Sparks the Matchmaker (Aaron Sparks Series) Read Online Free PDF

that supposed to mean? You’re taking his side?”
    “Side? I’m not taking anybody’s side. There are no sides to take. The guy got a call. He came and did his job. You yelled at him. It was pretty cut and dried. No sides.”
    “Maybe you can file a complaint,” Richie said, butting in.
    “Right,” Ollie said sarcastically.
    “Listen,” Keith said. “I can only watch you be a jerk for so long. What’s happened to you?”
    “Me?” Ollie answered. “I’m not the one who put the boot on my car.”
    “I’m not talking about that,” Keith said. “You’ve been invisible the last few months. On the rare occasion that you brought Anne over here instead of going over to her place, you hardly said anything to any of us. Now you’re throwing a tantrum every time I don’t pat you on the head and tell you you’re right.”
    “It’s not my fault.” Ollie gritted his teeth.
    “I know it’s not your fault Anne broke up with you,” Keith said, “but since when did you start punching walls and throwing bats at people?”
    “You kept hitting me with the ball!” Ollie said.
    “Wait, wait,” Richie interrupted again. “Anne dumped you?”
    “Richie, you’ve got the subtlety of a fog horn, you know that?” Keith said.
    “I guess it has been a while since I really hung out with you guys,” Ollie said.
    “Can I ask her out, then?” Richie asked.
    “What?” Ollie and Keith said together.
    “Can I ask her out?” Richie asked again. “I mean, I don’t want to ask her out if you don’t feel okay with it.”
    “Are you talking about Anne?” Ollie asked with a laugh. “You gotta be kidding me.”
    “What?” Richie said. “You’re obviously not going to go out anymore. I won’t ask her if you don’t want me to.”
    “Go for it,” Ollie said. “Knock yourself out.”
    “Sweet!” Richie said, and left the room pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.
    “What’d you do that for?” Keith asked with a chuckle.
    “Weren’t you just saying I needed to lighten up a bit?” Ollie said. “It’ll be good for a laugh.”
    Ollie went upstairs to his bedroom. He still had some time before he needed to get ready for his softball game, so he figured he’d knock some time off studying for his upcoming history exam. His recent days with Anne hadn’t been romantic or exciting, but the monotony of spending so much time over at her place had always made it easy to study. And she studied a lot, which made it easy to stay motivated. Then again, maybe she studied a lot for the same reasons he did. Maybe he bored her to the point where she had nothing better to do than kill time with a textbook. Either way, their relationship was good for keeping up their grades, if nothing else.
    Anne. I miss her already. I miss her still.
    It was no use. There was no way he was going to be able to focus his mind on any history lesson, so he knew he might as well pack up his softball gear and get out of the house. Sure, his game wasn’t going to start for a couple more hours, but there were other games going on and watching other people play ball was the only thing he could think of to take his mind off reality.
    With sandals on his feet, his softball bag over his right shoulder and his cleats in his left hand, he stepped quietly down the stairs and slipped successfully out the back door— he had avoided his nosy roomies and he was alone— or so he thought.
    As he slid behind the wheel of his car, there was someone there next to him. There was an enormous grin on his face and a Yankees hat on his head. “Our first introduction didn’t go too well, so let’s start over again. I’m Sparks.”

Chapter 4

    Every second Ollie’s mind wasn’t distracted meant that his mind went straight to thoughts of Anne, and being so deep in thought, the last thing he expected was a little Yankees-hat-wearing nuisance to be sitting in his passenger seat. As he recovered from the shock, he said, “You’d better have a good reason