Full Share (Shore House Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

than normal Sharon was happy Sharon. Her laugh was too loud and felt darker than a theater the moment before a horror film began.
    “She’s a scary lady.” Ricky shook his head and swirled his spoon in his chicken rice soup. We both watched as the broth circled the paper bowl. “I think she needs to have sex.”
    “You think everyone needs to have sex.”
    The guy sitting across from us glanced at the time on his phone and announced to the others that lunch was over. They stood, leaving Ricky and me sitting next to each other and staring out the windows. It was sunny out there in the place people could go who weren’t given only thirty minutes to buy and eat their food and then use the bathroom before returning to their desks.
    “You should have sex with me.” He never stopped.
    “I don’t have sex.”
    “Yesterday, you told me you were a lesbian.”
    I’d forgotten. I smiled at myself. It was a good one. “I’m a sexless lesbian.”
    “Is that like a cell phone with a dead battery? What is the point?”
    I pushed my tray a few inches away and leaned back in my chair. “You’re like talking to a child.”
    “You don’t mean that.” Ricky leaned back, too. “How is your beach house? Are there a lot of beautiful lesbians in it?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re lying again. You should invite me down. We can go for a swim, take a nap on the sand, and then make love in the moonlight. I’ll bet everyone is having a lot of sex down there.”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Of course they are. It’s summer at the beach. It’s a giant party with sex. It’s perfection.”
    “It wasn’t really like that.”
    “In my country—”
    “What country?” I sat up and looked at Ricky, who was smiling in the warm sunshine. “You’re from West Chester, Pennsylvania. There is no ‘my country.’”
    “As I was saying, in my country we’d be making love at the shore.”
    I didn’t want to check, but the time on my phone was calling me. I could feel my last seconds of freedom slipping away, and the thought of putting the headset back on my head dragged my spirits down. I reached for my phone, and Ricky grabbed my hand and stopped me.
    “Not yet.”
    I closed my eyes again. “I don’t want to be late.”
    “We won’t. I promise,” he said.
     
    I didn’t have to go back to the beach. I wanted to, and no one was more surprised by that fact than I was.
    I ran out of my office building at four fifteen. My bag was already in the back of my car. My mind was already at the beach. Everyone would be cracking open a beer or riding the last waves of Saturday, making me one of the few stragglers racing there to catch Saturday night and Sunday day.
    The steering wheel was warm to the touch, and the seatbelt buckle nearly burned me. It took my car ten minutes to cool off even with the air conditioner blasting, but by the time I pulled into the one stop I had to make, it was bearable. The animal shelter closed to visitors, even volunteers, at five on Saturday. Rufus wasn’t going to like how the beach house affected our schedule.
    “He’s waiting for you,” Janine said when I walked in the door.
    “Sorry. I had to work today.”
    “Tell him that.” Her smile put me at ease. Janine loved animals more than humans, and the longer I lived, the more I understood it.
    I passed the other dogs as they barked at each other. A few stayed silent at the edges of their spaces, but most had something to say. Rufus, who was housed in the very last cage in the row, was huddled in the back corner. His chin lifted as soon as I sat down outside of it, but he didn’t move an inch to greet me.
    “Hey, buddy. How’s it going? Have you made any friends?” His black fur was long. He was some unknown mix of a Collie, or Golden Retriever with a Black Labrador. He was beautiful and he was terrified. If he didn’t find a way to engage with people, no one would ever adopt him. “I brought a new book for you.”
    The dog in the cage next to Rufus