Perfect Risk (Mason Creek #1) - C.A. Harms Page 0,5

Java Jitters holding a cup of coffee in his hand. Lifting it to his lips he took a swallow, hiding his smirk behind his cup. I knew he was close with Sadie, they were always together years back. I used to think there was something between them, but now I know they’ve never been more than friends.

“You think you can—”

Holding up his hand he shook his head, “Let me stop ya right there. In no way am I sticking my neck out for you. That mess is all yours to clean up. The one today and the one you made years ago.”

Levi, just as the ladies had, walked off and left me standing in a puddle of sticky goo and no resolution to the problem I’d now had on my hands.

Sadie Michaels was back, and she was one hell of a woman. Built perfectly in all the right places, and those eyes, damn her eyes were intense. They were almost emerald in contrast to her dark hair. She’d always had amazing eyes. It was one of the first things I’d noticed about her, even in high school.

Looking across the table in Biology, seeing her looking back at me like I was a God, it fed my ego. I loved the way she looked at me, but all my friends, the assholes who thought they ruled the world thought Sadie was beneath us. Problem was, I let an image I was trying to convey become the most important thing to me.

I hadn’t thought of those years in so long. Chalking up the choices I’d made as nothing more than a lost cause, I couldn’t do anything about now.

One wrong move and I ended up with a girl who at the time I thought was the perfect key to the image I was striving for. A football star with a hot cheerleader on at my side.

The same hot cheerleader became one of the ugliest people I’ve ever had in my life. After I blew my knee out the final game of my senior year, the dreams going pro were no longer a reality. Karlie stuck around which surprised me. But I was still blinded by the girl. She showed me all the attention I was in need of, carried herself with a pride at the time I actually respected.

What a joke!

Too many years later I found out what I thought we’d had wasn’t even close to the reality. She’d tell me what I needed to hear, but she was telling those same things to another guy when I wasn’t around.

I was the fool.

Attempting to roll over in bed, I’m met with the resistance that is Gus. A year ago, shortly after the disaster that was Karlie, I adopted Gus. At the time he was a pup, looking up at me from a small pen with those big puppy eyes of his. He looked exactly how I felt, sad.

I couldn’t walk away and leave him there. I felt like he was meant to be mine.

We bonded in that interaction, and the decision was made. Gus was going home with me.

Now a year later, I had a one-hundred-and-thirty-nine-pound St. Bernard and felt like my home was more his than mine. I’ve tried to keep him off my bed, off my furniture, but Gus was determined to act like a human. What was good for me he felt was good for him too.

Stubborn and adventurous, he had no problem wandering off sometimes ending up over on the neighboring land that belong to a good friend Grady Jackson. I think Grady’s little girl loved finding Gus pawing at their back door on weekends. It was like he’d made a friend and was going over to play.

The problem with him sharing my bed with me was he was a bed hog. I’d never seen a dog sprawl out the way he did. Whether on his back or stomach he took up every inch he could and that meant most of the time that left me with very little room to move.

“Bone,” I said, and within seconds he was up off the bed, pouncing around barking as if to say, come on now, don’t tease me. It was the fastest way to get him moving. Peanut butter bones, or his toy monkey with roped arms and legs, those were his favorites. Toss either of those two around, and he was moving without hesitation.

My bare feet padded against the hardwood floor as I walked down the hallway to the

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024