Read Last Seen Leaving for Free Online

this occasion was that it would be the first time she’d see me looking like shit since becoming my girlfriend .
    We’d been official for almost forty-eight hours, and even though we’d been friends for close to a year, my stomach still buzzed like an overtaxed electrical transformer as I made my way into the deep freeze of the air-conditioned building. The chill felt exquisite for about twenty seconds, and then goose bumps rippled across my exposed arms and legs as I spoke to the person behind the front desk and started down a corridor to the left. As nervous and excited as a musician taking the stage, I swallowed compulsively, baffled by my sudden case of the butterflies. There was no reason to freak out … was there?
    I stepped into a cafeteria much like the one at Riverside, folding tables and flimsy chairs still in use despite appearing to be on the verge of collapse, with fluorescent lighting and colorless linoleum floors that had seen better days. The major difference was that most of the people I was looking at were adults; overdressed for the heat, their faces craggy and aged before their time by years of hard living, they were the city’s homeless. A white-haired woman standing near the doorway, clearly someone who worked there, gave me a nakedly curious look. “Can I help you?”
    â€œActually, I’m … um, I’m just here to meet my girlfriend?” The G word sounded so important spoken out loud, and the woman’s look turned doubtful, as though she found my claim suspicious. I was saved from having to explain myself further, however, when January appeared at that very moment through a doorway at the back of the room.
    â€œFlynn!” Her face broke into a smile, her eyes lighting up, and I felt my cheeks redden as I grinned back, the reaction instant and irrepressible. We probably looked ridiculous, beaming idiotically at each other across the drab cafeteria like lovers meeting in a field of wildflowers, but it only lasted a moment before she darted to my side, tossing her arms around me and putting her lips to mine in our first-ever public kiss. After a moment, she drew back with an affectionate smirk and stated, “You’re lucky you’re so cute, because you are seriously gross right now.”
    â€œGet used to it,” I advised her airily. “Now that we’re a couple and I don’t have to try so hard anymore, I’ve pretty much decided to just let myself go.”
    â€œOh, thank God I’m not the only one.” January rolled her eyes in exaggerated relief, adding, confidentially, “I haven’t changed my underwear since Saturday.”
    â€œWell, I ate a whole tub of frosting for dinner last night.”
    â€œI ate a pack of raw hot dogs for breakfast,” January countered, “ and I threw out all my body wash and shampoo, so I hope you’re into chicks with BO.”
    â€œAh, young love.” The white-haired lady interrupted our banter with a wistful sigh. “So beautiful, and so darn weird.”
    January and I were holding hands, giggling stupidly with happiness and relief that our rapport remained the same as always, that altering the status of our relationship hadn’t screwed everything up. I hadn’t even realized until just then how afraid I’d been that crossing the boundary from Friends to Dating would somehow change us fundamentally, that the sudden new parameters and expectations that came with being a couple would make it impossible for us to be the way we’d always been together—relaxed, teasing, comfortable. The worst part of making that leap, of course, was that, much like those pop-up spikes at the entrance of a parking garage, it was a boundary you couldn’t go back across without incurring irreparable damage.
    January gave the woman a bashful smile and introduced me. “Carol, this is Flynn—my boyfriend.”
    â€œIt’s very nice to meet