his ribs under his fur. Although, I noticed that, maybe because one of his eyes was blue and the other brown, he looked a little cross-eyed when looking directly at him. Really, he looked mildly retarded from such a straight-on view, kind of like one of those inbred guys playing a banjo in the Appalachians. It occurred to me that I knew nothing about this dog. Our history was barely 12 hours long. I’d basically moved a large, hairy stranger into my house. The phone rang as I stared at my new dog, a little confused.

“Hey.” It was my brother, James. “You want to get some drinks tonight?”

“Yeah sure, I have a lot to tell you.”

“Anything good?”

“Not really. Well, I guess one thing.” Blue had curled himself into a ball at my feet. “How about Nancy’s at— ” I looked at the clock. It was 6:30. “How about 15 minutes?”

“Give me 20.”

Nancy’s

The sun was slipping behind the brownstones across the street and turning the sky pink when I left for Nancy’s. “Hey,” said the guy on the corner who always said hey. I ignored him. “Hey, pretty lady, you got a beautiful ass,” he tried again. I watched the concrete and power-walked away.

Ten minutes later I was at Nancy’s, a low-key lesbian bar with a nice backyard. If you wanted to talk to a stranger you could, but there was no pressure. If you wanted to take someone home you could, but again there was no pressure.

“Tequila gimlet, straight up.” The bartender, whose name I was pretty sure was Diane, nodded and moved off to make my drink. My face, reflected in the mirror behind the bar, peered from between a bottle of Blue Curacao and Midori. I needed a haircut. My fashionable bangs had grown out, and now I just pushed them behind my ears. Last night’s fight with Marcus and my early-morning journey to the pound had left puffy, blue-tinted circles under my eyes. All those tears had left the white around my gray irises streaked with red and—I leaned forward a little to make sure—my upper eyelids a bizarre orange.

Diane placed a martini glass brimming with a sheer red liquid on the bar, and I handed her a ten. I moved toward the backyard, trying not to spill my drink all over my hand while spilling my drink all over my hand.

The backyard was empty except for one overly cute couple sitting in the soft candlelight cooing. I took a table close to the door and artificial lighting. As the tequila burned in my mouth, I wrangled with the memories of the past 24 hours. I’ve become an expert in shoving thoughts I don’t like to the back of my mind. But they never go away—they’re always back there— lurking right on the other side of my self-control.

James appeared in the doorway, smiling, holding a Tequila gimlet, splash of cran (but his was on the rocks). He was a head taller than I at around six feet. We shared the same gray eyes and blond hair, though James’s was short and styled while mine was reaching past my shoulder blades. Edging towards 30, James liked to talk about how his green-bean physique was morphing into eggplant. But the guy was still a pole.

“You look like shit,” James said as he sat down. I smiled weakly and slurped my tequila. “Seriously, what the fuck happened to you?”

“Well, I broke up with Marcus”—this elicited a gasp—“and bought a dog.”—an even bigger gasp—“Oh, and I got fired.” I raised my glass in a mock toast to myself and polished it off.

“I talked to you yesterday! All this happened in one day?” I nodded, tried to finish my drink, then realized I already had. I went and brought back another.

“It’s not really surprising,” I said as I sat down. “We all knew it was coming.” James nodded.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“Well, I did lose my job because I went kinda crazy at work.”

“Crazy?”

I told him about the plump tourist, her misorder, my insane reaction, and Brad’s management decision. Then I told him about the masturbation comment.

“That’s my sister. I’m proud of you, Joy. That job sucked. You’ve got a whole new fresh start.”

“Easy for you to say. How exactly am I supposed to pay my rent?”

“You’ll figure it out. Now, tell me about this dog. I can’t believe you’re such an asshole that you went out and