Laid Bear by Eve Vaughn (e books for reading .TXT) 📕

by the time I graduated high school I was desperate for my first taste of freedom. I chose the farthest college my academic scholarship would cover.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

“Let’s just say too much of anything is bad for you. I dyed my hair every shade of the rainbow until I settled on this color.” She absently twirled a dark gold lock around her finger. “I partied too much, drank way more than I should have, had some very questionable hook-ups and started neglecting my studies. I got my wake-up call when I was put on academic probation. It’s a good thing my parents were done with me by then because I never would have heard the end of it.”

“Do you think you could have mended things with them had you stayed closer to home?”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe so. They’re very set in their ways, particularly my father. He always said I’d meet a bad end.”

“That’s a horrible thing to tell a child.”

Zora shrugged. “I think in their minds, they did the best they could by me and that was that.”

“So you haven’t spoken to them since you went away to college?”

Even though Gavin was asking a lot of questions, Zora found him quite easy to be open with. Somehow she didn’t mind sharing with him what she’d always found difficult to talk about.

“I would call once a month as a courtesy and the conversation would last less than a minute, usually with my father telling me not to screw up. And then I got into some trouble involving my ex, which got back to them. They contacted me to tell me what an embarrassment I was to them —my father’s words. My mother said she wished I wasn’t born. They told me not to come crawling to them if I got in any more trouble because I wasn’t welcome. That was the last time I talked to them.”

“Bastards. I wish I could have a little conversation with those two.”

“It would be no use. Anyway, the incident affected my decision to drop out of school. I was fortunate to get in contact with my nana. She was my mother’s mom and I hadn’t seen her in years, but she and my parents had had a falling out, over me I think. If I remember correctly, when Nana last visited us I heard her and my parents arguing about how I was being raised. She left shortly afterwards and I didn’t see her again until I reached out to her. You see, I didn’t have anywhere to go when I left college. She welcomed me with open arms. My time with her was probably the happiest time in my life. The little town we lived in was the kind where everyone knew your business, but people looked out for you.

I’ll miss Covington.”

“You could always go back to visit.”

She shook her head. “No, probably not. It’s best I don’t.”

“And your nana?”

“She passed away a few months ago. I sold our shop and the house we lived in to take care of some medical expenses and her burial costs.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, honey.” Again, Gavin reached out to offer comfort, rubbing her shoulder.

“It’s okay. I know she wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around over her passing. That’s the kind of person she was.

She lived life to the fullest and wanted me to do the same.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve bored you to death about me. What was it like for you growing up?”

“I guess I had what you’d probably call a normal upbringing, if you consider having three fathers normal.”

Zora perked up at the mention of Gavin’s multiple fathers.

“Did you have three allowances?” she teased.

He chuckled, a rich, throaty laugh, something else Zora added to her mental list of things she liked about Gavin. “I wish. Actually it wasn’t so bad. Sometimes to assimilate into human culture, a Kelowna female may choose to legally marry