Riya’s divorce gift to herself is to adopt a dog. Bad Larry and Riya meet at an animal shelter and quickly bond over their mutual hatred of men. Riya promises the little dog that she’ll never let anything bad happen to him again, if he promises to make it hard for her to bring any men back to her apartment, in a moment of weakness.
Jaden is investigating the murder of one of Riya’s high school classmates and after a strange first encounter in a public bathroom, he asks her out. She shoots him down but he’s determined to get to know her better, despite her warnings of owning a dangerous, man-hating dog.
Riya has no choice but to let Jaden into her life when she starts getting threatening letters from the killer but are she and Bad Larry ready to give Jaden an honest shot?
~Editor's Pick~
He peered at me through narrowed eyes. “I’ll get your purse but just so you know, we’re still going out, at least once. I like you.”
“I can’t, I’m already in a relationship.” I said, desperately. I could feel my resolution dissolving very quickly under his blue-eyed stare.
“Are you in a relationship with a woman because you just told me you’ve given up on men?”
I chewed my bottom lip and his eyes darted down to my mouth. Just the fact that he noticed my mouth turned me on. What was wrong with me? “No, not with a woman. It’s actually more of a really jealous roommate situation, than an actual relationship.”
“Cats and goldfish don’t count,” he said, cueing in on my vagueness.
“Ha, joke’s on you, he’s a Doberman named Bad Larry and Larry likes men less than I do.” Bad Larry is actually a twelve-pound Miniature Pinscher but he really doesn’t like men and he doesn’t really know he’s only twelve pounds and he has a rap sheet to prove it.
I got Larry when the divorce was finalized. My ex didn’t like dogs so in an act of admittedly impulsive rebellion, I got Larry. Larry was a rescue from an animal shelter and when I saw him for the first time and discovered that he didn’t like men either, we became best friends. I promised to never let anyone hurt him again and he promised to make sure that in a moment of hormonal weakness, I didn’t let any men come back to my apartment.
I’d witnessed Larry in action twice. Once when the vet was checking him over before I brought him home and once when I was taking him out to pee and a construction worker tried to pet him. Larry is now on a city mandated bad dog list, meaning that he has to behave himself from now on or he could be taken away and put in puppy lifer prison.
Jaden shook his head at me and returned a moment later with my purse in one hand and his phone in the other. “I have to go right now but I put my card in your purse just in case you change your mind about Skittles.”
I winked at him. “You got it stud, but right now I have an emergency date with the box of baking soda currently deodorizing my fridge.”
He smiled broadly at me. “Tell Bad Larry I said hello.”
“Bad Larry doesn’t need to know about you. Trust me, it’s for your own protection.”
