Nearly Almost Somebody Read Online Free PDF Page B

bike over the fells from his doorstep and his local served decent beer to accompany their award-winning Cumberland sausage and mash.
    Jogging up the steps to his house, he glanced to the right, to the front door next to his own. Both painted the blue of the St Andrews flag, the right hand door led to his surgery. His surgery. His parents might own the veterinary practice but the Gosthwaite surgery was his. He was his own boss, picking his own staff and largely dealing with the cows, horses and livestock, leaving the dog, cat and budgie owners for Kate and Fergus to deal with at the Haverton surgery.
    House, car, job, friends. He had the perfect life.
    He slammed the door shut and slumped against it. Hyssop scooted from the armchair closest to the fire to greet him, mewing a hello as he had every day since he’d moved in four months ago. Patrick picked him up.
    ‘Fuck, Hyss, I think they mean it. What the hell am I going to do? And what am I going to do with you? You’re about to be abandoned by another human.’ Despite the sick feeling building in his stomach, he laughed as Hyssop rubbed his head against his chin, his usual signal. ‘Okay, pal. Teatime, it is.’
    With Hyssop nose deep in his teatime pouch of salmon in jelly, the same brand Maggie used to feed him, Patrick fell onto the sofa with a mug of strong coffee in one hand and his phone in the other.
    He’d had the perfect life so how the hell had it got so fucked up?
    When he’d moved back to Gosthwaite eighteen months ago, he’d maybe go to the pub with friends on a Friday night. Now, he woke every morning regretting ever setting foot in the Alfred and vowing to spend that evening at home watching TV. But the next morning it was the same. And the next. He hadn’t touched coke since university, but for the last six months, he barely remembered a weekend without it. He barely remembered a weekend. Was it Gosthwaite’s fault?
    The bottle of Glenfiddich on the kitchen table called to him, promising to take the edge off his hangover.
    He flicked through the photos on his phone, looking for someone to blame other than himself. Nina. The photo was taken at a friend’s wedding, the only one he had of her, of the two of them. Her dark hair fell in unnatural curls, the red dress subtle but sexy and she held his hand, her fingers linked with his. He smiled, remembering that night in the hotel. But why keep that photo? Because she looked like she most preferred, dressed up rather than scrubbed up? Or because that was the day she’d ruined everything?
    We should do this.
    Why did she have to say that? They had fun. They got on. Okay, so they slept in the same bed most nights, but they didn’t even live together. He’d run a mile, two hundred miles – from Gloucestershire to Cumbria.
    Nina: pretty, sexy, clever, a good vet and a good shag.
    His problem had been Clara and Vanessa. Scott and Robbie were sledgehammered by those girls. Girls they couldn’t run away from. Girls they didn’t want to run away from. He’d gone out with Nina for four years and then ran away. Not that Nina wasn’t great. Jesus, she was almost perfect. But she was just that. Almost.
    He’d escaped a four year relationship. It was normal – understood even – for him to play the field, to have fun, to breathe. But he’d never planned to get hammered every night he wasn’t on call and shag coked-up beauty queens. He looked at Nina’s photo. Maybe he shouldn’t have... He shook his head and pressed confirm. Nina was deleted. Almost wasn’t good enough. Almost wasn’t a sledgehammer.
    Skipping forward through the latest images, he smiled at one of him on his bike overlooking Grasmere, but stalled at Miss Haverton’s cleavage. If he wanted to change, it should start with her. She might be an insatiable, moral-free ho-bag but she wasn’t a bad person. He should tell her it’s over. Surely she deserved that. His thumb hovered over the phone. But she’d cry, swear at him, call him a