Beaten by the IT recession, Justin has come back to his hometown where he’s inherited a small house from his mother. Surely Barry, his old crush and sometime nemesis, is long gone. Jobs are scarce, so impulsively Justin seeks to buy into a pet grooming business. But when he has to visit the local bank for a loan, who sits behind the big desk but Barry?<br><br>Justin’s appearance jolts Barry out of his miserable rut of a life. What if they were to pick up where a brief boyhood attraction abruptly ended? Then his mother’s sudden stroke throws his whole life into a tumbled ruin.<br><br>Juggling business and pleasure can be a complex, risky endeavor. Will Justin resist Barry’s charms and flee again, or will fate give them a new leash on life?

A New Leash on Life

As he walked along the quiet streets, he pondered the crazy project he had taken on. The twenty grand he’d received from Barry—no, he needed to think of that as coming from the bank, not the man—was gone already, and his meager savings was dwindling by the day. If the rest of the loan did not work out, he was in deep shit.


Following around after Cassandra, it all seemed pretty easy. You bathed the dog here, you clipped and trimmed and combed it there, dried it at another station, and maybe put bows in the ears or a bandanna around its neck. What was hard about that? There was also another piece of good news. She introduced the two teenagers who came in after school and on weekends and some holidays to help out, especially if business was brisk. If they had been old enough to sign the contracts, she said, she would have gladly turned the business over to them and retained some ownership, but that simply was not possible.


Chapter 7