Christian Rivers has been single for a year and a half. Emotionally disconnected, he focuses on writing his next best seller. Unfortunately, his neighbor’s teenage son, Bret Hicks, causes trouble next door with his bad friends hanging out, smoking marijuana, drinking, and abusing Christian's dog, Darth Vader. Incensed, Christian phones Milestone County’s Sheriff Philip Erickson to lay an animal cruelty charge. When Sheriff Erickson arrives, the two men have coffee, and a spark of attraction that has been developing between them since they met, flickers to life. But Philip is on duty and has to leave. Later that night Christian wakes up from the sounds of breaking glass as someone forces entry into his house. He calls Philip but before the sheriff arrives, Bret appears in the door of Christian’s bedroom, drunk and wearing a Halloween mask. In the aftermath of the drama the suppressed attraction between the two men comes to a boil, leading to new hope and mutual satisfaction for Christian and the sheriff.

A Light in the Dark

Slowly, I reach beneath my bed for Russ’s signed Derek Jeter baseball bat and grip it with my free hand. The touch of the weapon steadies me.


Bret stumbles toward the bed, as if he has perfect night vision, and falls face first into my balled-up comforter. What comes out as a muffled “sorry,” sounds like “soirée” in the jumble of bed sheets.


I hear Sheriff Erickson on the line, his voice blaring, “Chris, are you all right? What’s happening?”


“Can you please come over? I’ve got a drunk stranger in my bed.”


Sheriff Erickson arrives ten minutes later. He looks dapper even in his wet Oxford raincoat and frizzy hair. I had managed to half-carry Bret into the living room where he sits propped up in one of my wing chairs by the window like a marionette doll. His head sloped to the side, eyes closed, he snores.


The air in my house is thick with the smell of marijuana.


Chapter 6