Chapter 1
Jackson
“Melissa! What the hell did you put in that Facebook ad? I’m getting all kinds of crazy-ass responses!” Storming into the house, I slammed the door behind me. She was dead meat. She had to have pulled that shit on purpose.
What the hell had I done to her?
I headed for her bedroom, stomping up the stairs. Knowing my sister, she was probably buried up to her neck in books and papers. Normally, I wouldn’t let myself into her house—I actually had manners unlike some people I could name—but this time, she’d gone too far. She wasn’t going to be able to hide from me.
“Melissa!”
“What?” She was sitting on the bed surrounded by papers and notebooks, a half-eaten sandwich hanging off a plate. “What crawled up your ass and died?”
“What—” She wasn’t serious? “I’ll tell you what ‘crawled up my ass’—because it’s your fault. I want to know what you did to my business. That ad you set up? The one you said was a simple Facebook ad that would help my business? What did you put in it?”
I tried to take a deep breath and slow down, but I was too angry and too confused. “I’m getting all kinds of crazy people calling me, and the emails are even worse. I had one from a guy in some weird European country I’ve never heard of, who wanted to know if I did training packages and not just individual sessions. He said he couldn’t figure out from the site what kind of training I did with my pups. He wasn’t talking about dogs!”
“Huh?” She seemed lost. “What do you mean he wasn’t…”
Her voice trailed off, and she got a faraway look in her eyes before they widened, and her mouth opened. “Ohhh…”
“Do you know how long it took me to figure out he wasn’t referring to beagles or boxers? Entirely too fuckin’ long!” Just the fact that it’d taken almost five minutes before I finally understood what he was talking about had been the most embarrassing thing. I was a to-each-his-own kind of guy, but it was getting ridiculous.
“Oh, Jackie, I’m—”
I broke in. “Don’t you ‘Oh, Jackie’ me. I’m not six years old following you around like a lost puppy—ha! Puppy! What did you do?”
“Jackson, I’m so sorry. It was an accident—” If I hadn’t known her so well, the innocent, crushed look would have worked.
“Like the accident where you dumped water on my pants at dinner? Or the accident where you put salt in my tea?”
“No, this was a real accident, and come on, I wouldn’t do something like that to you. You know me.”
Bullshit. “The salt incident was last month, and you dumped the water on me last week when you thought I was rude to the waiter.”
“You were rude.” She looked like she was still ready to take up the fight for the lazy waiter.
“That’s not the point. What did you do to my business?” My voice was getting louder, but I couldn’t control it. She’d talked me into trying some new marketing ideas, and now it looked like my business was falling down around me.
Keep on reading!
