Home is Were My Bear Is by Candace Ayers

Author:Candace Ayers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-07T19:02:25+00:00

8

Elie didn’t stay in bed long after Jake left. Her internal cocktail of emotions was stirring like a blender and Elie had to get up and move.

“Want to go for a walk, Jasper?”

At the word ‘walk’, Jasper’s huge ears perked up. Since he had his own dog door and was allowed to roam around their yard freely, one would think he wouldn’t care so much about going for a walk, but in a second or two he was leaping off the bed like an Olympic diver and skittering to the stairs.

“Slow down!” Alison called after him as he raced through the kitchen. Elie could hear his nails clicking on the tile.

“I’m taking Jasper out,” Elie told her as she followed the shepherd’s trail through the house.

Alison looked like she wanted to ask about Jake. There was a short list of possible topics that could have given Elie’s mother that boiling-over-in-curiosity look on her face. But, Elie shook her head and walked quickly to the front entry, where Jasper’s leash hung on the coat rack.

“Go for walk?” Elie teased him as he spun circles in the tiny space. She clamped a hand on his collar and tried to clip the leash on. “Walk? You wanna go walk?”

Jasper whined and quivered and growled sadly, as if begging her to stop this terrible game and just open the door already. Elie laughed and clipped his leash on.

Just as she was straightening, there was a knock on the door. Jasper howled—

more out of excitement than alarm—almost directly into Elie’s ear. Shocked, she clapped a hand over it too late. The sound still echoed through the bones of her inner ear as if they were stuck repeating it over and over.

Half-deaf, she stuck her eye to the peephole. If it was Jake, she wasn’t answering.

It wasn’t Jake. Hesitantly, Elie turned the knob and swung the door open to see Bryan Mosley standing on her front porch. He’d dressed down today,

jeans and boots and a white t-shirt. It wasn’t too cold, so no motorcycle jacket. In fact, it seemed he’d walked here, since his motorcycle was nowhere to be seen out front.

“What do you want?” she grunted. Standing here, now, all Elie could see when looking at this idiot was Brittany Langland and her skeleton-skinny meth-scarred arms.

Bryan shrugged. Her change in attitude since he’d last seen her clearly confused him, but he didn’t comment on it. “Just thought you might want to catch a bite or a drink or something.”

Elie stepped out with Jasper, who sniffed Bryan, whined, and moved to Elie’s other side. “I’m taking the dog for a walk, if you want to come along,” she offered gruffly.

“Sounds good,” he replied, and fell into step with her. Elie headed off down the street with Jasper on one side and Bryan on the other.

“What’ve you been up to?” he tried to start conversation.

“Hanging around. Trying to find a job. Meeting old friends, that sort of thing,”

Elie replied noncommittally.

Bryan nodded, hands in his pockets. “Anyone I know?”

“Probably not.

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