Page 5 of Here With Me (Paloma's Edge 2)

“Yeah. You can come over, even if we’re not here. Just get the key from one of us. It’s not like I’ll have overnight guests. Beth goes to Chase’s when they’re going to be alone.” Jake and I eyed Beth. She blushed as she hauled herself up on her knees and she switched off the light on the wall.

“Not if your RA sees me,” Jake remarked.

“Jake,” Beth said. “No one on this floor is going to say anything about it. And that includes Michelle. She doesn’t think with her R.A. hat when she sees you.”

“She’d invite you to her bed before any of the girls on our floor gets the chance,” I chimed in. “I don’t think poor Jake would get any sleep.”

He chuckled. “I am going to get some sleep now. I got an 8 am class.”

“I thought you’d dropped that class,” I said.

“I forgot when the deadline to drop it was. It would’ve been an incomplete on my transcript.”

Beth and I made sounds in understanding. “Love you guys,” I told them.

“Love you Mariska and Jake,” Beth said.

Jake made snoring sounds and Beth threw one of her pillows at him.

Chapter 3

Hunter

I RUBBED MY HANDS against Riley’s face. She licked my hands and opened up h

er mouth wide. Chase gave me a bottle of water and I poured it into her mouth until it was empty. He patted her head and she ran toward the new bone I’d bought for her after work tonight.

Smiling with a slow tilt of his head, Chase’s eyes focused on how fast Riley moved to get the bone in her mouth. She preferred to play by herself, but when it came to the neighbors’ kids some houses down from us, she let them throw objects so she’d catch them.

“She’s come a long way in—what’s it? Two months?”

“Yeah,” I breathed out. “She was skin and bones.”

Chase shook his head. “I swear, people that hurt animals need to get a real hurt in them. I thought you were going to bring her back to the shelter so they’d put her down, when you heard the shape she was really in.”

I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. Before, Riley looked tiny in my small ass backyard despite how long and wide she was. However, now, it looked like she’d be confined here by the space, but she didn’t take well to park. She hadn’t been playful, and she’d relaxed when we’d left.

“When Vince and I went to the animal shelter to look at a pup for his wife, I wasn’t looking to get a dog. But no one wanted her. Riley’s deaf in one ear, has fucked up ribs, and already has arthritis at four years old—”

“Damn, Hunter. Riley’s that young? Here I was, thinking she was like an eight or ten year old lab.”

“I thought that too, until the last two vets told me she was ‘bout four or five years old. They didn’t think she’d improve, but she’s been getting stronger.” I was quiet for a beat. “She’s been sleeping in the same room with me for almost a week.”

Riley dropped the bone from her mouth and watched us with her greenish-blue eyes intently. She knew when we spoke about her. She made some steps in our direction and plopped down, meeting us halfway.

“Dad hated dogs. You remember?” Chase asked. We hadn’t mentioned Gerald Lovell since we’d begun talking again. Besides making a name for himself as a lawyer, I think the only thing Dad had spoken about with any fervor was about his hatred for dogs.

“‘They’re stinky, messy, and expensive. Why do I need a fourth expense in my household?’” Chase recited Dad’s words.

“I tell you; it’s miserable sons a bitches like him who get dogs—scratch that—any animal, and fucks them up. He did us all a favor by not inflicting his misery onto an animal.”

I observed how comfortable Riley was as she darted her eyes between Chase and I.

“Has Mom called you?” Chase asked me after some time had passed.

“Once,” I answered. “But she cried and I could only understand that she said sorry. It was a short call. Have you spoken with her again?”

“Real quick. I had to get to practice.”

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